This is far from a love story.
Tatum O’Neal has attributed her half-brother Redmond’s alarming transformation into a suspected criminal with devil horns tattooed on his head to years of “horrifying and cruel” mistreatment by their late father, Hollywood icon Ryan O’Neal.
The former child star offered her critical perspective after Redmond made a startling appearance with horns on his head in a California court, facing charges of attempted murder.
“He’s doing very poorly, honey, very poorly,” Tatum, 62, shared with the Daily Mail regarding her troubled half-brother, who is the sole child of Ryan O’Neal and Farrah Fawcett.
“I love Red dearly, but he’s gotten heavy. He never even began a real life,” she remarked.
Tatum ascribed Redmond’s problems to their notoriously dysfunctional upbringing, noting that her half-brother has “never changed.”
“It was always drugs, drugs, drugs,” stated the actress, who has also dealt with her own struggles 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 explained.
“It was horrifying and cruel.”
Tatum herself has battled drug addiction for much of her life, and she spoke to the Mail from a memory care facility in the San Fernando Valley, where she receives treatment following a stroke caused by a prescription drug overdose in 2020.
Ryan’s eldest son, Griffin, 61, who was estranged from his father, expressed to the paper that it’s remarkable that he and Tatum are still alive, given his own history of drug and alcohol addiction and numerous legal issues.
“Ryan was a raging narcissist, really crazy,” commented David Leit, who became Redmond’s 12-step program sponsor in 2001 when Redmond was 16.
“I liked Redmond. He could be funny and caring but he was also a punk, very angry with a real addict personality,” Leit noted.
In 2008, during a parole check on Redmond, Los Angeles police discovered meth in Ryan’s bedroom drawer, leading to the arrest of both father and son. Ryan later pleaded guilty to a lesser charge and entered a treatment program.
In a candid Vanity Fair interview in 2009, Ryan detailed his son’s struggles with drugs, revealing that Redmond had been to rehab 13 times, calling him “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,” Ryan told the magazine.
Fawcett succumbed to cancer in 2009. Redmond was seen in shackles at her bedside during her final moments and attended her funeral in chains. Ryan passed away in 2023, and neither Redmond, Tatum, nor Griffin attended the funeral.
In 2018, Redmond allegedly embarked on a violent spree across Los Angeles, attacking five men and robbing a 7-Eleven store. He is accused of causing serious injuries to two victims, including one who was stabbed in the face.
He faces charges of attempted murder, assault with a deadly weapon, making criminal threats, and battery, but the case has faced delays due to his diagnoses of schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and antisocial personality disorder.
He is currently held at Patton State Hospital in San Bernardino County, where he was committed in 2019 after being deemed mentally unfit to stand trial for attempted murder and drug charges.
