The 13 biggest reveals from Sharon Stone's new memoir, from paying Leonardo DiCaprio's salary to slapping the 'Basic Instinct' director

Sharon Stone's most famous movie is "Basic Instinct," the 1992 erotic thriller in which she plays a suspect in a murder case.

One of the movie's most famous scenes is when Stone's character crosses and uncrosses her legs during an interrogation.

In Stone's book, the actress reveals that director Paul Verhoeven asked her to take off her white underwear to shoot the scene as they were apparently reflecting light. She says she was assured that nothing explicit would be seen on camera.

However, when she saw the final cut of the movie at a screening, she realized that this wasn't the case.

"I went to the projection booth, slapped Paul across the face, left, went to my car, and called my lawyer, Marty Singer," Stone said.

"I did have [legal] choices. So I thought and thought and I chose to allow this scene in the film. Why? Because it was correct for the film and for the character; and because, after all, I did it," Stone wrote.

In a 2017 interview, Verhoeven denied that Stone was unaware of his intentions.

In another section of the book, Stone detailed a conversation with an unnamed producer, who she says asked her to sleep with her unnamed male costar in order to improve their onscreen chemistry.

Stone said that the producer boasted to her about making love to Ava Gardner back in his day, which Stone wrote she found "creepy." Stone refused to sleep with the costar.

"You guys insisted on this actor when he couldn't get one whole scene out in the test ... Now you think if I f--- him, he will become a fine actor? Nobody's that good in bed," Stone wrote.

In 2001, Stone had tumors removed from her breasts that were benign but "gigantic," the actress wrote in her book.

She then had reconstructive surgery following this operation, but when she woke up from the surgery, she said that her breasts had been made a "full cup-size bigger" by the surgeon — without her consent.

Stone wrote that the surgeon told her he thought she "would look better with bigger, 'better' boobs."

Stone said: "When I was unbandaged, I discovered that I had a full cup-size bigger breasts, ones that he said 'go better with your hip size.' He had changed my body without my knowledge or consent."

Stone also revealed that she once began "receiving mail from a 'fan.'"

The mail she was getting sent from this person were "strange and oddly threatening letters" that declared his love for her but also "his dangerous attachment" to her, too.

The letters were sent from the California coast, but no one was able to find the person, who kept sending letters with postmarks that got closer and closer to Stone's house.

"Finally, I got one hand-delivered to my mailbox," Stone wrote. She asked her friend to go and find him and sort the issue out.

"She found him in a campsite," Stone wrote. "She told him she came at my special request and needed to see his writing to be sure it was him. She compared the writing and then took him down and called the authorities who had been tracking him."

Stone coproduced as well as starred in Sam Raimi's 1995 movie "The Quick and the Dead," which meant she had a say in who was cast.

In her book, Stone wrote that a young Leonardo DiCaprio was the only one who "nailed" the audition for the part of The Kid. However, producers didn't want to hire DiCaprio, as he was relatively unknown at the time and had yet to star in "Romeo & Juliet" and "Titanic."

"The studio said if I wanted him so much, I could pay him out of my own salary. So I did."

Before she was a successful actress, Stone was a model. When she was younger, she took a trip to New Jersey with her mother to try and get signed by model agency executive and cofounder of Ford Models, Eileen Ford.

Ford made a distinct first impression when she apparently told Stone that "she would like to throw me down the flight of stairs I had just come up and bounce the fat off of my ass."

Stone and her mother then went to see another agent, who explained to her why Ford "wanted the country fat off." Stone eventually signed with Ford, who died in 2014.

In one of the most graphic descriptions in the book, Stone recounted how a horse "took off" while she was trying to break it and thrust her into a clothesline, which badly cut her neck.

"My neck was hanging open, wet and ripped from one ear to the other. There was plasma rolling down the front of my shirt," Stone wrote. "It was a gigantic f---ed-up mess of drastic proportions."

Her mother managed to push the horse back and free Stone, who was then quickly taken to hospital, where a surgeon looked at "fourteen inches of meaty, torn-up kid neck" and didn't know what to do.

Eventually, one surgeon cleaned the wound and sewed it up, and it slowly began to heal — although a scar is still visible.

One year before the 2002 Oscars, Stone suffered a brain haemorrhage that lasted nine days. She was later asked to present an award with John Travolta at the 2002 Oscars, which Stone agreed to.

However, two weeks before the ceremony, she was struggling to walk due to the effects of the seven-hour brain surgery she had had.

As a recovery goal, Stone suggested to Travolta that they dance on stage while presenting the award for best foreign language film. Travolta agreed.

"My heart was racing. Just two weeks before, I had struggled with walking. Now I would be dancing. I could do this. I could dance. I looked into his eyes. I said yes. He walked away. I said a prayer to the universe: 'Let me do it for me. Let me do it for everyone who needs to know they can.'"

Stone and Travolta did indeed dance on stage, and Stone described this moment as a turning point in her years-long recovery.

Stone also detailed her experience finding out that she had a brain haemorrhage.

She was taken to a hospital after falling ill, and passed out on a gurney. After several scans, she passed out again and then woke up to be told she was on her way to an operating theatre to have "exploratory brain surgery," which she wasn't told about.

Stone wrote that she was told: "'Oh, yeah, the papers were signed — you're all good.'"

However, Stone insisted that she wasn't going to allow this surgery to happen as she had not been told about it and they did not have her consent. The doctor who authorized the surgery came out and told her to do as she was told.

"He told us all that someone had signed all of the papers and we were well underway. He showed us all proudly that he was holding a fax from People magazine and said he had just spoken to them, told them of the situation, and he knew exactly what to do," Stone said.

But the doctor had actually misdiagnosed Stone and had given this misdiagnosis to People magazine, who ran the story, Stone says.

Stone then fired the doctor, who insisted she couldn't fire him.

"The nurse said, 'Doctor, I'm afraid she just did,' and directed the orderly to take me back to my room. That quick-thinking nurse saved my life," Stone wrote.

Stone also spoke about her relationship with Madonna, who she is now good friends with but who she wrote she has been "pitted against" in her career as they are both successful women of the same age and generation.

"There was not a place for women to find camaraderie, alliance, or safety with one another. It was put to us that there could be room for only one," Stone wrote.

However, Stone wrote that she feels close to Madonna as they have had many "side by side" experiences in terms of dealing with fame and aging in public.

"I feel as if I secretly champion her. I know she feels the same. We stand up for each other being asked. We know the pitfalls of being who we are and have been when we were breaking barriers in our respective fields," Stone writes.

Stone also talked about the jobs she had before she became a model and actress, and wrote that she got a job as soon as she was old enough.

In her first job, she worked at McDonald's as "a fry girl, and a shake girl, a pie girl, and then a counter girl," but it didn't end too well.

"The manager, who seemed so old to me then, was probably pushing thirty and harassed me constantly — to the point that I eventually quit, or he fired me, or both," Stone wrote.

After this, she was also a pie girl and a busboy at a restaurant called Bob's Big Boy. She then worked her way up to be a waitress, and soon became the head waitress at night and then the nighttime manager. All the while, she was studying and also participated in county beauty pageants.

Throughout her book, Stone talks about the many injuries she's sustained in her life and doesn't skimp on the details of the care she's received.

These included a dislocated shoulder, a "bursting ovarian cyst," and a broken foot. However, Stone singled out one particular experience as more painful than others.

"Root canal in my trailer with no novocaine at lunchtime: that was not a great one, I can say; I had that redone twice — and then had total jaw surgery to repair the damage from this absolutely stupid behavior," Stone wrote.

Stone said that the injuries all had to be dealt with as quickly as possible, or not dealt with at all until after shooting had finished or the job had been completed.

"In other words, shut and deal. There isn't room for babies in this biz, especially if I, as a woman, want to prove my mettle," Stone wrote.

Stone was in college when she says she got pregnant with her first serious boyfriend, aged 18.

The two of them lived in Penna at the time, where it was difficult to get an abortion, so they found a clinic in Ohio and travelled there to get an abortion, she wrote.

"[The doctors] were struggling with their ethical decision. They too were young, and this was a tough call. I was devastated, as my whole life hung in the balance," Stone wrote.

She says that the doctors eventually decided she could have the surgery, and her then-boyfriend took care of her afterwards. However, she went back to school that same day and she passed out. Later, she woke up "bleeding all over the place." But because the abortion was a secret she wrote, she had no one to tell or ask for help.

"I stayed in my room and bled for days. I was weak and scared and then just weak," Stone wrote.

"When I finally came out of it, I took all of the bloody sheets and clothes and torched them in a burning barrel at school and showered in the shared showers in the dorm and went back to class. I refused to talk to D [then-boyfriend] ever again. I was too scared, ashamed, traumatized, fractured, tormented, and, most important, uneducated about everything, to move."