Sharon Stone, 68, has opened up about the painful moment she realized her five-year marriage to journalist Phil Bronstein was over—not because of a cancer diagnosis, but because of her husband’s furious reaction to her decision to undergo a preventive bilateral mastectomy.
In a candid interview on the June 1 episode oDavid Begnaud’s podcast “The Person Who Believed in Me,” Stone recounted a health scare from the early 2000s that she says permanently shattered their relationship.
A Terrifying Diagnosis
The crisis began in 2001, shortly after Stone suffered a subarachnoid hemorrhage—a brain bleed that landed her in the hospital for eight days and left doctors giving her just a 1 percent chance of survival. During follow-up examinations, physicians discovered multiple fast-growing tumors in her breasts.
“One of them was bigger than the size of my entire left breast. It was all the way up into here,” Stone recalled on the podcast.
The situation was grave enough that her doctor made a house call to deliver the news in person. “The doctor had come out to my house and said, ‘Look, we think you should have a bilateral mastectomy. This is really bad. And we usually, when they’re all the way up into here, we know before we go in that they’re cancer,’” Stone said.
Despite her conviction that the tumors were not cancerous—telling the doctor, “I don’t have cancer”—Stone was determined not to take any chances. “I am deciding that I will have a bilateral because I’m not f***ing around,” she told him.
The Husband’s Reaction
Stone expected support from Bronstein, whom she married on Valentine’s Day in 1998. Instead, she was met with fury.
“My husband said, ‘This is ridiculous,’ and got up and left the room,” Stone recounted.
When podcast host Begnaud asked whether Bronstein was upset about the possibility of cancer, Stone was unequivocal: “No, no.” His anger, she clarified, was directed at the prospect of her breasts being removed.
The couple’s physician, who was present for the exchange, immediately came to Stone’s defense. “The doctor said to him, ‘If I had more patients like her, we’d have more women alive today. You need to sit down,’” Stone recalled.
Stone stood her ground. “I said, ‘I make the decisions. Not you.’”
‘That Was the End of the Marriage’
In that room, Stone says, her marriage effectively died.
“That was the end of the marriage. That was it. He was done with me then. It was over,” she told Begnaud. “He thought I was ridiculous. He thought I was foolish. He thought I was making too many decisions myself.”
Stone underwent surgery to remove the tumors, which were ultimately confirmed to be benign. Doctors removed “all of everything” from her left breast, as well as “half of the right side.” She did not ultimately require the full double mastectomy she had been prepared to undergo.
A History of Medical Ordeal—and Medical Violation
The 2001 health scare came amid a tumultuous period for the couple. Just months earlier, Bronstein had been bitten on the foot by a Komodo dragon, and Stone herself had suffered the life-threatening brain hemorrhage.
Stone later detailed the breast tumor ordeal in her 2021 memoir, The Beauty of Living Twice, describing the growths as “gigantic, bigger than my breast alone.” She also revealed a shocking post-surgical violation: when she underwent reconstructive surgery, the plastic surgeon gave her larger breast implants without her consent, telling her they would “go better with your hip size.”
The Aftermath
Stone and Bronstein separated in 2003, and their divorce was finalized in 2004. The couple had adopted a son, Roan Joseph Bronstein, in 2000. Following the divorce, Stone adopted two more sons, Laird in 2005 and Quinn in 2006.
Bronstein went on to marry Christine Borders, daughter of Borders Book Store co-founder Louis Borders, and had two more children. Stone has not remarried since the divorce.
When Begnaud asked if she believed she would ever find a partner who “loves you just the way you are,” Stone responded simply: “I will.”
