Ryan O'Neal Says He Hit On His Own Daughter At Farrah Fawcett's Funeral
Aug. 3 2009, Published 11:54 a.m. ET
Even Ryan O'Neal described it as "sick."
The actor, and father-of-four, told Vanity Fair that he is so disconnected from his own children that he flirted with daughter, Tatum, at Farrah Fawcett's funeral, without realizing she was his first born according to transcripts of the interview published Monday in the New York Post.
"I had just put the casket in the hearse and was watching it drive away, when a beautiful blond woman comes up and embraces me," O'Neal, 68, said. “I said to her, 'You have a drink on you? You have a car?' She said, 'Daddy, it's me -- Tatum!'"
"That's our relationship in a nutshell," Tatum told the magazine when asked about the bizarre exchange. "You make of it what you will.”
Said Ryan: "I was just trying to be funny with a strange Swedish woman, and it's my daughter -- it's so sick."
Asked if he's sorry he had children, O'Neal nodded and said, "A couple of them I would take back.
"I don't think I was supposed to be a father," said the actor, who had Tatum, 45, and Griffin, 44, with first wife Joanna Moore; son Patrick, 42, with actress Leigh Taylor-Young; and son Redmond, 24, with Fawcett.
"Just look around at my work -- they're either in jail or they should be," O'Neal said.
He said Redmond, who is in jail for violating probation on drug charges, is the only child he still sees.
You can read the entire interview with Ryan O’Neal in the September issue of Vanity Fair, which hits newsstands this week.