“It wasn’t true,” Michael Douglas said when asked about reports that he entered rehab for sex addiction. The actor addressed the decades-old claim while promoting his memoir, Entertainment Weekly reported.
In the Sunday Times interview, published Oct. 4, Douglas blamed a British tabloid editor for inventing that explanation for his treatment. He questioned the British press’s interest in his sex life and complained that he was still being asked about the story at 82.
One Helluva Ride arrives Oct. 6 from Grand Central Publishing. The memoir follows his life through 12 films, including One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and Wall Street, alongside his childhood and relationship with his father, Kirk Douglas.
When the cover was revealed in July, Douglas said he wanted to “tell my story on my own terms,” in a statement shared with PEOPLE. He described having lived publicly while keeping much of his personal experience private.
Earlier Interviews Linked His Rehab Stay to Drinking
Douglas entered treatment in 1992 after his drinking escalated during difficulties in his marriage to Diandra Luker, according to Vanity Fair‘s 2010 profile. He completed the rehabilitation program, although the marriage subsequently ended. By 1999, The Independent was reporting that Douglas had threatened legal action against anyone applying the sex-addict label.
In a September 2006 interview with Total Film, Douglas described seeking help voluntarily and objected particularly to accounts calling him a “Self-confessed sex addict!” He added, “And I don’t remember ever mentioning it!” He contrasted that coverage with his father’s era, when he said Hollywood reporters generally left private lives alone unless a scandal arose. In his view, publishers and broadcasters had become more willing to turn sex into a selling point.
Asked whether Basic Instinct and Fatal Attraction had contributed to his public image, Douglas recalled the accusations of misogyny surrounding the former. He said he had wanted an equally established female co-star to share the professional risk, but several actresses declined before Sharon Stone took the role.
He Says Zeta-Jones Asked Him to Be Monogamous
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In the new interview, Douglas disagreed with the suggestion that his memoir dwells on sex. “I was a healthy product of the ’60s,” he said, rejecting the interviewer’s characterization of his romantic history, InStyle reported. He described Catherine Zeta-Jones asking for exclusivity if their relationship was to continue, and said he called the other women he was seeing that evening to end those relationships.
The women lived in different cities, he told the Associated Press in a separate interview published Monday. In his account, they understood that he was dating other people, provided he did not embarrass them by seeing someone else in the same city. Zeta-Jones described nine months of telephone calls, flowers and occasional meals together when she spoke to Vanity Fair about their courtship. They married in 2000.
His Memoir Went Through Legal Review and Last-Minute Changes
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In the memoir’s introduction, Douglas explains how he approached accounts involving former partners. “I called each woman involved and received their permission to share our story,” he writes, in a passage published by TheWrap. He was referring to intimate relationships he had not previously discussed publicly.
The book underwent extensive legal review in the United States and England, the publication reported Oct. 1, citing unnamed publishing insiders. Some changes came late in the process after private conversations between Douglas and people featured in the manuscript. Grand Central Publishing declined to comment to TheWrap on the changes.
TheWrap also reported that 80 previously unpublished photographs, many from Douglas’ own collection, were added late in production. Its sources said the book received final clearance only minutes before its deadline.
Douglas is scheduled to discuss the memoir at New York’s 92NY on Oct. 6, followed by Sixth & I in Washington, D.C., on Oct. 7, according to his publisher’s event listings.