Sharon Stone paid an emotional tribute to her ‘adopted grandmother’ Eileen Mitzman, who was about to die in the hospital alone after contracting coronavirus.
Stone, 62, shed tears as she remembered Eileen, an AIDS activist whom she met years earlier just as she was beginning her work in the field.
A heartbroken Stone reflected on Mitzman’s legacy in video posted to her Instagram account on Sunday.
‘Tonight she’s going to die in New York hospital,’ Stone tearfully said. ‘She has coronavirus, but she will die because she is septic and has other illnesses and none of us can go there to be with her.’
Heartbroken: Sharon Stone paid an emotional tribute to her ‘adopted grandmother’ Eileen Mitzman, who was about to die in the hospital alone after contracting coronavirus (pictured 2009)
In her video, Stone recounted Mitzman’s life story, from her AIDS activism to meeting her husband Neil in elementary school.
‘Hi, I want to talk to you about someone very special to me, who became my adopted grandmother,’ Sharon said at the start of the video. ‘Her name is Eileen Mitzman. I met her, a long time ago when I was beginning to work as an AIDS activist so many years ago. I met she and her husband Neil in New York at an event at Dr. Krims house.
‘She was just about to go and speak to then-President Bill Clinton, and she asked me what she should speak about, and she started to tell me the story of her life. She was a young woman who grew up in Brooklyn and her dad was a bookie.
‘He wanted to be a cop but he was too short, and so the cops let him be the bookie because they trusted him then. And she grew up and she told her fellow classmates that her dad was a bookmaker, and they thought that he made books.
In memory: A heartbroken Stone reflected on Mitzman’s legacy in video posted to her Instagram account on Sunday
Painful loss: Stone, 62, shed tears as she remembered Eileen, an AIDS activist whom she met years earlier just as she was beginning her work in the field
‘She and her husband Neil met when he was a crossing guard in elementary school. He went away to war and she wrote to him everyday and when he came home he married her.’
Sharon revealed she became their adopted granddaughter after all three suffered painful losses.
Choking back tears, Sharon adds, ‘And they had a beautiful long life together until he passed away a couple years ago. I met her because she and Neil were two of the heads of Concerned Parents for AIDS Research, because her daughter was one of the first daughters to die AIDS.
‘Her boyfriend was a bartender at Studio 54. Their other daughter died in a car accident coming home from prom. So I ask them if they would be my adopted grandparents, since mine had passed away. And they became my adopted grandparents and my fellow HIV/AIDS worker.
‘They became my adopted grandparents’: The actress revealed she became their adopted granddaughter after all three suffered painful losses
‘She will die a warrior’: Stone then urged her followers to scream outside their window tonight in memory of Eileen
‘We worked very hard together to do a lot of good in this world. Tonight she’s going to die in New York hospital. She has coronavirus, but she will die because she is septic and has other illnesses and none of us can go there to be with her,’ Sharon says as a tear falls down her cheek.
‘But she will die a warrior, and I think we should grieve like warriors now because holding grief will only make us sick and affect our lungs and our respiratory systems in a way that we should not allow that to do,’ she said, becoming more and more emotional.
She then urged her followers to scream outside their window tonight in memory of Eileen.
Happier days: Stone and Mitzman attended the eighth annual Elton John AIDS Foundation ‘An Enduring Vision’ Gala in 2009
‘So tonight I want you to go out your window and I want you to scream and I want you to fight back and I want you to scream and I want you to cry, and I want you to scream out against this thing for Eileen, because I don’t want her to die alone. I want you to hear her rage on against the dying of the light.
‘I want her to hear you scream for her, because she was furious about what is happening. She was furious about the way this was being handled, she was furious, she was furious about the way AIDS was handled, and she was furious about the way this was being handled.
‘And I want you to let her know that you respect her life and that you respect her death. So I’m going to post a picture of her when I saw her in January, and I want you to rage on into the dying of this light. And I want you to know that I respect those of you who have lost your loved ones and couldn’t be there with them.
‘And I respect the deaths that are happening during this time, I do not take them lightly and I do not think they were deserved. So for Eileen Mitzmen, who is going to be with her beloved husband Neil, and her two daughters, rage on into the dying of that light. Thank you.’
Fern Mallis, the creator of New York Fashion Week, also paid tribute to Eileen with a heartfelt post on Instagram on Sunday.
Mallis revealed Mitzman passed away the night prior after contracting the virus.
Memories: The actress shared several snaps of Eileen onto her Instagram account, including one with Stone’s sister Kelly
Loss: Stone shared a throwback of herself with Eileen