Michael Douglas has revealed he refused to attend group therapy sessions with his son Cameron during drug addiction rehab.
The 82-year-old actor has had a troubled relationship with his eldest son, 47 – his only child with first wife Deandra Luker.
Cameron was abusing drugs by his late teens, and in 2010, at the age of 31, battling heroin addiction, he was sentenced to five years in prison after pleading guilty to federal drug trafficking and distribution charges.
By the time Michael funded his son’s trial defense team, he had been estranged from his eldest child for several years, and had refused to write to him during his years in prison.
Michael is now close to Cameron, now a father of two young children himself, and has written about their relationship journey in his recently released memoir One Helluva Ride.
Asked in a new interview if he’s worried about Cameron reading about their difficult times and Michael’s close relationship with his two young children with second wife Catherine Zeta-Jones, the actor is adamant that he has the right to tell his story.
Michael Douglas has revealed he refused to attend group therapy sessions with his son Cameron during drug addiction rehab (pictured together in 2017)
‘I love Cam very much,’ he explains, ‘but we went through a lot of tough times.’ sunday times. ‘I’m telling my story, man. And the reality is that you do everything you can for your children, but I lost my stepbrother to an overdose.
He is referring to his brother Eric, who died of an accidental overdose in 2004 at the age of 46, after Michael’s father Kirk Douglas tried his best to help him by attending family therapy sessions, after which he struggled with addiction for several years.
‘Watching your octogenarian father work with his son in group therapy sessions?’ Michael continued. ‘I said I’m not going to do that. I said I’m not going to go to rehab sessions in the seventies and eighties.’
‘I love my kids, but you know, I have a right to live my life too.’
Revelations in his upcoming book include Michael’s admission that he cheated on Cameron’s mother Deandra with co-star Kathleen Turner while filming the 1984 action-comedy, Romancing the Stone.
In an excerpt shared by People, he wrote: ‘Kathleen was smart, funny and sexy with a deep, evocative voice that became her hallmark. I liked her immediately and we were immediately attracted to each other.
He then claimed that his marriage to Deandra was ‘dying’ and that before meeting Kathleen he was having an affair with Romancing the Stone screenwriter Dianne Thomas.
Both Michael and Kathleen, who were single but dating real estate magnate Jay Weiss – the man she later married – also adamantly denied the affair, even as the Hollywood gossip reached a fever pitch when Diandra became so concerned that she walked onto the Mexican set and confronted him.
The actor has reported that unlike his late father Kirk, who attended family therapy sessions for his son Eric, he refused to participate in group therapy for Cameron (Cameron, Kirk, and Michael photographed in 2018)
Michael also has son Dylan, 26, and daughter Carys, 23, with second wife Catherine Zeta-Jones, 56.
But now, four decades after the blockbuster, Michael is ‘clean’.
In his explosive memoir, he recalls how he and Kathleen, now 72, fell madly in love at first sight: ‘Kathleen was smart, funny and sexy, she had a deep sensual voice that became her identity. I liked her immediately and we were immediately attracted to each other.
The Fatal Attraction actor further added, ‘Things were in a bad state at home. Deandra and I both had extramarital affairs. The truth is that during the production of Romancing the Stone, Kathleen and I fell in love with each other and began a relationship.
‘It was not a sudden overnight affair; It grew naturally from how closely we were working together, how much pressure we were under, how much we respected and cared for each other, and how attracted we were to each other.
‘Like every other man in the world at that time, Kathleen had cast me aside.’
The pair kept their affair hidden from everyone, including their co-star Danny DeVito and director Robert Zemeckis. Michael wrote, ‘We found each other first as friends, then as co-stars and finally as lovers.
‘After a tiring day of shooting in the jungle, we would go out and eat, or go out with the group and then I would go quietly to her hotel room after everyone went to sleep.’
Their secret romance ended when Michael’s wife moved from LA to Mexico and brought their young son, Cameron. He further said, ‘Diandra became suspicious. A woman’s intuition, I guess.’
Their marriage lasted until 2000 when they divorced – the same year Michael married Zeta-Jones.
According to multiple reports, Deandra walked away with $45 million and several houses.
Michael met actress Katherine in 1998, and they married two years later. They welcomed son Dylan that year, followed by daughter Carys Zeta in 2003.