Tatum O’Neal shared her scathing reaction to being cut out of her late father Ryan O’Neal’s will.
For most of her life, the 61-year-old actress had a famously turbulent relationship with the actor, who died at the age of 82 from congestive heart failure in 2023. During a recent interview with Variety, O’Neal revealed that she only learned that Ryan had disinherited her after his death and gave a candid response to the snub.
“Keep it, motherf—–,” O’Neal said.
Ryan shared Tatum and her brother Griffin O’Neal, 60, with his late ex-wife Joanna Moore. He was also father to son Patrick O’Neal, 57, whom he shared with ex-wife Leigh Taylor-Young, as well as son Redmond O’Neal, 40, whom he shared with the late actress Farrah Fawcett.
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O’Neal and Griffin lived with their mother until 1970, when Moore lost custody of her children after being arrested for a DUI. Moore struggled with chronic alcohol and drug abuse problems and was arrested for driving under the influence multiple times. She died at the age of 63 from lung cancer in 1997.
After Moore lost custody of O’Neal and Griffin, they began living with Ryan. At the age of 10, O’Neal became the youngest Oscar winner in history when she starred opposite her father in 1973’s “Paper Moon.”
However, O’Neal revealed in the first of her two autobiographies, 2004’s “A Paper Life,” that their relationship became rocky after the movie’s release, since her father was jealous of her success.
“Things got ugly quick,” O’Neal told Variety.
In her memoir, O’Neal detailed Ryan’s violent temper, alleging that she suffered physical and emotional abuse at the hands of her father, who was also addicted to drugs. O’Neal also revealed that she was later molested by a drug dealer, who was a member of Ryan’s inner circle.
During her interview with Variety, O’Neal said she believed that Ryan excluded her from his will due to “A Paper Life.”
“The first book that I wrote was just a f—ing honest book,” she said. “And that’s what got him.”
In a 2004 statement to Dateline, Ryan denied the allegations that O’Neal made against him in “A Paper Life,” and cited her own longtime struggles with drug and alcohol addiction.
“It is a sad day when malicious lies are told in order to become a ‘best seller,'” he said. “As a father, it is my hope that this book was written to serve as her therapy, and if this is what she needed to do to wake each day and live with herself, then I can only support her healing process, good, bad and ugly.”
He continued, “It is now my hope, that she remain sober, so that her perception of the future is nothing like her clouded memories of the past.”
In “A Paper Life,” O’Neal recalled how her relationship with her father deteriorated after “Paper Moon.” While Ryan’s performance as conman Moses Pray earned praise from critics, O’Neal’s portrayal of the orphaned Annie Loggins drew the most attention, with the young actress being declared a prodigy.
O’Neal alleged that Ryan hit her after she received her Academy Award nomination for best supporting actress. The “Love Story” star did not accompany his daughter to the awards ceremony and later admitted that her win led to tension within the family.
“Everybody hated everybody because of that Academy Award,” Ryan said in a 2009 interview with Vanity Fair.
After she won her Academy Award, O’Neal told Variety that she was asked to audition for the role of child prostitute Iris in Martin Scorsese’s 1976 movie “Taxi Driver.” While speaking with the outlet, O’Neal remembered Ryan telling her, “‘No, you can’t,’” as he believed that the part was “a little too naked.”
However, O’Neal shared her opinion that Ryan’s envy might have led him to prevent her from auditioning for the role, which earned Jodie Foster her first Oscar nomination.
“And I never really recovered from that,” O’Neal said.
Though O’Neal went on to star in the critically and commercially successful movies “The Bad News Bears,” “International Velvet” and “Little Darlings,” her career started to stagnate toward the end of her teenage years.
O’Neal explained that her confidence in her acting ability began to wither under Ryan’s blistering criticism.
“He was controlling, and telling me, ‘No, you’re not good,’” she told Variety. “And so then I started to get not good, feeling scared all the time.”
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At the time, O’Neal began to publicly struggle with addiction. She previously shared that she was given alcohol for the first time at her mother’s house when she was six-years-old and alleged that Ryan introduced her and her brother to drugs.
The actress’s fame and hard-partying lifestyle led her to become a tabloid fixture and acting opportunities increasingly waned. In 1984, she began a highly-publicized and troubled romance with tennis star John McEnroe, who also had addiction problems. The pair, who share sons Kevin, 38 and Sean, 37, and daughter Emily, 33, tied the knot in 1986. However, their marriage ended in a bitter divorce in 1994.
After her divorce, O’Neal attempted to mount an acting comeback, but her career stalled when she became seriously addicted to heroin. As she continued to battle addiction, O’Neal acted occasionally, mostly taking on minor parts in movies and making guest appearances in TV shows.
O’Neal and Ryan were estranged for almost 20 years until they reconciled in 2009 following Fawcett’s death. In 2011, the two starred in the OWN reality series “Ryan and Tatum: The O’Neals,” which followed their failed attempts to repair their relationship.
In May 2020, O’Neal almost died from a stroke she suffered after overdosing on pain medication, opiates and morphine. After her stroke, O’Neal remained hospitalized in a coma for six weeks, and she was left with lingering aphasia, which impacted her ability to speak, read and write.
During her interview with Variety, O’Neal admitted that she did not know if she wanted to survive the stroke, even for her children.
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“I love them so much, but I’d already given so much,” she says. “Part of me just didn’t want to make it, you know?”
However, O’Neal told Variety that she wants to leave her self-destructive habits in the past after her near-death experience.
“Now I don’t want to hurt myself,” O’Neal said. “Now I don’t want to f—ing take drugs again — I really don’t.”
Though she has made strides in her recovery from the stroke, O’Neal suffers from memory issues and chronic pain. She told Variety that she recently underwent back surgery and is learning how to read again.
Yet, O’Neal is continuing to struggle with sobriety, telling Variety that she relapsed on the night of the U.S. presidential election when she realized that President Donald Trump would emerge victorious.
“I was with my gay friends, and was like, ‘I’m going to have a glass of wine — maybe two,’” she recalled. “And then I was like, ‘OK, damn: I have one day of sobriety.’”
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O’Neal revealed that she saw Ryan three times before he passed away. Shortly before Ryan’s death, she visited her father at his Malibu home, which was destroyed in January during the Palisades Fire.
The actress told Variety that she declined when Ryan offered her drugs during that visit, recalling, “I know he was drinking, smoking a lot of pot, and he was like, ‘Here, take a pill,’” she says. “I was like, ‘No, thank you.’”
However, O’Neal’s son Kevin, who assisted his mother during the Variety interview, told the outlet, “She drank that day though. Every single time she’s seen her dad my entire life, something happens.”
Though O’Neal has struggled financially and inheriting part of Ryan’s estate would have helped with her medical and rehabilitation bills, the actress said that she has found a new sense of freedom since her father’s death.
Kevin shared his view that O’Neal is now “letting go of how much space he took up in her life,” noting “she was defined as the person who was abused by Ryan.”
“There wasn’t much of a desire to be like, ‘I can do great things,'” Kevin told his mother. “And I think today you can do great things.”
Kevin also revealed that he is developing a documentary project about his mother, which he hopes will generate income to cover some of her medical expenses.
“As she changes, I think opportunities have begun to change for her,” McEnroe says. “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 —”
“Yes, just Tatum! Without my dad,” she interjected.
“Just Tatum is enough,” Kevin told her.
When asked if she felt that she was “almost there,” O’Neal responded, “Yes!”
“Even better than almost enough,” she added.
