Sharon Stone has a reported net worth of $40 million, and, while no doubt a blessing, she also told InStyle that it’s a bit of a burden.
“You go out to dinner, and there’s 15 people at the table, and who gets the check?” she told the outlet in an interview for its “Confidence Issue.” “You get the $3,000 dinner check every single time.”
Of the champagne problem, Stone added that it’s “very expensive to be famous.” After all, she lamented, she has to pay for her newly purchased home, as well as fees for her security staff, publicists, makeup artists, and managers.
The actress is also generous with her wealth, as evidenced by an anecdote she shared in her 2021 memoir, The Beauty of Living Twice. In the book, per Page Six, Stone revealed she gave a large portion of her paycheck to Leonardo DiCaprio so he could star in the 1995 film The Quick and the Dead.
“He was a superstar,” Stone told InStyle of DiCaprio, who at the time had just starred in his Oscar-nominated breakout role in What’s Eating Gilbert Grape. “I wanted to be in a great movie, not a stupid movie, so I got the best people to surround me that I possibly could.”
When a producer didn’t understand her decision to give some of her salary to have a pre-Titanic fame DiCaprio in the Western, Stone said “I get this isn’t man-think. But concentric thinking is how women think.”
Continuing this fascinating anecdote, Stone—who was hired for $3 million for the picture—gave DiCaprio $1 million, a third of her paycheck, to play her onscreen son in the film. “Leo was a kid,” she said, noting that DiCaprio, who turned 18 as the movie was being filmed, probably had no idea that Stone did that until she wrote about it in her book three years ago.
After finding out about Stone’s act of kindness, he told E! News last November that “It’s incredible. She’s been a huge champion of cinema and giving other actors opportunities, so I’m very thankful.”
He added “I’ve thanked her many times. I don’t know if I sent her an actual, physical thank you gift, but I cannot thank her enough.”
From $1 million paychecks to $3,000 tabs for dinner, one could never call Stone stingy.