Hollywood star Sharon Stone has described her trip to Belfast before the pandemic as "a joy" though she added that "some things broke my heart" while learning more about the Troubles.
Stone joined Ryan Tubridy via video link on Friday night's Late Late Show and the star, who says she is "at least 85% Irish" recalled a recent trip to Belfast to visit her friend, Northern Irish peace activist Betty Williams.
Stone’s visit came shortly before Williams’ death in March 2020.
"I was very blessed to have met and become so close with Betty Williams and it was a tremendous heartbreak when we lost her... Betty did so many good things and continued her humanitarian work all over the world, we had done some good things together," Stone told Tubridy.
"It was a year ago last January that we came over and spent some good time with her. We just really wanted to see her and spend time with her and come and give her some love, I didn’t realise she was so close to the end of her life at that time or that we would lose her to Covid-19."
On her visit, Stone took a tour of Belfast.
"It was such a joy to go and see it. I did a lot of things because I hadn’t been to Belfast before so I was fortunate enough to take one of those Black Cab tours and spend a day with a great driver," she recalled.
"I had the opportunity to walk and get out of the cab in all of these different places and see so many things, some things broke my heart, I remember standing in the street and crying, it was so heartbreaking to imagine... I hate to see countries in unrest and to see all of the terrible things we do to each other..."
Stone also opened up about her near-death experience when she suffered a stroke and brain hemorrhage in 2001. She said it has completely changed her outlook on life.
"I had that near death experience where you leave the body and you nearly, or do, die and come back, and your world changes quite dramatically after that," she said.
"All the things that you felt were so frightening and scary and strange, don’t really pony up next to actually tapping out and coming back. Things people try to frighten you with after that, just don’t seem as frightening.
"You’ve faced the big things when you’ve had such terrible trauma, and it’s not just me, I think we’ve all gone through this horror of global Covid, we’ve all probably looked trauma in the face.
"When we’ve all looked trauma in the face, we feel more secure about who we are because we’ve had to really look at who are we and stare down the barrel.
"Once you start to look at that and look at all this pettiness, you’re just like 'take that somewhere else, park that outside, we have real things to deal with’ and all that silly stuff just begins to appear really silly."
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