Sharon Stone's 2001 Stroke Was Life-Threatening and Changed Her Life Forever

Few actors have had the kind of life-changing illness that Sharon Stone suffered. The actor, who became one of the most prolific stars of the 1990s, had to step away from acting for seven years in the aftermath of a massive stroke.

The stroke happened in 2001, but as more and more people learn about it, they want to better understand what happened to Sharon and why the stroke was so dangerous. Here's what we know.

Sharon Stone had a massive nine-day brain bleed in 2001 that could have killed her. In speaking with Vogue, Sharon said that the brain bleed had a 1 percent survival rate. “I remember waking up on a gurney and asking the kid wheeling it where I was going, and him saying, ‘brain surgery,’” Sharon said. “A doctor had decided, without my knowledge or consent, that he should give me exploratory brain surgery and sent me off to the operating room.”

She explained that doctors misdiagnosed her initially, saying that she was "faking" the illness after an initial angiogram didn't show signs of a bleed.

“My best friend talked them into giving me a second one and they discovered that I had been hemorrhaging into my brain, my whole subarachnoid pool, and that my vertebral artery was ruptured," Sharon said. “I would have died if they had sent me home."

Following the initial brain bleed, Sharon said that she struggled to walk and lost a significant amount of weight.

“I bled so much into my subarachnoid pool (head, neck, and spine) that the right side of my face fell, my left foot was dragging severely, and I was stuttering very badly,” she explained. As a result of the serious trauma, she took seven years away from Hollywood so that she could recover.

In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Sharon claimed that she had been taken advantage of following her stroke.

"I had $18 million saved because of all my success, but when I got back into my bank account, it was all gone," she explained. "My refrigerator, my phone — everything was in other people's names. I had zero money."

In spite of that struggle, though, Sharon said that she decided to remain positive.

"I decided to stay present and let go. I decided not to hang on to being sick or to any bitterness or anger," she said. "If you bite into the seed of bitterness, it never leaves you. But if you hold faith, even if that faith is the size of a mustard seed, you will survive. So, I live for joy now. I live for purpose."

Sharon's stroke undeniably changed the course of her life forever, but now, she's speaking out about her health struggles, and about the way they changed her. Today, she is confident in the person she has become post-recovery, and unwilling to hold onto old grudges.