Michael Douglas’ drug-fueled nights in the early ’90s once caused a drunken confrontation between him and Julia Roberts.
Douglas, 82, revealed the interaction that torched a potential friendship between the two Oscar winners in his new memoir, One Helluva Ride. Roberts, who would have been in her mid-20s, was chatting with Douglas’ son Cameron, who was 13 at the time, when Douglas snapped at the actress during one of his many binges.
“A typical night was probably five drinks and a gram of coke,” he wrote, according to The Independent.
“We were at the bar, and Julia had her arm around my son, kind of nuzzling him,” he claimed in the book. “To me, in that moment, he looked stunned... but I was pretty drunk.”
Douglas said his clouded perception caused him to accost the star. “I told her, ‘Take your hands off my son and take that Golden Globe and stick it where the sun don’t shine.’”
He learned the next day that he had offended the star, with whom he starred in 1990’s Flatliners, alongside her then-beau Kiefer Sutherland.
“The next morning, my producing partner Rick Bieber called me and said, ‘We need to talk, Michael.’ I’d crossed a line with the most in-demand young actress in Hollywood.” Douglas wrote that he sent Roberts flowers and apologized to her and Sutherland, who’d been present during the outburst, at the Flatliners production office.
“Luckily, they forgave me enough to get through that and finish the picture. I remained friends with Kiefer. Julia, not so much,” he wrote of the aftermath.
The Daily Beast has reached out to a representative for Roberts for comment.
