Tatum O’Neal, who became the youngest actor to win a major Oscar at just 10 years old, is back in rehab after a cocaine relapse, reports say.
A source tells Radar Online that the 48-year-old has voluntarily sought treatment for her addiction, in a different facility from where her younger brother Redmond is being treated for heroin addiction.
“Tatum made the decision to voluntarily check into rehab after having a relapse about a month ago when she began using cocaine again,” the source tells Radar.
However, the source expressed concern about the type of rehab facility O’Neal checked into.
“Tatum is doing really, really bad at the facility she is at. Tatum isn’t at a 12-step based treatment program, and that is a huge problem because someone with Tatum’s addiction needs to be at a rehab facility like Betty Ford or Cirque Lodge which adhere to the 12-step model,” the source claims. “Tatum is essentially in denial about how bad her addiction is.”
O’Neal’s rep, however, denies the claim that her client is in rehab for a cocaine relapse.
“Tatum O’Neal has had back issues, had back surgery and went to a place that could supervise her use of prescribed pain killers until the pain had subsided,” her rep tells E! News. “She will always seek supervision when taking prescription medication that has addictive potential.”
O’Neal, the daughter of actors Ryan O’Neal and Joanna Moore and the step-daughter of Farrah Fawcett, has been open about her struggles with drug addiction in the past. The star, who dated Michael Jackson and was married to tennis player John McEnroe, published an autobiography in 2005 titled “A Paper Life,” in which she claimed that she had been physically and emotionally abused by her father and was using drugs by the time she was 12.
Ryan O’Neal denied many claims made in the book, saying, “It is a sad day when malicious lies are told in order to become a ‘best seller’.”
In 2008, O’Neal was arrested for buying crack cocaine near her Manhattan apartment building. She wrote about that experience, as well as her reconciliation with her estranged father, in the 2011 memoir “Found: A Daughter’s Journey Home.”