Heavy A "Dancing With the Stars" alum nearly died.
Tatum O’Neal revealed she suffered a near-fatal overdose and stroke three years ago.
In a July 2023 interview with People, the “Dancing With the Stars” alum, who was partnered with pro partner Nick Kosovich in season 2 of the ABC celebrity ballroom competition, revealed that she almost died in 2020 after overdosing on a dangerous combination of prescription drugs.
O’Neal kept the details of her medical emergency and long recovery process private — until now.
Here’s what you need to know:
Tatum O’Neal Was in a Coma For 6 Weeks After Overdosing on Prescription Drugs
O’Neal, 59, opened up about her terrifying health scare in a July 2023 interview with People. The Oscar-winning actress revealed that in 2020 she began taking pain medication during the COVID pandemic and became addicted to it. She ultimately overdosed on “a combination of pain medication, opiates, and morphine” and “suffered a severe stroke,” the outlet reported. She fell into a coma and “almost died,” she told the outlet.
O’Neal also suffered cardiac arrest and multiple seizures and was diagnosed with aphasia following her stroke, she told People. Aphasia is a brain disorder that affects communication, according to The Mayo Clinic. When O’Neal awoke from the coma after six weeks, she could not speak. She began two years of rehabilitation, which included medical supervision and therapy, she told the outlet.
O’Neal has three children — Kevin 37, Sean, 35, and Emily, 32 — from her marriage to former tennis pro John McEnroe. Her son Kevin McEnroe told People the dreaded overdose news “was the phone call we’d always been waiting for.”
Heavy has reached out to O’Neal for comment.
Tatum O’Neal Has Struggled With Drug Addiction for Most of Her Life
O’Neal has been in the spotlight since childhood. In 1974, she became the youngest Oscar winner in history when she scored the Best Supporting Actress award for her work in the film “Paper Moon,” per Entertainment Weekly.
But drug addiction ran in her family. Her mother, actress Joanna Moore, was addicted to pills and alcohol, and her father, actor Ryan O’Neal also used drugs, she claimed in her 2005 book “Paper Life.” By the time she was a teen in the late 1970s, O’Neal turned to cocaine to lose weight – at the suggestion of her father, according to ABC News.
Following her divorce from McEnroe and the subsequent death of her mother in 1997, O’Neal became addicted to heroin, ABC News reported. After losing custody of her children, she went to rehab, according to the outlet.
In a 2004 appearance on the “Oprah Winfrey Show,” O’Neal revealed that she completed several drug treatment plans and joined a 12-step program. But four years later she was arrested as she attempted to buy cocaine in New York City. At the time she had been sober for 10 months, and the arrest deterred her from going through with using the drug, she told Oprah.
In 2015, O’Neal revealed that she was sober once again, per The New York Times. In a 2018 interview on “The Today Show,” she stated that “addiction is a disease … not a moral affliction.”
“In America right now we have a lot of addiction and we have to treat it like the disease that is like diabetes,” she said at the time. “Because listen I felt morally bankrupt and most women who have been in addiction feel this way.”