Actor Michael Douglas has revealed he refused to participate in group therapy sessions with his son Cameron Douglas during his rehab stint for drug addiction. The 82-year-old Oscar winner reflected on their troubled relationship and his decision not to join family rehabilitation therapy in an interview with the Sunday Times while discussing his newly released memoir, One Helluva Ride.
Douglas explained that his choice was shaped by watching his own father, legendary star Kirk Douglas, attend group therapy in his eighties to help his half-brother Eric Douglas during a long battle with addiction before Eric died of an accidental overdose at age 46 in 2004.
Cameron, now 47, is Douglas's eldest son and only child with his first wife Diandra Luker. By the end of his teenage years, Cameron was abusing drugs and later fought a heroin addiction throughout his twenties, culminating in a five-year prison sentence in 2010 after pleading guilty at age 31 to federal drug trafficking and distribution charges.
Refusal of Group Rehabilitation
Although Douglas funded Cameron's legal defense team during his trial, he had been distant from his eldest son for many years and refused to write to him while he served his time in prison. Douglas is now close with Cameron, who is a father of two young children, but Douglas stood by his choice to stay away from rehab therapy sessions.
When asked if he worried about Cameron reading about their difficult past and his close bond with his two younger children from his second marriage to Catherine Zeta-Jones, Douglas insisted he had a right to share his life story. "I love Cam, but we went through a really rough time," he told the Sunday Times. "I'm telling my story, man. And the realities are you do everything you can for your kids, but I lost a half-brother from an overdose."
Recalling his father Kirk's efforts to support Eric, Douglas explained why he drew a firm boundary for himself as he got older. "To watch your own father be in his eighties, dealing with group therapy sessions with his son?" Douglas said. "I said I'm not going to do that. I said I'm not going to go into my seventies and eighties going to rehab sessions. I love my kids, but you know, I have an entitlement to a right to live a life."
Kirk Douglas, who died in 2020 at age 103, was one of Hollywood's most celebrated leading men of the Golden Age, famous for starring roles in classics such as Spartacus. Michael Douglas built his own legendary career in cinema, winning two Academy Awards as a producer on One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and as Best Actor for playing Gordon Gekko in Wall Street.
Memoir Revelations and Past Affairs
Alongside details of his family struggles, Douglas makes explosive admissions about his personal life in his memoir, including an extramarital affair with co-star Kathleen Turner while filming the 1984 romantic action-comedy Romancing The Stone. In an excerpt shared by People magazine, Douglas recounted falling for Turner, who is now 72 years old.
"Kathleen was smart, funny, and sexy with a deep, sultry voice that became her signature," Douglas wrote. "I instantly liked her, and we were immediately attracted to each other."
At the time of filming in Mexico, Douglas's marriage to Diandra Luker was unraveling. Douglas admitted that his marriage was in a bad place and disclosed that he had also been having an affair with Diane Thomas, the screenwriter of Romancing The Stone, prior to meeting Turner.
Although Turner was single at the time and dating real estate mogul Jay Weiss, whom she later married, both actors steadfastly denied rumors of a romance when Hollywood gossip reached a fever pitch. The rumors prompted Luker to fly directly to the film set in Mexico to confront Turner face to face.
Set Confrontation and Marriage Breakdown
Four decades after Romancing The Stone became a blockbuster hit, Douglas decided to come clean about their intense romance. The film, directed by Robert Zemeckis and co-starring Danny DeVito, launched Douglas and Turner as a major on-screen pairing before they reunited in subsequent films.
The Fatal Attraction star admitted that he and Turner fell madly in lust at first sight during production. "Things at home were in a bad place," Douglas wrote. "Diandra and I were both having extramarital affairs. The truth is that during the production of Romancing The Stone, Kathleen and I fell hard for each other and began a relationship."
Douglas emphasized that the romance was more than a temporary fling. "It wasn't a fly-by night affair; it grew naturally from how closely we were working together, how much pressure we were under, how much we respected and cared for one another, and how attracted we were to each other," he wrote. "Like every other guy in the world at the time, I was knocked sideways by Kathleen."
The pair kept their romance hidden from everyone on location, including director Zemeckis and co-star DeVito. "We found each other first as friends, then as co-stars, and finally as lovers," Douglas recalled. "Following an exhausting day of shooting in the jungle, we'd go out and have a meal, or head out with the group and afterward I would sneak into her hotel room after everybody was asleep."
The clandestine relationship came to an end when Luker unexpectedly arrived on set from Los Angeles with their young son Cameron. "Diandra grew suspicious," Douglas noted. "A woman's intuition, I suppose."
Divorce Settlement and Second Marriage
Despite the affair and ongoing marital turmoil, Douglas and Luker remained married for another 16 years until their divorce was finalized in 2000. According to several reports, Luker walked away from the divorce settlement with $45 million and multiple properties.
That same year, Douglas married Welsh actress Catherine Zeta-Jones, whom he had met in 1998. Zeta-Jones, now 56, is an Academy Award-winning actress celebrated for her performances in movies such as Chicago and The Mask of Zorro. The couple welcomed their son Dylan Douglas in 2000, who is now 26, followed by their daughter Carys Zeta Douglas in 2003, who is now 23.
With his newly published memoir, Douglas provides a candid reflection on his decades-long career, turbulent family dynamics, and the personal choices that shaped his life both on and off the screen.
