Tatum O’Neal’s heart broke when she heard the Malibu home that once belonged to her father, actor Ryan O’Neal, had burned down.
“It’s the saddest, ever so sad, I could cry,” she posted on Threads. “My father’s house is gone. Malibu gone.”
Tatum O’Neal’s Struggles With Addiction
Tatum experienced both good and bad times at her father’s home, but at 61, she may finally be ready to move on from her troubles. In 2020, the actress, who won an Oscar at age 10 for her role opposite Ryan in Paper Moon, overdosed on painkillers, opiates and morphine, triggering a severe stroke. She spent six weeks in a coma and upon waking, lost her ability to speak, walk or see.
“Part of me just didn’t want to make it, you know?” she confided to Variety.
Today, Tatum still attends speech therapy twice a week and is relearning how to read.
Tatum O’Neal Claimed Her Parents Were Abusive
As her body heals, Tatum is working to overcome the scars she’s carried since childhood. The daughter of the Love Story star and actress Joanna Moore, both addicts, knew abuse and neglect as a child. In her 2004 memoir, A Paper Life, she recalls being beaten by her mother’s teenage boyfriend and eating dog food. She eventually moved in with Ryan, who used drugs in front of her. After Tatum was sexually abused by Ryan’s drug dealer, he threw the culprit out only to allow him back into their lives a little while later.
Tatum’s precocious performance in Paper Moon, the 1973 comedy-drama about Depression-era grifters, earned her a Best Supporting Actress Oscar – which made both of her parents jealous.
“Things got ugly quick,” recalls Tatum, who says her hot-tempered father hit her and refused to attend the Academy Awards with her. “He loved me, but then hated me, because I won the Academy Award,” she said in her memoir.
But at least Ryan sent a congratulatory note to his daughter; Tatum’s mother never acknowledged her triumph.
In 2011, father and daughter starred in the TV series Ryan and Tatum: The O’Neals in an attempt to publicly heal their relationship. Tatum also visited Ryan at his Malibu home shortly before his passing in 2023 at age 82.
“He was like, ‘Here, take a pill,’” Tatum recalls. “I was like, ‘No, thank you.’”
She did, however, end up drinking alcohol that day.
“Every single time she’s seen her dad my entire life, something happens,” Tatum’s ex-husband, John McEnroe, told Variety.
Living Life on Her Own Terms After Her Father’s Death
After her father’s death, Tatum learned that he’d cut her out of his will. She believes it was a response to her memoir, whose allegations he had long denied, calling her childhood memories “clouded.”
Her father can “keep it,” she says today, noting that she’s ready to get on with the business of living for herself.
“Just Tatum! Without my dad,” she says. “Even better than almost enough.”
