Stone sorry for 'karma' comment
Hollywood star Sharon Stone has apologised for her 'bad karma' comments on the Sichuan earthquake, 15 months after the incident upset Chinese communities around the world.
'I'm sorry that my comments caused pain to a nation and a people. I hope my apology will be accepted and finally fully understood,' Stone says in an interview in the latest edition of Hong Kong Prestige magazine.
Stone, known for her links with Tibet, made her provocative comments at the Cannes Film Festival in May last year. When asked about what she thought of the earthquake, which left 87,000 dead, she replied: 'I'm not happy with the way the Chinese are treating the Tibetans because I don't think anyone should be unkind to anyone else.
'And the earthquake and all this stuff happened, and then I thought, is that karma? When you're not nice that bad things happen to you?'
The comments cost her a beauty ad deal with Dior in China and brought a ban on her movies. Dior subsequently released a statement quoting Stone apologising, but she later told The New York Times that the apology had distorted her words and she was not going to apologise.
In the Prestige interview, the Golden Globe-winning actress explained that last year she went through the trauma of two miscarriages and began sharing custody of one of her children.
'I forget that when I speak sometimes the whole world listens,' said the American actress best known for her role in Basic Instinct.
She also praised China as a country, the hospitality of the Chinese and Chinese culture as a whole.
Stone, 51, said ageing was about 'really accepting yourself and loving your age', and she loved China because it embraced this concept. 'It's not the Botox capital of the world.'
