Tatum O’Neal has revealed her reaction when she found out her dad, the actor Ryan O’Neil had left her out of his will.
Ryan died aged 82 on 8 December 2023 from “congestive heart failure” after being diagnosed with chronic leukaemia in 2001 and prostate cancer in 2012.
O’Neal and her father starred together in the Peter Bogdanovich-directed drama Paper Moon in 1973. However, they had a long-documented difficult relationship, marked with periods of estrangement.
Speaking to Variety, O’Neal said she had three choice words for her father upon discovering he’d left her out of his will: “Keep it, motherf***er.”
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O’Neal revealed she thinks Ryan removed her from his will after she wrote her 2004 memoir A Paper Life, in which she details the actor’s drug problems, violent nature and abusive parenting style.
“The first book I wrote was just a f***ing honest book,” she said. “And that’s what got him.”
However, O’Neal admitted she could have used some of her father’s fortune to pay for medical expenses incurred while battling addiction.
It was claimed during the interview O’Neal lost $1m while experimenting with heroin as during this period there “was an accountant who took advantage of her”.
Elsewhere, O’Neal claimed her father resented her for winning the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, aged 10, for their film Paper Moon. She previously wrote that her father had “socked” her after she was nominated for the film and he was not.
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“Things got ugly quick,” she said. “He was controlling, and telling me, ‘No, you’re not good,’” O’Neal said. “And so then I started to get not good, feeling scared all the time.”
After a period of estrangement, O’Neal connected with Ryan after his partner, the late Farrah Fawcett, died of cancer in 2009. At the funeral itself, Ryan made a romantic advance on his daughter, whom he didn’t recognise; in 2011, however, they publicly attempted to repair their bond on the documentary series Ryan and Tatum: The O’Neals.
For the final three decades of the actor’s life, O’Neal and Ryan saw each other three times. On the final visit, he offered her drugs. “I know he was drinking, smoking a lot of pot, and he was like, ‘Here, take a pill,’” she said. “I was like, ‘No, thank you.’”
When Ryan died in 2023, O’Neal nevertheless made an emotional statement about the star. “I feel great sorrow with my father’s passing,” she said at the time.
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“He meant the world to me. I loved him very much and know he loved me too. I’ll miss him forever, and I feel very lucky that we ended on such good terms.”
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