Michael Douglas reveals he refused to attend group therapy during troubled son Cameron’s drug addiction as he reflects on their ‘really rough’ relationship

DAILYMAIL.COM • 1d ago

By JOANNA CRAWLEY, DEPUTY SHOWBIZ EDITOR (NEWS) 15:05 06 Oct 2026, updated 15:37 06 Oct 2026

Michael Douglas has revealed he refused to participate in group therapy sessions with his son Cameron during his rehab stint for drug addiction.

The actor, 82, has had a troubled relationship with his eldest son, 47 – his only child with his first wife Diandra Luker.

By the end of his teenage years Cameron was abusing drugs, and battled a heroin addiction in his twenties before in 2010, aged 31, he was sentenced to five years in prison after pleading guilty to federal drug trafficking and distribution charges.

Whilst Michael funded his son’s trial defence team, he had by then been distant from his eldest child for many years, and during his years in prison refused to write to him.

Michael is now close to Cameron, himself now a father of two young children, and has written about their relationship journey in his newly released memoir One Helluva Ride.

Asked in a new interview if he is worried about Cameron reading about their troubled times and Michael’s close bond with his two younger children with second wife Catherine Zeta-Jones, the actor is adamant that he has a right to tell his story.

‘I love Cam, but we went through a really rough time,’ he tells the Sunday Times. ‘I’m telling my story, man. And the realities are you do everything you can for your kids, but I lost a half-brother from an overdose.’

He is referring to his brother Eric, who died of an accidental overdose at 46 in 2004 after years battling addiction after Michael’s father Kirk Douglas did his best to help him by attending family therapy sessions.

‘To watch your own father be in his eighties, dealing with group therapy sessions with his son?’ Michael continued. ‘I said I’m not going to do that. I said I’m not going to go into my seventies and eighties going to rehab sessions.’

‘I love my kids, but you know, I have an entitlement to a right to live a life.’

Among the revelations in his upcoming book, is Michael’s admission that he cheated on Cameron’s mother Diandra with co-star Kathleen Turner while filming their 1984 action-comedy, Romancing The Stone.

In an excerpt shared by People, he penned: ‘Kathleen was smart, funny, and sexy with a deep, sultry voice that became her signature. I instantly liked her, and we were immediately attracted to each other.’

He then claimed that his marriage to Diandra ‘was in a bad place’ and that he had been having an affair with Romancing The Stone screenwriter Diane Thomas prior to meeting Kathleen.

Both Michael and Kathleen, who was single but dating real estate mogul Jay Weiss – the man she would later marry – steadfastly denied the affair, too, even when Hollywood gossip reached fever pitch when Diandra became so worried that she flew to the Mexican set and confronted her.

But now, four decades on from the blockbuster, Michael has ‘come clean’.

In his explosive memoir, he recalls how he and Kathleen, now 72, fell madly in ‘lust’ at first sight: ‘Kathleen was smart, funny and sexy, with a deep sultry voice that became her signature. I instantly liked her and we were immediately attracted to each other.’

The Fatal Attraction actor added: ‘Things at home were in a bad place. Diandra and I were both having extramarital affairs. The truth is that during the production of Romancing The Stone, Kathleen and I fell hard for each other and began a relationship.

‘It wasn’t a fly-by night affair; it grew naturally from how closely we were working together, how much pressure we were under, how much we respected and cared for one another, and how attracted we were to each other.

‘Like every other guy in the world at the time, I was knocked sideways by Kathleen.’

The pair kept their affair hidden from everyone including their co-star Danny DeVito and director Robert Zemeckis. Michael penned: ‘We found each other first as friends, then as co-stars, and finally as lovers.

‘Following an exhausting day of shooting in the jungle, we’d go out and have a meal, or head out with the group and afterward I would sneak into her hotel room after everybody was asleep.’

Their clandestine romance ended when Michael’s wife flew from LA to Mexico and brought their young son Cameron. He added: ‘Diandra grew suspicious. A woman’s intuition, I suppose.’

Their marriage limped on until 2000 when the couple divorced – with Michael marrying Zeta-Jones that same year.

According to several reports, Diandra walked away with $45million and several homes.

Michael met actress Catherine in 1998 and they married two years later. They welcomed son Dylan that year followed by a daughter, Carys Zeta, in 2003.

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