Sharon Stone accuses late grandfather of child sex abuse

Sharon Stone was relieved at the death of her maternal grandfather because it spelled the end of her childhood sex abuse nightmare.

The Casino actress delves into her traumatic past in her new memoir, The Beauty of Living Twice, claiming both she and her younger sister Kelly were subjected to years of inappropriate behaviour by their granddad, Clarence Lawson.

In the book, Sharon explains Lawson also abused his wife, but she would reportedly help him corner the girls from when they were toddlers by locking them in a room together whenever Sharon and Kelly visited their home in Meadville, Pennsylvania.

It was only when Lawson died from a heart attack when Sharon was 14 that the siblings were finally able to breathe easy, with the star recalling how she reached into his open casket at the funeral to make sure he was really gone.

"I poked him, and the bizarre satisfaction that he was at last dead hit me like a ton of ice," Sharon writes, adding: "I looked at (Kelly) and she understood; she was 11, and it was over."

Sharon also uses The Beauty of Living Twice to reveal all about her previous health emergencies, including a teenage horse-riding accident that left a deep scar on her neck, her stroke at the age of 43, and the tragedies of three miscarriages, as well as her controversial no-underwear scene in erotic thriller Basic Instinct.

And the actress is sure she will have no regrets about her candid nature in the book, concluding in the final chapter: "I learned to see things differently. I learned this from dying, from living, and from being what I've often been called: 'The Last Living Movie Star'."