Farrah Fawcett’s close friend Alana Stewart is opening up about the “Charlie’s Angels” star’s relationship with longtime boyfriend Ryan O’Neal.
The actress died in 2009 at the age of 62 in the “Love Story” actor’s arms. The cause of death was anal cancer.
Stewart, who runs The Farrah Fawcett Foundation, an organization started by her friend, confirmed people magazine The two were buried next to each other on Tuesday at Westwood Village Memorial Park in Los Angeles.
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Farrah Fawcett and Ryan O’Neal had an on-again, off-again relationship for 17 years. (CBS via Getty Images)
“I don’t think he’ll ever get over her death,” the 79-year-old told the outlet. “And now it’s sad because he’s gone, but I always think about him being with me.”
“She basically died in his arms,” Stewart said. “I don’t think he was ever the same, because she was definitely the love of his life, and he was the love of her life.”
O’Neill died in 2023 at the age of 82.
Fawcett and O’Neal fell in love while she was married to star Lee Majors “The Six Million Dollar Man.” According to the outlet, sparks flew when Majors asked O’Neal to meet his wife while filming.
“She basically died in his arms… I don’t think he was the same, because she was definitely the love of his life, and he was the love of her life.”
“We sat and kissed and kissed until our lips were bloody,” Ryan O’Neal told the Los Angeles Times about their first date. (Getty Images)
Fawcett and O’Neal began dating in 1979, when she and Majors separated, before divorcing in 1982. They had an on-again, off-again relationship for 17 years. They welcomed a son, Redmond O’Neill, in 1985.
The couple broke up in 1997 but reunited in 2001 after O’Neal was diagnosed with leukemia, the outlet reported. He never married.
“She and Ryan, when they were at home with their son, and he was very young, she would cook,” Stewart said. “And when she had to go away for some work because she was working a lot at the time, they would pack up the whole family and go.”
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Farrah Fawcett told Life magazine, “I was so overwhelmed by this mental and physical attraction to him that I didn’t think about anything else except what was going on.” (ABC Photo Archives/Disney General Entertainment Content via Getty Images)
“His home life was a more normal life in that respect,” Stewart said. “When she went out in public people went crazy.”
When the faucet Diagnosed with cancer in 2006O’Neill remained with him.
“Even to the end, she was still fighting, and Ryan was there the whole time; he was there since she got diagnosed with cancer,” Stewart told the outlet.
Farrah Fawcett and Ryan O’Neal have a son, Redmond. (Kevin Winter/Getty Images)
Alana Stewart said Ryan O’Neal never got over Farrah Fawcett’s death. (Jean Baptiste Lacroix/WireImage/Getty Images)
In 2023, Stewart told Fox News Digital that Fawcett had been experiencing symptoms while she was caring for her mother in Texas for a few months. The matriarch died in 2005 at the age of 91.
“His mother was dying,” Stewart recalled. “And while she was there (in Texas) she started having some symptoms but she ignored them. She was taking care of her mom and that was her focus. But when she came back, Ryan said, ‘ You have to go to the doctor and get it checked.’ So he did. He did a colonoscopy and that’s when he found out.”
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Alana Stewart, left, heads The Farrah Fawcett Foundation, which was founded by her friend. (Getty Images)
“It’s part of our mission statement – awareness and prevention,” Stewart said. “It’s very important to catch things early. Maybe if she had listened to her body and gone to the doctor when she started having symptoms, maybe the outcome would have been different. It’s very easy to brush any symptoms aside because You think, ‘Oh, it’s not serious,’ or, ‘I’ll just deal with it next week, next month.'”
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“With cancer, early detection is everything,” Stewart stressed. “A lot of cancers are curable now if you catch them early. With Farrah, she already had stage 4. If she had done something about the symptoms earlier, she would be alive very well today “
Stewart said that during Fawcett’s cancer battle, she and O’Neal depended on each other for support.
Farrah Fawcett and Ryan O’Neal got back together in 2001. They remained together until his death in 2009. (Kevin Winter/Getty Images)
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“He was with her every moment,” Stewart said. “We didn’t want to admit that things weren’t looking good. I don’t think Farrah did either. She was determined to keep fighting. And we were going to be there for her. But I think There came a point where we all just looked at each other and knew she wasn’t going to get better.”
