A Man Asked Sharon Stone If She’d Ever Experienced Harassment & Maybe One Day She’ll Stop Laughing

Sharon Stone was recently the subject of an in-depth profile on CBS Sunday Morning. She and CBS’ Lee Cowan do all the typical profile things: they walk through her gorgeous mansion, smell the flowers in her garden, talked about her health (she suffered a brain hemorrhage in 2001), her career, and her family. And, of course, she was asked about the sexual harassment epidemic in Hollywood (and everywhere else in the world).

Stone spoke of the atmosphere in which she grew up, and how things are starting to change. “We were raised to accommodate men,” she said, “particularly in my generation. And women so often lose their own identity to the identity of the men that they’re with.”

She says that now, “We’re starting to acknowledge our own gifts as women and not think that we have to behave as men in order to be empowered or powerful or valuable.”

(Is now a good time to point out that Cowan felt the need to begin the profile by saying Stone is “just shy of 60 and looks more like 40”?)

Cowan then got weirdly squirmy. “I don’t know how to ask this in a delicate way,” he said, “but were you ever in a position like that, that you felt that you were … uncomfortable?

Here’s how Stone reacted:

That laugh lasts a full 10 seconds. Can you imagine having Sharon Stone laugh in your face for 10 seconds straight? (You can see it starting at the 5:15 mark in the video above.) During those 10 seconds, Cowan, clearly uncomfortable himself, says “You’re laughing but I don’t know … I don’t know if that’s a nervous laugh or ‘Are you kidding me? Of course I was” laugh.

For most women, the fact that Cowan really doesn’t know why Stone is laughing is probably not that surprising, but still maddening. Laughable, even.

When Stone finally stops laughing, she looks Cowan straight in the eye and tells him, “I’ve been in this business for 40 years, Lee. Can you imagine the business I stepped into 40 years ago?” At this point, Cowan tries to interrupt her. That was a mistake. She went on: “Looking like I look, from Nowhere, Pennsylvania? I didn’t come here with any protection. I’ve seen it all.”

(via E!, image: screencap)

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