Ryan O'Neil reveals Farrah's final struggle

[WillieW]

http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/32013039/ns/today-today_people/?ns=today-today_people>1=43001

By Michael Inbar
TODAYShow.com contributor
updated 10:16 a.m. ET, Tues., July 21, 2009

Cancer took its final, ultimate toll on beloved American actress and sex symbol Farrah Fawcett, but the spark of life never left her eyes until the moment of death. In an exclusive interview on TODAY Tuesday with Meredith Vieira, Farrah’s romantic companion of 30 years Ryan O’Neal described in heart-wrenching detail the end of his beloved’s life.

“She never closed her eyes; her eyes were open for the last three weeks of her life,” a still emotional O’Neal told Vieira. “She was watching us. She didn’t speak much, but she watched us. And then, finally, she closed her eyes.”

Final fight. . .

[virgogal]

1. God I wish Ryan would just go away.

[WillieW]

2. Losing a loved one is not easy. Talking about is his way of easing his pain.

I know, I have been there. Do you have any compassion?

[virgogal]

7. Compassion? The guy is a publicity hound.

[greenbriar]

10. um no, we have not seen much of him before or after her death

but he wants to make sure the world knew how beautiful Farrah is/was even in death

[WillieW]

16. Yes. They had a beautiful love affair.

[TwilightGardener]

49. I agree, this is the most attention he's gotten in a while, and that's what

it's all about for him--reviving his sorry-ass career. I cringed when I read that he was planning to marry her and he joked that he would go through with it even if he had to "prop her eyes open" and I thought, fucking sick.

[TorchTheWitch]

39. Then he can talk to people privately

That's what the rest of us do including other celebrities. He sure as hell isn't talking to the PRESS to ease his pain.

[WillieW]

47. Farrah and Ryan are public figures. The public want to know. I did.

[snappyturtle]

3. As celebrity stories go, I'd rather hear about Fawcett than Jackson.

Although Jackson's fatal problem may not have originally been of his making he certainly didn't get a handle on it and he COULD have. God knows he had enough money and years to get help...many aren't so lucky. But, Fawcett's end wasn't of her doing. imho

[madmom]

52. I agree.

[Bucky]

6. Yes, how dare he grieve?

:eyes:

 

[CatWoman]

12. i was thinking the exact same thing

about you.

[greenbriar]

4. I feel so sorry for him

I really think they loved each other so very much and they went through a LOT together

I wish they could have gotten married




I fear for his health now

[customerserviceguy]

5. "I wish they could have gotten married"

Wasn't that pretty much up to him? Now he mopes around like some sort of widower.

I really haven't heard anything out of him since the 1970's, wasn't he in a couple of movies or something?

[Bucky]

8. Actually, I read where he proposed but she's the one who said no.

Thank goodness it's our job to stand in judgment of how they worked out their relationship.

[WillieW]

14. I followed Farrah's story to the end. He proposed several times, but she did not want to marry

[greenbriar]

11. he asked her over and over

she said no

[Donnachaidh]

9. dunno -- but I think they DID get married before it got bad for her

Maybe I'm having a brainfart, but I seem to recall hearing that they did have some sort of ceremony a few weeks before she died.

[greenbriar]

13. no, I think she finally said yes

but it was too late

[WillieW]

15. during one of his last interviews he was asked about that. He stated that she finally said yes

and that once she got better, they would marry. But then it was too late for that.

[Tangerine LaBamba]

23. O'Neal can say anything he wants -

it's not like Fawcett could talk or even knew he was on TV telling such stories.

Sure.

She's in a final stage of terminal cancer, with nothing but painkillers keeping her going, and she's going to agree to get married.

Ever see anyone in that state?

They're not there. It's the drugs. They're sleeping because of the horrendous amounts of morphine and other painkillers they're getting. There is no conversation. There is only the sound of their breathing.

There might be moments of awakeness, but I'm not even sure it's awareness. Just the small space between doses of drugs.

O'Neal is a whore, a hungry whore dining on the leavings of Farrah Fawcett. Anything for attention.

But I read an interesting news report yesterday that said O'Neal hadn't been to visit their son Redmond in the slammer since the young man was allowed out for his mother's funeral, almost a month ago.

What a great guy, that Ryan O'Neal.............................

[WillieW]

18. Reminds me of Jonny Cash and June Carter. He followed her shortly after she died.

[Tangerine LaBamba]

24. Old couples do that -

my grandfather was injured in a fall. On the day he had his accident, my grandmother came home from the hospital, sat down on the couch, said "Oh, what a day," and died.

No one told my Grandpop that she'd died, just that she had a cold and couldn't come to see him.

He was doing fine, recovering from a broken hip.

Thirteen days after she died, so did he.

He knew. I always believed he knew she was gone.......................

[WillieW]

46. That is so sad.

[Chemisse]

17. Dammit, why do they always have to call cancer a fight?

So that means Farrah is a loser?

If I ever get cancer, I am going to bitch-slap anybody who tells me I am in a battle. I think that is an unfair burden to put on the patient.

[WillieW]

19. She lost the battle. I have cancer and I fight every day to see another one.

But I will not be smothered by pity and I will not go down without a fight.

[MissDeeds]

35. Good for you, WillieW

Keep fighting. And may you win the battle. :hug:

[WillieW]

44. Thanks. I intend to. Never surrender!

[Donnachaidh]

20. My mother had pancreatic cancer, and SHE stated she was in a fight

It IS a fight for life.

She didn't give up until the very last few days of her life. What she considered a burden was the doctor's refusals to try alternative medicines.

[XOKCowboy]

33. Mine also..

Her docs gave her 4 months. She made it 11 months in intense pain and under the influence of various types of morphine but she FOUGHT to stay alive to be with her grandchildren.

I'm sure the OP had the best of intentions but I hope that I have the "fight" in me if I eve have to endure what my Mom did.

[NJCher]

38. another view

It IS a fight for life.

A lot of people don't think that, though. Your statement might be amended to "is a fight for staying in this dimension."

More people in the world believe in reincarnation than any organized religion. Another way of looking at this, therefore, is that she moved from one stage of existence to another.


Cher

[Donnachaidh]

43. being a devout Catholic, she did not believe in reincarnation

so for her it WAS a fight for life. She did not want to go to whatever is out there.

[WillieW]

self deleted

[WillieW]

21. Because it is - a fight for your life.

[Historic NY]

25. Your are right ..a fight w/o surrender.

[Chemisse]

37. But then why don't they call it a fight when you have heart disease

or pneumonia? Is that just the terminology that is needed to encourage people to endure the treatments?

My problem with it is that it makes it seem like it is up to you whether or not you die of cancer. Which then means that if you do die, then it is somehow because you didn't fight enough. I think that is an unfair burden to put on the patient.

But I am on the outside looking in; I have never had to face such a diagnosis.

[MoonRiver]

40. I've never thought of it that way.

I think they call it a fight because the disease can be so protracted, and the medicines used to treat it and its symptoms so complicated and difficult to deal with. Everybody I know who had/has cancer has called it a fight. Some are still alive, some proclaimed cancer free, some passed on. But like life in general, we will all lose the "fight" eventually. I don't think that means we lose, we just reach our time.

[AngryAmish]

27. agreed

[Tangerine LaBamba]

22. Oh, what a LOVELY man he is -

He and Fawcett produced a junkie son with a fabulous talent for indulging his taste for dope and spending time in the slammer, even as his mother lay dying.

They were an especially touching couple when he was beating the crap out of her. Those were special, special days.

And when she went nuts and vandalized the home and car of a man she'd been dating, Ryan was right there for her.

Loving, oh, yes, so terribly loving.

All of Ryan's kids turned out to be troubled junkies, some worse than others, and none of them showed up for Farrah's illness or funeral.

But, wasn't it special when he announced, as she lay dying, probably unable to speak, that he had proposed to her, and they would be married as soon as she felt better?

Could the guy be any more craven?

Loving, indeed.

He's a publicity whore who's been nothing but exploitative of Fawcett's illness and dying and now, death.

Michael Jackson got in O'Neal's way, dying on the same day as Farrah Fawcett died, but Ryan's laid low, and waited until the MJ uproar subsided, and now he's "grieving" in public - with cameras, light, microphones, audience - and he'll take away any shred of dignity that poor woman had by revealing everything about how she died to a world that doesn't deserve to be brought into the final moments of a sad, dying woman.

[WillieW]

26. Thank goodness that is this is only your opinion.

[Tangerine LaBamba]

30. Well, DUH!

It's a message board, not the Ten Commandments or the UCMJ........................

[pup_ajax]

28. Redmond showed up for her illness ...

I question your honesty considering that you state that none of Ryan's kids turned out for Farrah's illness or funeral.
It was all over the news when Redmond was let out of jail to say his goodbyes to her.

I don't anything about O'Neal's other kids, so I don't know if they are ALL junkies.

But I wouldn't trust you as the authority on that. Just sayin'.

[Tangerine LaBamba]

29. He has three other kids -

check them out. They've had awful lives. His daughter, you've obviously forgotten, is Tatum O'Neal. Talk about a tortured individual. His son was responsible for the death of Francis Ford Coppola's son, while drunk and piloting a boat, and O'Neal has hardly been the picture of a competent father. He was busted last year for doing crack - I think it was crack, maybe it was crystal meth - with his son, the one who's now in jail.

Who asked you to trust me? You'd be a fool to trust anything you read on message boards, and I'm sure you're not a fool.

Redmond was allowed out of the slammer twice to visit with his mother as she lay dying, after further treatment was deemed impossible. And he was allowed out for the funeral.

That's it. Some comfort to his mother, huh?

[Maccagirl]

31. Actually it was her boyfriend producer James Orr who beat

Farrah Fawcett, not O'Neal. It was bad enough that he spent some serious time in the pokey.

[Tangerine LaBamba]

32. It was also O'Neal -

poor Farrah Fawcett seemed to have had a thing for men with poor impulse control. Orr was the man whose house was defaced by Fawcett, who ended up getting charged, as well. Sounds like a lovely relationship.

She seems to have had a hard life after her initial blaze. She had talent, without question, and I wonder why it never translated bit-time, and I thought it surely should have..............

[blueamy66]

54. I saw an interview with

one of O'Neal's sons...he stated, standing outside of the funeral, that Ryan would not allow him in.

on edit...oops, just saw other posts about this. Never mind.

[Gwendolyn]

34. Tatum did go to the funeral. Griffin was barred from attending by Ryan O'Neal.

They weren't on good terms, to put it mildly.

[MoonRiver]

41. What's the story behind that?

I hadn't heard about bad family feelings.

[Gwendolyn]

42. Huge family drama that included drugs, fireplace poker, gun, and pregnant girlfriend.

Ryan O'Neal was arrested for supposedly smashing Griffin's girlfriend in the face with a fireplace poker and then shooting at his son. O'Neal claimed it was the reverse... that Griffin, a drug or alcohol-fueled rage beat on his girlfriend and Ryan was just trying to protect her.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Griffin_O'Neal

And yes, I'm embarrassed to know this. My cube neighbor at the time was really into everything celebrity oriented so I'd get a play-by-play of the latest hollywood scandales and reality show hijinks.

[MoonRiver]

45. OMG, bizarre!

I am interested in this because I really loved Farrah. Regardless of what he did in the past, I'm glad Ryan made her last days easier.

[WillieW]

48. yes, he was devoted to her for sure. He flew with her to Germany for treatments and went

with her to every doctor appointment. Stayed with her night and day holding her hand and encouraging and supporting her.

[MoonRiver]

50. Yes, I saw that in Farrah's Story.

I know they wanted to make a sequel. No time though. :cry:

[Gwendolyn]

51. It was bizarre!

:) I think that family has always had problems with drugs and maybe alcohol. Ryan O'Neal went through a bad patch a few years ago but when Farrah got sick, it seems he managed to pull up his socks and be there for her.

[MrsMatt]

36. FWIW I heard that Griffin O'Neal

tried to attend the funeral, but was barred by Ryan.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

53. sounds like my narcissistic ex-husband.

We were getting a divorce, and I didn't tell him that my sister was terminally ill with cancer. He called her house and talked to her husband. Hubby said "No you can't talk to her, she's in a coma, only going to last a few more days". N-ex was pissed b/c he ranted about how much he loved my sister back in their high school days, blah blah blah....I knew he was a phony. He didn't care about anyone but himself.