This is far from a fairytale.
Tatum O’Neal has attributed her half-brother Redmond O’Neal’s alarming transformation into a devil-horned, alleged attacker to years of “horrifying and cruel” treatment at the hands of their late father, famed actor Ryan O’Neal.
The former child actress shared her critical perspective following Redmond’s unsettling court appearance in California, where he faced charges of attempted murder, complete with horns tattooed on his head.
“He’s not doing well at all, dear, not well at all,” Tatum, now 62, confided to the Daily Mail regarding her troubled half-brother, who is the only son of Ryan O’Neal and the late actress Farrah Fawcett.
“I care for Red deeply, but he’s struggled significantly. He never had the chance to begin a real life,” she expressed.
Tatum attributed Redmond’s struggles to their notoriously dysfunctional upbringing, noting that her half-brother has “never changed.”
“It was always drugs, drugs, drugs,” said the actress, who has had her own headline-grabbing issues with addiction.
“It was a terrible beginning with my dad Ryan who wasn’t a very good person – and with Redmond he was mean and hurt him over and over,” she said.
“It was horrifying and cruel.”
Tatum also fell victim to drug abuse for most of her adult life, and spoke to the Mail from a memory care facility in the San Fernando Valley where she goes for treatment since suffering a stroke caused by prescription drug overdose in 2020.
Ryan’s eldest son, Griffin, 61, who was estranged from his father, told the paper that it’s incredible that he and Tatum are still alive. The actor became addicted to drugs and alcohol and had several run-ins with the law over the years
“Ryan was a raging narcissist, really crazy,” said David Leit, who became Redmond’s 12-step program sponsor in 2001 when he was 16.
“I liked Redmond. He could be funny and caring but he was also a punk, very angry with a real addict personality.”
In 2008, while conducting a parole check on Redmond, Los Angeles police found meth in Ryan’s bedroom drawer and both father and son were arrested. Ryan later pleaded guilty to a lesser charge and went to a treatment program.
In a revealing Vanity Fair interview in 2009, Ryan detailed his son’s drug problems, saying he’d been in rehab 13 times, calling his kid ”stupid” and a ”sap.”
“He has addictions he can’t control; he goes to sleep in his food. He’s never been out on the street for a year, because whatever he did, he got caught,” he told the magazine.
Fawcett died of cancer in 2009. Redmond appeared in shackles at his mother’s bedside when she was dying and also went to Fawcett’s funeral in chains. Ryan died in 2023, and Redmond, Tatum and Griffin did not attend the funeral.
In 2018, Redmond allegedly went on knife rampage across Los Angeles, attacking five men and robbing a 7-Eleven stores. He is accused of seriously injuring two of his victims, including one who was stabbed in the face.
He was charged with attempted murder, assault with a deadly weapon, making criminal threats and battery, but the case has repeatedly stalled after he was diagnosed with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and antisocial personality disorder.
He’s currently locked up at Patton State Hospital in San Bernardino County, where he was sent in 2019 after he was ruled mentally unfit to stand trial on attempted murder and drug charges.
