Tatum O'Neal 'I'm Living One Day at a Time'

IN MAY 2020 THE OSCAR WINNER FELL INTO A COMA THAT LEFT HER UNABLE TO SPEAK. FOR THE FIRST TIME, SHE SHARES HER ORDEAL AND HOW IT HAS BROUGHT HER FAMILY TOGETHER

- LIZ MCNEIL and EILEEN FINAN

HER 3-YEAR JOURNEY BACK FROM A NEAR-FATAL OVERDOSE & STROKE. 

Late on the night of May 6, 2020, Emily McEnroe received a phone call informing her that her mother, actress Tatum O'Neal, had been found slumped on her side in her Los Angeles apartment, unresponsive. She had overdosed, Emily was told, and was in the ER. "It was the call I was always afraid I would get," says Emily, 32.

Gripped by a lifetime of addiction that has torn generations of her family apart and played out on the public stage, the Oscar-winning actress, 59, had so many drug scares over the years that "I had doctors say to me, 'She's going to die during an overdose," " says Emily. It looked as if that prediction might finally come true.

For the next six weeks O'Neal lay in a coma, her brain damaged by a series of strokes and the morphine and other prescription drugs she had taken that night. Doctors told Emily and her brothers Kevin, 37, and Sean, 35, O'Neal's three children with tennis star John McEnroe, her ex-husband, that she might never regain consciousness and that if she did, she would never be the same.

Her story seemed destined to unfold like a Hollywood tragedy: the sad downfall of a talented, troubled star. But what happened next was a miraculous twist. Since waking from her coma in June 2020 unable to speak, O'Neal has spent the past three years out of the spotlight, focused on her sobriety and doing the difficult work of relearning language and speech, word by word. "Every day I'm trying so hard to get better," says O'Neal. And she's doing it all with the support of her children, all of whom have struggled with substance abuse but are now sober.