Tatum O’Neal Shares Her Story of Survival for VARIETY Magazine

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In a new cover story for VARIETY, Tatum O’Neal speaks with Editor-at-Large Kate Aurthur about her story of survival, from the abuse she endured from her father Ryan O’Neal, to addiction, to overdosing and having a stroke in May 2020. Joined by her son Kevin McEnroe—one of three children O’Neal has with John McEnroe—O’Neal details being removed from her father’s will, her recovery, being prevented from auditioning for “Taxi Driver,” her relationship with ex-husband John McEnroe, working with Richard Burton, and more.

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On her final visit with her father before his death: Ryan O’Neal died on Dec. 8, 2023, at age 82. After years of bitter fighting and estrangement, Tatum had actually seen him three times after her health crisis. During her final visit, he offered her drugs.

“I know he was drinking, smoking a lot of pot, and he was like, ‘Here, take a pill.’ I was like, ‘No, thank you.’”

Kevin, who is also sober and intent on accountability, says: “She drank that day though. Every single time she’s seen her dad my entire life, something happens.”

On being removed from her father’s will: O’Neal thinks her father removed her after she wrote “A Paper Life,” the first of her two memoirs, in which she thoroughly documented his violent temper. She also revealed that she’d been sexually abused by a member of O’Neal’s entourage, who was banished only briefly before being allowed back into the inner circle.

“The first book that I wrote was just a fucking honest book. And that’s what got him.”

Naturally, O’Neal was devastated to find out she wasn’t in her father’s will. Yet she soon felt a steely resolve emerging out of Ryan O’Neal’s final fuck-you from beyond the grave: “Keep it, motherfucker.”

Kevin adds, “It’s blood money.”

O’Neal on recovering from her stroke: In May 2020, O’Neal overdosed on pills, causing a severe stroke. She fell into a coma that lasted six weeks and when she woke up, her prognosis was dire: She was unable to talk or walk or even see. It’s been a very long road from there, but she’s continued to make improvements, relearning everything. And the biggest improvement has come from within.

“Now I don’t want to hurt myself. Now I don’t want to fucking take drugs again—I really don’t.”

Kevin and O’Neal on how she’s doing now:

Kevin: “As she changes, I think opportunities have begun to change for her. More things are coming our way as she starts to see the good in people and the good in the world. Something really shifted when he died that allowed her to be—”

O’Neal: “Yes, just Tatum! Without my dad.”

McEnroe: “Just Tatum is enough.”

Does she feel like she’s almost there? Almost enough?

O’Neal: “Yes! Even better than almost enough.”

On the neglect and abuse she endured as a child: O’Neal’s parents were both actors, and addicts—they were careless with her, abusive and neglectful. She was given alcohol at age 6 at her mother’s house, then endured years of physical and verbal abuse from O’Neal after he gained full custody of her in 1970.

In 1974, O’Neal won a supporting actress Oscar for her role opposite her father in Peter Bogdanovich’s “Paper Moon,” becoming the youngest person to ever win an Academy Award. When Ryan learned that O’Neal had been nominated and he wasn’t, he punched her. O’Neal, who died in 2023, openly did drugs in front of her when she was a child.

“Pills and painkillers, cocaine. And then, of course, girls, girls, girls.”

On her father preventing her from auditioning for Martin Scorsese’s “Taxi Driver”: When O’Neal was asked to audition for the role of the child prostitute that eventually went to Jodie Foster in “Taxi Driver,” “my father said, ‘No, you can’t,’” because he thought it was “a little too naked”—but, of course, maybe it was just his jealousy talking. “And I never really recovered from that.”

On how her father got into her head and convinced her she was a bad actress: “He was controlling, and telling me, ‘No, you’re not good.’ And so then I started to get not good, feeling scared all the time.”

On being an adoring parent, despite her father’s abuse: “I gave birth to my oldest son. He was the most joyful, the most loving. And then both of us got into drugs, and that really changed us. And look at him now and look at me now. It’s just beautiful. Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful. He’s a writer, just so you know…My son Kevin is brilliant. Brilliant!”

On her relationship with her ex-husband, John McEnroe: In June, Kevin is getting married. It will be the first time in many years, decades even, that O’Neal and John McEnroe are in the same room together. Their divorce was followed by years of acrimonious, ugly custody battles and vicious fighting. But both mother and son are sure the reunion will be fine—great, even.

“The anger is gone.”

On working with Richard Burton in “Circle of Two”: In “Circle of Two,” O’Neal portrayed a 15-year-old who falls in love with a 60-year-old painter played by Burton.

“He was brilliant—and the movie we did was terrible,” O’Neal says. Through today’s lens, the whole enterprise was utterly repellent—just wrong on every level. She had to appear topless in it (“I was horrified”), and says that Burton, a famous drinker, offered her booze and then propositioned her with the salvo, “Would you like to have a kiss?” O’Neal was always treated like a little adult.

“‘Yikes’ is the right word. I loved Richard Burton, but I was like, nah, I ain’t going to do that.”

[Photo Credit: Nino Muñoz for Variety Magazine]

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