Michael Douglas (82) Confesses He Was Secretly in Love With Another Basic Instinct Co-Star in 1992, When He Was 47 and She Was 28

Michael Douglas has never been short on stories, and with the release of his memoir, ‘One Helluva Ride’, on Tuesday, the 82-year-old is sharing a lot of them. The book has already produced one headline-making confession about Kathleen Turner and the making of ‘Romancing the Stone’ in 1984.

Now another chapter is drawing attention. It concerns a different on-set romance, tied to one of the most talked-about thrillers of the 1990s.

When ‘Basic Instinct’ arrived in 1992, the tabloid assumption was simple: the chemistry between Douglas and Sharon Stone had to mean something off screen. Douglas now says the real story involved another co-star entirely, and the secret affair he reveals in the book was with Jeanne Tripplehorn, who played the police psychologist Dr. Beth Garner.

According to the memoir, Douglas and Tripplehorn hid the relationship from the cast and crew while the film shot in San Francisco. He writes that while everyone speculated about him and Stone, the real relationship went unnoticed. At the time, Tripplehorn was 28 and unmarried, and Douglas was 47 and still married to his first wife, Diandra Luker.

Douglas writes that he “fell very hard for Jeanne” despite their nearly 20-year age difference, and that he was “ready to officially leave my wife” for her. He also says the passion audiences see on screen reflects the genuine feelings behind their brief affair.

Douglas is careful to place the romance in the context of a marriage he describes as already ending. He writes that Tripplehorn was unwilling to get involved with a married man, but that he assured her he and Luker had formally separated. In the memoir, both he and Luker were seeing other people and living separate lives.

Croatian outlet Index Magazin, which covered the revelations on Tuesday, notes that Douglas describes the marriage as turbulent, with frequent separations. He says the couple had tried to stay together for their then 13-year-old son Cameron, but both knew the marriage was close to the end. Even so, he concluded that leaving a long marriage and going straight into another serious commitment would have been unwise.

The relationship did not outlast the shoot. Douglas writes that it lasted through production, and then they went their separate ways. He says he will always remember her as a wonderful actress and a fantastic woman.

Real life moved on in the years that followed. Douglas and Luker split about 3 years after the film’s release, in 1995, and in 2000 he married Catherine Zeta-Jones. Tripplehorn also married that year, to actor Leland Orser, and the couple has been together for 26 years.

Douglas says he contacted Tripplehorn before publishing. He told PEOPLE that “Jeanne was a special lady,” adding that he called her up to ask for her permission, which she gave.

That courtesy was part of a larger approach. Reports on the book say Douglas notes in the prologue that the women he had prior relationships with were given a heads-up that their stories would appear. He has also said he did not name anyone just to rack up notches, and that he has not had much connection with Tripplehorn in the years since the film.

The revelation changes how some fans may view the movie. ‘Basic Instinct’, directed by Paul Verhoeven and written by Joe Eszterhas, follows Douglas’ San Francisco detective Nick Curran as he gets drawn into an investigation of a murder. Tripplehorn’s character is the therapist he is also romantically entangled with, a storyline that now carries a different kind of weight.

The film’s reputation has long rested on its heat, much of it credited to Stone. Douglas’ account adds a quieter backstory, one in which the relationship getting the attention was not the one that mattered behind the scenes.

With two on-set affairs now confirmed in his own words, covering the years 1984 and 1992, the memoir is shaping up as a candid look at a very different era of Hollywood. Whether more revelations are waiting in its pages remains to be seen.

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