Sharon Stone, 68, has shared further details about the profound sense of "glee and relief and emptiness" she experienced following the death of her maternal grandfather, Clarence Lawson.
In a recent appearance on the podcast "All There Is with Anderson Cooper," Stone elaborated on the feelings she previously chronicled in her memoir, "The Beauty of Living Twice." She described her grandfather as an abuser who targeted her mother and repeatedly attempted to abuse her and her younger sister, Kelly.
"He was not a grandfather, he was a creature that we tried to avoid at all costs," Stone told Cooper. According to her memoir, Stone and her sister were subjected to abuse by their grandfather, an act facilitated by their grandmother, who also suffered abuse from Lawson. She would reportedly confine the girls with him in a room during visits, starting from a very young age.
Stone recounted that at Lawson's funeral, she reached into the casket to confirm his death. "I poked him, and the bizarre satisfaction that he was at last dead hit me like a ton of ice," she wrote in her book. "I looked at [Kelly] and she understood; she was 11, and it was over."
"It's a very weird thing when you're a kid and the first experience you have of death is glee and relief and emptiness," Stone reflected during the podcast interview. She characterized the funeral as unusually cold and devoid of the typical sentiments of comfort often associated with memorial services. Instead, she felt a "weird sense of emptiness, good emptiness."
Lawson died when Sharon was 14 years old, and her sister Kelly was 11.