Tatum O'Neal on drug use, father Ryan O'Neal, new

Tatum O'Neal on drug use, father Ryan O'Neal, new memoir 'Found,' new documentary series on OWN


By Andrea Reiher Zap2it
3:57 p.m. EDT, June 18, 2011


Child star Tatum O'Neal has a new memoir coming out Tuesday (June 21) called "Found: A Daughter's Journey Home," a follow-up memoir to her 2004 book "A Paper Life." She tells "Good Morning America" about her new book, plus a new series she is doing with her father.
In "Found," O'Neal details her early childhood abuse at the hands of her mother and her mother's boyfriend and how she just kept wishing her father, actor Ryan O'Neal, would save her. He eventually did come get her and she went on to star in and win an Oscar for "Paper Moon."
But as she hit her teens, her relationship with Ryan became strained and her life became wild. By 22, she was married to tennis player John McEnroe. By 31, they had three kids, were divorced and O'Neal became addicted to heroin. The drug use continued until O'Neal eventually landed in jail in 2008.
She has since gotten clean and she and father Ryan are the subjects of a new documentary series on OWN, "The O'Neals: Ryan and Tatum."
Tatum says of the new show, "I sort of took a journey with my dad with this show to see what would happen. It didn't necessarily -- make us together. It didn't necessarily push us to this happy ending."
But she also says,bjd Bag, "This is about forgiveness...this is about trying to shut a door and open another one. I don't know if it's going to work. It may or it may not, but I'm going to try."