Sharon Stone has said that she made $13.5 million less than her “Basic Instinct” costar Michael Douglas.
“Michael Douglas made $14 million. Now, I was new. I was new and he was a very big star,” she said while delivering a speech at the New York Women In Film & Television’s 43rd annual Muse Awards lunch on Tuesday, according to Page Six and Mail Online.
According to both outlets, Stone — who said earlier this month that she lost half her money in a banking scandal — went on to say that she was recompensed just $500,000 for her role opposite Douglas as novelist-turned-murder suspect Catherine Tramell in the erotic thriller.
Representatives for Douglas did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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Stone also said that a line producer repeatedly referred to her as “Karen” throughout the “entirety of the film.”
“Even at the Governor’s Ball [after the Oscars], he still called me ‘Karen.’ And I carried that humiliation really deeply within me — even though my name wasn’t on the poster,” she said.
sharon stone basic instinct
Sharon Stone in one of the most iconic scenes in movie history. “Basic Instinct”/TriStar Pictures
Stone has previously spoken out about the pay disparity between her and her costar in the movie, which launched her career but also took a toll on her health and caused her to lose custody of her 4-year-old son
In an InStyle essay published last year to mark the film’s 30th anniversary, the actor revealed that to soften the blow of her low salary, she had a clause added to her contract that allowed her to keep her character’s entire wardrobe, which included items from Hermès and other designers.
“People thought I was crazy, but the truth is I wasn’t getting paid much compared to my male costar,” she wrote. “I made $500,000; Michael made $14 million. So keeping my costumes was a really smart thing to do.”
Meanwhile, in 2021, Stone told CBC she “made not enough money to buy my dress to go to the Oscars the next year.”
