Tatum O’Neal made a rare public appearance in Los Angeles while using a cane for support.
The Oscar-winning actress, 62, was photographed walking alongside family members on Saturday in what marked one of her few sightings since a near-fatal stroke in 2020. She wore a black midi dress paired with a navy blue suit jacket, accessorized with a long necklace, black loafers and glasses, and appeared to be in good spirits while chatting with her companions.
The outing arrived just days after O’Neal posted a rare selfie to Instagram. In the photo, she smiled with what appeared to be family pictures visible behind her. “Hope ❤️” she captioned the upload, adding a red heart emoji.
O’Neal’s son Kevin McEnroe, 40, previously said that he feared his mother would not survive the 2020 incident. “It was the phone call we’d always been waiting for,” he said, referencing himself and siblings Sean, 39, and Emily, 35, whom O’Neal shares with ex-husband John McEnroe.
“She also had a cardiac arrest and a number of seizures,” Kevin added. “There were times we didn’t think she was going to survive.”
The “Paper Moon” actress revealed in 2023 that an overdose on “a combination of pain medication, opiates, and morphine” had led to a six-week coma and the stroke. “I almost died,” O’Neal said, confessing she’d been an “addict [her] whole life, pretty much on and off, for the past 30 to 40 years.”
She’d been prescribed the medications for rheumatoid arthritis and back and neck pain, she explained, and began abusing them at the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic. A friend found her at her Century City home and rushed her to a local hospital. She was subsequently diagnosed with Aphasia.
Following the incident, O’Neal spent time in rehab facilities working to regain strength and memory, as well as re-learning to read and write. She told the outlet she’d “been through a lot.”
Kevin described his mother as having “become very isolated” during the pandemic, and admitted he didn’t think “there was much hope” for her at the time.
He called his mother’s recovery efforts a “miracle.”
“This last chapter where she wants to live, wants to get sober, wants to learn, I think it’s a miracle,” he told the outlet. “I think it’s beautiful. I’ve never been more proud to be her son. She’s full of love and full of heart … it’s a miracle to behold.”
O’Neal rose to fame alongside her father Ryan O’Neal in 1973’s “Paper Moon,” a performance that earned her the Academy Award for best supporting actress in 1974 at age 10, making her the youngest competitive Oscar winner in history.
The actress continues to share updates on her recovery with followers on social media.