Kathleen Turner On Her Battle With Rheumatoid Arthritis & Waiting For A Man

Kathleen Turner was sex on heels in the 1980s, burning up the screen with “Body Heat” and “Romancing the Stone.” But her personal life began to crumble in the early ‘90s when she was diagnosed with a debilitating disease.

Kathleen sat down with Access Hollywood’s Billy Bush and opened up about her disease – rheumatoid arthritis — and her incredibly honest book of memoirs, a New York Times best seller, “Send Yourself Roses.”

“You’ve had a real tough battle with [rheumatoid arthritis],” Billy noted.

“They told me that I would be in a wheel chair for the rest of my life,” Kathleen explained. “And I said, ‘I don’t think so!’”

As Kathleen battled the disease, the headlines sprung up – “Kathleen Turner’s No Longer A Head-Turner Photo Shocker,” was one. Another was “Body Heat Cools for Ravaged Kathleen Turner.”

“You took a beating by the press and the tabloids… And yet it’s because of rheumatoid arthritis and some of the medications you were taking. Why did it take you so long to say, ‘This is what’s happening to me?’” Billy asked.

“It was very hurtful, you know,” Kathleen explained. “No one understood what an autoimmune disease was really. No one spoke of it and so it was a frightening thing.”

Rhuematoid arthritis (or RA as it’s often called ), eats away at your joints.

Today, Kathleen is in remission, but for the past several years, this tough-as-nails lady underwent operations on her feet and knees.

“I hope my last one was [last] year,” Kathleen said. “I’m a little worried about keeping my left knee. I had to have my right knee replaced which is such fun at airports. I stand there saying, ‘Yes, I have a titanium knee,’ and they’re patting me down and saying, ‘I love your work.’”

She laughs about it now, but the pain over the years has been unbearable. The Broadway star at one point was self-medicating.

“Of course what happened was, after all the years of living with such terrible chronic pain and basically the fear of never getting well again, I really did start to drink and to abuse alcohol,” she said.

That abuse led to a messy and well-documented 2002 drunken spell at a New York restaurant. Shortly thereafter, Kathleen entered rehab.

Her 22-year marriage to businessman Jay Weiss also ended, but Kathleen is hopeful for a romantic future.

“You said something the other night — that you haven’t had sex in two years,” Billy asked.

“Yes, that’s true,” Kathleen revealed. “Just haven’t gotten that, ‘Oh my god, I want him,’ moment. I think I’d like to fall in love again. Jesus! I’d like to have sex again. Wouldn’t that be nice? Good sex. Really good sex. I’d love to have really good sex. But I’m not at the point yet [where] I’m that hungry for the smell of a man. I’m fine right now without it. I imagine I will get there, but not yet.”