Tatum O'Neal Has Blunt Take on Dad's Posthumous Diss

Tatum O'Neal is on the new cover of Variety, and one portion of her interview in particular is generating headlines. The 61-year-old has a blunt response when asked about how her famous father, Ryan O'Neal, left her out of his will when he died in 2023. Yes, she was upset upon first learning of his decision, but that soon evolved into something else:

• "Keep it, motherf---er," is how she puts it.

O'Neal—who won an Oscar for best supporting actress at the age of 10 while starring with her father in Paper Moon—says she thinks her father cut her out of his will in revenge for her memoir, A Paper Life. In it, she recounts his violent moods and writes about being sexually abused by someone in his inner circle. It was an "honest book," she tells Variety, "and that's what got him."

O'Neal may be famous, but Entertainment Weekly and People note that she's had a string of health problems and medical expenses (including a stroke following a 2020 drug overdose, plus neck surgery and speech therapy). Son Kevin McEnroe was present for the interview, and he tells Variety that an accountant swindled his mother out of $1 million as she was battling a heroin addiction in the 1990s. Still, he, too, is fine without his late grandfather's cash. "Blood money," he calls it. (More Tatum O'Neal stories.)