Actress Sharon Stone wishes more men would "throw themselves" at her and ask her out, but she thinks they don't because most of them are intimidated by her "sexy" reputation.
The 57-year-old actress became one of the most desirable women in Hollywood with her performances in erotic thrillers "Basic Instinct" and "Sliver" in the 1990s and subsequent stellar big screen career, but she insists her reputation as a confident and sexy woman has actually harmed her love life.
"I wish more guys would throw themselves at me. But not really. I think people believe the story that I'm sexy, and now people are afraid of me. I think people so buy into whatever you tell them that they bought the myth, they bought the story.
"I think in reality I'm much more like the girl with the big clothes and the bag of books but people bought the story that I'm a sex symbol. So guys don't throw themselves at me, they run away from me," she told bangshowbiz.com.
Although Stone is still considered one of the movie industry's biggest sex symbols, the blonde star claims there was a time when directors refused to cast her in racy roles because they didn't think she could smoulder on screen and draw in male audiences.
Stone said: "It's funny because for the first part of my career I couldn't get a job because no one thought I was sexy... I wore all of these big, black clothes and these big glasses and all my books and stuff and people would be like, 'She's so not sexy.'
"Then finally this woman, the photo editor for Playboy, I told her, 'No one thinks I'm sexy. This is so stupid.' And she was like, 'Hef (Hugh Hefner) wants to put you in the magazine.' I'm like, 'In Playboy?'.
"That seemed to me like the most absurd thing I had ever heard, and then I realised, I'm going to starve to death, I can't pay my house payments, I don't know what to do, I can't get a job, this is ridiculous, maybe I should be in Playboy...
"I would do these black and white pictures where I wouldn't be naked on the bottom but I'd be naked on the top, and she would write the story, because she was my friend... I told people I was sexy, and then I got 'Basic Instinct' and now people think I'm sexy."
Stone has been unmarried since she divorced second husband Phil Bronstein in 2004. She has three adopted sons Roan, Laird and Quinn.