Michael Douglas is revisiting the night he drunkenly threatened to take Julia Roberts’ Golden Globe. Years later, the Oscar winner is admitting that his behavior at the Golden Globes crossed a line, even by his own standards. The story now resurfaces in One Helluva Ride, his candid new memoir about Hollywood, addiction, relationships and the mistakes that followed him.

For Douglas, the episode sits among the more uncomfortable chapters of a career that has rarely been short on complicated stories. His early-1990s life was marked by heavy drinking and d*** use, and he now looks back at how that excess could turn an ordinary Hollywood party into something far uglier.

According to Michael Douglas, he saw Julia Roberts at the bar with her arm around his son Cameron and believed she was “kind of nuzzling him.” He says Cameron looked stunned, but Douglas also acknowledges the crucial detail that would become central to his recollection: he was drunk. Douglas writes that he confronted Roberts. 

“Take your hands off my son and take that Golden Globe and stick it where the sun don’t shine,” he said. 

"I’d crossed a line with the most in-demand young actress in Hollywood," he added. 

The incident happened at a Golden Globes party in 1990, when Douglas says he was with his son Cameron, who was around 13 at the time. As reported by Page Six, Douglas then sent Roberts roses with a note and later apologized to both Roberts and Sutherland in person. He says they forgave him enough to finish Flatliners, although he remained friends with Sutherland while his friendship with Roberts never returned to what it had been.

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The anecdote is particularly revealing because Douglas is not presenting himself as the hero of the story. Instead, he places the incident inside a broader reckoning with the version of himself he was during Hollywood’s hard-partying era.  That same willingness to revisit uncomfortable history runs through One Helluva Ride.  

Michael Douglas is using the memoir to pull back the curtain on relationships that once existed firmly in the realm of Hollywood rumor, including his connections with Kathleen Turner and Jeanne Tripplehorn. People reports that the book addresses his past relationships and the “acts of indiscretion” that occurred during that period.

The Turner revelation is especially striking because Douglas and Turner spent years being remembered primarily for their combustible chemistry in Romancing the Stone. Douglas now acknowledges that their relationship went beyond the screen during the film, while People has also reported his disclosure of a secret relationship with Tripplehorn during Basic Instinct. 

Taken together, these stories make One Helluva Ride more like Douglas auditing the messy backstage history behind the polished Hollywood image. The Julia Roberts story is one of the clearest examples: an impulsive night, a spectacularly ill-advised threat and an apology that could repair the professional relationship without fully repairing the friendship.

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What do you think of his candid recollection of the Julia Roberts incident? Share your thoughts in the comments.