After a 20-year separation, Ryan O’Neal and his daughter, Tatum O’Neal, were able to mend their connection in the days leading up to the actor’s passing on Friday at the age of 82.
At the age of ten, Tatum acted with her father in the film Paper Moon, which was released in 1974. She went on to become the youngest person to ever win an Academy Award for her performance in the film. Tatum, who is now sixty years old, had previously described her difficult relationship with her father in her memoir titled A Paper Life, which was published in 2004.
However, after the loss of Ryan’s fiancée Farah Fawcett in 2009, the two reunited, and more recently, a poignant snapshot shared on Instagram by Tatum’s son Sean McEnroe in 2020 showed the family together for the first time in 17 years “after so many years of hardship.”
I have to say that this is one of the photographs that I will never forget. “The last time we were all together was at the 30-year Paper Moon Anniversary in 2003,” Sean, who is now 36 years old, captioned the picture, which featured both Tatum and Ryan smiling beside Sean and the two other children that Tatum has with her ex-husband John McEnroe. These children are son Kevin, who is now 37 years old, and daughter Emily, who is now 32 years old.
Sean stated, “I could cry tears of gratitude that everyone in this photo is still alive and that we were all able to come together again after so many years of suffering despite the fact that we have been separated for so long.” The whole West Coast is engulfed in flames, but if the O’Neals are able to reconcile, then it is genuinely possible for anything to happen. 🙏🏻☺️💛#Family #Love #Reconciliation #Forgiveness #Wholeness #Love in the Family”
Despite the fact that the father and daughter had been alienated from one another for a considerable amount of time, they started their path toward reconciliation in the year 2008, after the diagnosis of cancer in Fawcett, who was Ryan’s boyfriend at the time.
In an interview with People magazine in 2010, Tatum said that she had provided her son Sean with Ryan’s phone number because she was worried about the health of her father in the midst of Fawcett’s sickness. Before she passed away, she also made an effort to communicate with the Charlie’s Angels actress herself.
Tatum then said that she got a phone call from her father many months after Fawcett passed away in June 2009, when she was 62 years old. The two of them made arrangements to meet at that time.
During that time period, Ryan shared with PEOPLE that “it was as if time stood still.” “She is so delighted… What I see before me is not the same person that I recall.
Tatum said, in reference to the encounter, that “he told me he’s sorry.” “He is the only member of my family that I have, and I wanted him to be a part of my life. At that point in my life, my father was everything to me.
Tatum said that the passing of Fawcett had “played a very big role” in the recommencement of her relationship with her father.
“She brought us back together,” the actress stated at the time, while also disclosing that the untimely loss had led her to ponder on her father’s mortality. “She brought us back together,” she continued.
“It would have been a terrible thing if anything had occurred to my father. She said, “I don’t know if I could have lived with myself without any problems.”
At the same time, Ryan thought on his position as a father and whether or not his absence may have had a factor in the difficulties that Tatum was experiencing in his life.
It was his admission that he might have been of use to her. “After the passing of her mother, she was the only person she had. She claimed that I had abandoned her, and I did in fact forsake her. She did not want me. A great deal of cruel actions were carried out.
When Tatum was celebrating her father’s 82nd birthday in April, she shared a touching snapshot of the two of them together on social media.
“Happy birthday, dad, I love you,” she said on Instagram beside a picture of the two of them smiling together while sitting on a bed to celebrate her father’s birthday.
Following the news of Ryan’s passing on Friday, which was revealed by his son, Patrick O’Neal, in an Instagram post, the actress sent a statement that was exclusive to PEOPLE. In it, she expressed her profound affection for her father, while also expressing her appreciation that the two had mended their differences.
“I feel great sorrow with my father’s passing,” the woman said.
What he meant to me was everything. It was clear to me that he loved me just as much as he loved me. Tatum said, “I will miss him for the rest of my life, and I consider myself extremely fortunate that we parted ways on such amicable terms.”