Tatum O’Neal wanted to kill herself when Covid started spreading by hurling herself off her high-rise apartment block.
Tatum O’Neal wanted to kill herself during the Covid pandemic by hurling herself off her high-rise apartment block
The 59-year-old actress was living on one of the top floors of a building in Century City, California, when the pandemic struck and she said the global disaster made her constantly feel she wanted to “fall off” it and “die”.
She added to The Hollywood Reporter about how she then fell seriously ill: “I had never been so sick. I didn’t know I had Covid.”
The Oscar-winning star – who became the youngest winner of an Academy Award when she picked up a best supporting actress gong for playing Addie Loggins in the 1973 film ‘Paper Moon’ alongside her 82-year-old dad Ryan O’Neal – also admitted to preparing for her suicide.
Tatum said she gave her beloved dog to her daughter Emily McEnroe, 32 – one of the three children she had with her tennis star ex-husband John McEnroe, 64 – and then swallowed handfuls of pills including painkillers, opiates and morphine.
She added: “I’ve had problems with drugs for many, many years. But I overtook my medicine, for sure. And that’s it. I fell asleep. That’s what happened.”
Tatum, who split from John in 1994 after they married in 1986, was discovered unconscious by a friend and rushed to a hospital, where it was discovered she had suffered a stroke, heart attack and a series of seizures.
The actress, whose other two kids are sons Kevin, 37, and Sean, 35, admitted her children were petrified she was going to die as she ended up in a coma for a month-and-a-half.
When she finally awoke, she initially couldn’t speak.
Tatum now lives in a retirement community in the San Fernando Valley that specializes in memory rejuvenation, and she spends hours in speech therapy.
There were also fears the actress would never walk again after her strike, but she now can with a limp.
Tatum said: “It’s been hard. I’ve had a hard time with a lot of things.
“I’ve had a very hard life. Not an easy life. There’s been some amazing things and some really scary things.”
She appeared to be referencing her dysfunctional relationship with her ‘Barry Lyndon’ star dad Ryan.
he won custody of Tatum and her brother Griffin O’Neal from their mum Joanna Moore, who suffered from an amphetamine addiction.
Tatum said in her book ‘A Paper Life’: “I remained Ryan’s companion on the Hollywood party circuit, growing inured to sex and drugs before I was in my teens.”
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