Michael Douglas Admits Secret Affair With Kathleen Turner in New Memoir

• In his memoir One Helluva Ride, Michael Douglas, 82, writes that he and Kathleen Turner, 72, began a relationship while filming Romancing the Stone in Mexico.
• For four decades both said nothing happened between them. Douglas now calls that official story “a lie.”
• He writes that it ended after his then-wife, Diandra Luker, visited the set. The book comes out Oct. 6.

Michael Douglas says he and Kathleen Turner had an affair while making Romancing the Stone, ending four decades of denials. Douglas, 82, writes in his memoir One Helluva Ride that the two “fell hard for each other and began a relationship” during production in Mexico.

Excerpts surfaced this week, ahead of the book’s Oct. 6 release from Grand Central Publishing.

What did Michael Douglas write about Kathleen Turner?

Douglas starts with the story the two told for years, then takes it back:

The official story went as follows: Yes, we confessed, we had amazing chemistry. Yes, we were both, as Kathleen said, “terrible flirts,” and yes, we were both tempted, but nothing ever happened between us. That was a lie.

Michael Douglas, One Helluva Ride

“The truth is that during the production of Romancing the Stone, Kathleen and I fell hard for each other and began a relationship,” he writes.

He describes Turner as “smart, funny, and sexy with a deep, sultry voice.” “Like every other guy in the world at the time, I was knocked sideways by Kathleen,” he adds.

How did the relationship end?

Douglas was married to Diandra Luker at the time, but he writes that they were separated and that “things at home were in a bad place.” The relationship ended after Luker visited the Mexico set with their son, Cameron.

According to the memoir, Luker grew suspicious and spoke privately with Turner, reminding her that she was still married to Douglas. Douglas writes that he went back to his wife for Cameron’s sake. He and Luker divorced in 2000, the year he married Catherine Zeta-Jones.

What had Douglas and Turner said before?

The two made two more films together, The Jewel of the Nile (1985) and The War of the Roses (1989). Decades later they reunited on Netflix’s The Kominsky Method, where Turner played the ex-wife of Douglas’s character.

Douglas writes that they kept up the official story through all of it, including the press for The Kominsky Method.

Turner, in an earlier interview with The Guardian, said she thought the two “might have been falling in love.” Douglas talked about reuniting with her for The Kominsky Method in a May 2021 interview on The Rich Eisen Show.

More from Celebrities: what Jim Carrey said about his wife in his César speech, how Sophia Bush revealed her secret marriage and what we know about Amanda Seyfried and Thomas Sadoski’s split.

— Bruno Monteiro

Sources: Michael Douglas, One Helluva Ride (Grand Central Publishing, out Oct. 6, 2026), excerpts as reported Oct. 2, 2026; Kathleen Turner in an earlier interview with The Guardian; Michael Douglas on The Rich Eisen Show, May 2021. InStyle (Meg Walters), Oct. 2, 2026; The News International (Syeda Waniya), Oct. 2, 2026. Photos and video: 20th Century Studios (Romancing the Stone trailer); SAG-AFTRA Foundation (Conversations, January 2025); The Drew Barrymore Show (September 2025); Netflix (The Kominsky Method trailers, 2019 and 2021); The Rich Eisen Show (2021); American Film Institute (2009); Entertainment Tonight (ET Vault, 1989); The Kelly Clarkson Show (2022).