Before his death, Ryan O’Neal called Farrah Fawcett his “forever Valentine.”
O’Neal died Friday, his son Patrick O’Neal announced on Instagram. He was 82 years old.
Fawcett and O’Neal began dating in 1979 and were involved in an on-again, off-again relationship. Their son, Redmond O’Neal, was born in 1985.
The couple never married, but their passionate love affair kept them together for 17 years until they broke up in 1997. At the time of their separation, the two lived in different homes, but not separate lives. After the divorce, the two raised their son together.
They reconnected after Love story the star was diagnosed with leukemia in 2001. O’Neal stayed by Fawcett’s side after she was diagnosed with anal cancer until her death at age 62 in 2009.
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Ryan O’Neal and Farrah Fawcett.
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Ryan O’Neal, Oscar nominee Love story Old, died at 82
“I loved her with all my heart,” O’Neal told PEOPLE after her death. “I will miss him very, very much.”
O’Neal exclusively told PEOPLE 10 years after her death, that “there was never a day” he “didn’t love her.”
Fawcett and O’Neal fell in love while she was still married to The Six Million Dollar Man star Lee Majors. The actor asked O’Neal to check on his wife while he was filming; O’Neal and Fawcett went on a date, which he described Los Angeles Times: “We sat and kissed and kissed until our lips were bloody.”
“I was so consumed by this mental and physical attraction to him that I didn’t think about anything but what was going on,” Fawcett later said. LIFE magazine.
O’Neal shared with New York Daily News, “I’ve lost interest in almost everything except this woman. For the first time in his life, something took precedence over himself.”
Fawcett then embarked on a “spontaneous” and “volatile” romance with the “love of her life”. The former couple would go on to have an incredible feud that O’Neal detailed in his 2012 memoir. Both of Us: My Life with Farrah. He said that in the middle of a violent episode, their son, six years old at the time, allegedly threatened to injure himself with a butcher’s knife if they did not stop fighting.
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Ryan O’Neal and Farrah Fawcett at the New York premiere of “Chances Are” circa 1989.
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Ryan O’Neal took a picture with his daughter Tatum O’Neal to mark her 82nd birthday 7 months before his death
“Ryan is the most honest person I know,” Fawcett told PEOPLE in 1981. “He helped me be more independent by being the biggest ego booster I’ve ever had. I think our personalities are a good match.”
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Ryan O’Neal and Farrah Fawcett in “Small Sacrifices.”.
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New Farrah Fawcett special explores her ‘magical’ romance with Ryan O’Neal 10 years after her death
Fawcett’s close friends and colleagues noted how special the couple’s love affair was.
“Ryan was the love of her life. I don’t think she was happy without him. They fought and loved with passion. It was never boring. They were tight together,” said Fawcett’s close friend Sylvia Dorsey.
“You saw them together, they looked hot as a pie,” Nancy Collins shared in This is Farrah Fawcett special. “You could feel the steam coming out of them.”
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Ryan O’Neal and Farrah Fawcett on October 30.
John Roca/NY Daily News Archives via Getty
Fawcett’s friend Mela Murphy recalled O’Neal sleeping in the crib next to her at St. Mary’s Medical Center. John in Los Angeles during her final days.
In the days before her death, O’Neal proposed, Fawcett’s close friend Alana Stewart told PEOPLE in 2019.
“I think they would have gotten married if she had made it because he proposed to her in the hospital and she agreed. But it got worse,” Stewart said at the time. “This was only a few weeks before the end, so maybe it wasn’t real. The two of them had a deep connection and a deep love. No matter what they went through, the ups and downs, he was the one her side wanted.”
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Ryan O’Neal and Farrah Fawcett in “Small Sacrifices.”.
ABC Photo Archives/Disney General Entertainment Content via Getty
Recently, O’Neal shared a photo of Fawcett’s star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on Valentine’s Day. In an Instagram post, he wrote, “My Forever Valentine… 🌹.”
O’Neal is survived by Redmond; his two children with Joanna More, Tatum and Griffin; and his son Patrick, whom he shared with Leigh Taylor-Young.
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Source: HIS Education