Ryan O’Neal On Farrah Fawcett’s Death: ‘I’m Using What She Taught Me… To Survive’

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Ryan O’Neal attends Farah Fawcett’s funeral service held at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels on June 30, 2009 in Los Angeles
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Farrah Fawcett and Ryan O’Neal greet guests at a reception in Corpus Christi, Texas on July 5 1984
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Farrah Fawcett and Ryan O’Neal wait for the start of the Larry Holmes-Gerry Cooney WBC heavyweight championship title fight in Las Vegas on June 12, 1982

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FIRST PUBLISHED: July 20, 2009 5:52 PM EDT
LAST UPDATED: July 20, 2009 7:53 PM EDT

NEW YORK, New York --

Ryan O’Neal has opened up for the first time about the passing of his longtime love, Farrah Fawcett.

In a new interview with Meredith Vieira, set to air on “Today” on Tuesday morning, Ryan said he is carrying on with life, using the tools he learned from Farrah.

“I’m using what she taught me to… to survive, to go on, to care for my son, Redmond,” Ryan told Meredith.

Ryan revealed that Redmond, his son with Farrah, had his handcuffs on while he attended his mother’s funeral, as he was on release from an in-jail drug program.

“He came and… they allowed him to carry her casket with… the other pallbearers. Although, they didn’t take his handcuffs off,” Ryan said. “So he just kept them under his sleeves… He buried his mother. He got to bury his mother. And then the sheriffs took him back.”

And although Redmond’s only visit with his mother prior to her death was on April 25, which appeared in the documentary, “Farrah’s Story” on NBC, Ryan said Redmond did get a chance to speak with Farrah again one final time.

“I held the phone to her ear. So I’m not exactly sure [what he said],” Ryan told Meredith. “But I think it was about regret and the horror of not being able to see her again, and the promise — the promise of a good life, of a life that she would be proud of…. He is her legacy and he now knows that. Finally, it’s clear and he has a plan, a wonderful plan in mind to restore order in his life. And he will, with my help.”

Ryan also shared his own last words to Farrah, before she died on June 25, the same day Michael Jackson passed away.

“I said I’d see her soon and I see her every day and I write to her,” Ryan told Meredith. “I write in my journal now, to her… We all kissed her goodbye and hugged her and held her and didn’t want to let her go. It was something that I had never experienced, and I’d done a movie about it. But I’d never experienced it.”

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