Tatum Delivers Message To Ailing Dad Ryan: 'Forgiveness Is The Best Policy'

Tatum O'Neal has a special message for her estranged father : I'm sorry.

"I want to say to my dad, if you're watching this, I love you. I've always loved you and forgiveness is the best policy," the actress told Ryan O'Neal on the Mar. 27 episode of Megyn Kelly TODAY.

Tatum, who is set to star on a podcast, Tatum Verbatim, and in a new film, God's Not Dead: A Light in Darkness, delivered the heartbreaking message after years of trouble in her famously volatile relationship with her dad.

"I don't want to hold on to anger and resentments. I want to have a free, happy and guilt-free life," said Tatum, 54, on TODAY.

"My dad did a lot of good for me and I have to just respect his life and his process. Maybe someday he and I will have a moment where we reconcile."

As RadarOnline.com has reported, Tatum struggled with drug addiction for years, and her father, who also battled substance abuse issues, tried to stand by her side despite their complicated history.

Shockingly, Ryan, 76, once opened up about how he tried to hit on Tatum at the funeral for his onetime girlfriend of 18 years, Farrah Fawcett.

"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," Ryan recalled in 2009. "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 said of the bizarre exchange. "You make of it what you will."