Ryan O’Neal, Mourning Farrah Fawcett, Didn’t Recognize Daughter

Ryan O’Neal was vocal about his love for Farrah Fawcett in the days leading up to the late actress’ death this year. What wasn’t known, however, was that in the immediate wake of Fawcett’s death, O’Neal was so shaken that he experienced an episode during which he did not recognize his own daughter, Tatum O’Neal.

Said Ryan O’Neal of the episode, "I had just put the casket in the hearse and I was watching it drive away when a beautiful blonde woman comes up and embraces me. I said to her, ‘You have a drink on you? You have a car?’ She said, ‘Daddy, it’s me – Tatum!’ I was just trying to be funny with a strange Swedish woman, and it’s my daughter. It’s so sick." Asked about his relationship with Fawcett, O’Neal opened up, noting, "I would have been much kinder, more understanding, more mature. I’d lose some of the savagery. I don’t know how she got cancer. Maybe some of it was me."

It is fairly well-documented that O’Neal and Fawcett split up in 1998 after being together for 20 years, but then got back together again in 2001 after he was diagnosed with leukemia. Asked about the tough times, O’Neal noted that he was particularly mean-spirited during Fawcett’s tough menopause. Said O’Neal, "I believe Farrah was going through some kind of life change. I didn’t have a change of life. I was always a jerk. But they’re hard work, these divas. I was sick of it, and I was unappreciated. I just don’t think she liked me very much. So I excused myself."