Ryan O’Neal: I still 'talk' to Farrah Fawcett

Farrah Fawcett

Feb. 2, 1947- June 29, 2009

Ryan O’Neal on Monday said he got permission from his dead lover, Farrah Fawcett, to discuss in a TV interview the legal battle he fought to win back an Andy Warhol silkscreen of her.

“I talked to her this morning about doing your show,” he told NBC’s “Today” show via satellite. “She said I could do it.”

O’Neal, wearing dark glasses and recovering from a skin-cancer procedure, described how he heard last week that a Los Angeles jury sided with him in the fight over the artwork with the University of Texas.

“My son Patrick called me from the courtroom,” he said. “He texted me. I was laying on the operating table. There was blood running down the side of my face and then there were tears running down the side of my face, mixing with the blood. It was a pretty amazing moment for me.”

The “Love Story” star said Warhol did two silkscreens of Fawcett and gave him one to keep. But the university said it belonged to Fawcett, who left all of her artwork to the university.

During the trial, O’Neal choked up on the witness stand and testified that he regularly spoke to the drawing. “I talk to it. I talk to her. It’s her presence in my life and her son’s life,” he said.

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