Michael Douglas calls his confrontation with Julia Roberts a “wildly embarrassing” episode that “stuck with me for years.” He recounts the encounter in his new memoir, One Helluva Ride, according to Entertainment Weekly.
He places the incident at a Golden Globes after-party during production of Flatliners. Roberts attended with her then-boyfriend, Kiefer Sutherland, while Douglas brought his young son, Cameron, according to his account.
Douglas produced the 1990 thriller with Rick Bieber through Stonebridge Entertainment. Joel Schumacher directed the film, which starred Roberts and Sutherland alongside Kevin Bacon, William Baldwin and Oliver Platt as medical students experimenting with near-death experiences.
The memoir arrived Oct. 6 from Grand Central Publishing. Douglas, 82, spent two years writing it with Shane Salerno and Michael Fleming Jr., he told PEOPLE.
The Outburst Led to Roses and an Apology
At the bar, Douglas recalls seeing Roberts with her arm around Cameron. He thought his son looked stunned and responded by telling her to take her hands off him and take her award “where the sun don’t shine.” He acknowledges in the book that he was very drunk at the time.
The following morning, Bieber called: “We need to talk, Michael.” Douglas writes that he recognized he had “crossed a line” with one of the movie’s stars.
He sent Roberts roses with an apology for his behavior, according to USA Today. Back at the production office, he apologized to her and Sutherland in person. He writes that both actors forgave him enough for everyone to finish the picture.
Columbia Pictures released Flatliners on Aug. 10, 1990, according to the AFI catalog. “I remained friends with Kiefer,” Douglas writes. “Julia, not so much.”
Producing Left More Room for Drinking
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Acting made Douglas nervous enough that he says he would not have considered arriving on set under the influence. He feared it would leave him paranoid while he was expected to perform for the cast and crew.
As a producer, he could drink over lunch without those demands, he writes. Elsewhere in the memoir, he estimates that a typical night out during his heavy substance use involved about five drinks and a gram of cocaine.
In his PEOPLE interview, Douglas linked his increasing cocaine use to the strain of managing both an acting career and a production company while his first marriage, to Diandra, was in difficulty. He said he believed the drug contributed to the marriage’s failure and his need for rehabilitation.
Douglas entered Sierra Tucson in 1992 for alcohol abuse and overwork, he told the Los Angeles Times in 1994.