Kathleen Turner on The View

Yesterday we got some heat for saying that Kathleen Turner seemed drunk on “The Today Show.” Many of you pointed out that she has a debilitating disorder, rheumatoid arthritis, and that any head-bobbing or speech slurring we picked out could be due to the effects of her medical condition and/or the medications she takes to cope with the pain. She’s been very outspoken about both the chronic pain she has and the way she’s tried to cope by self medicating with alcohol, a subject she covers in her new biography. Some of you commented that she looked fine in the video and that you could see nothing wrong with her while others said that she did look drunk and they recognized the signs from their loved ones.

Today on The View she again seemed a bit out of it, but she got through the interview fine and clearly explained herself, talking about her book and her chronic illness. She said that “living with chronic pain everyday is like torture… and that really led to the discover that alcohol kills pain. And then of course it went to excess, and I was drinking too much.” She said that when she did the play The Graduate she called a meeting with the cast and told them that she would take a pill every day, which sounded like Antabuse, so that they knew she could not drink.

Barbara Walters did question her directly about whether she still drinks and she admitted to wine occasionally. The moment where Barbara asked her about her drinking is at 1:05 into the clip, and she said she has “none of these urges” where she felt the “need to completely escape.”

As for Nicholas Cage being miffed about what she wrote about him, she repeated the same thing she told Matt Lauer yesterday. She said “I’m very sorry to have caused him any discomfort. It was over 20-some years ago, so it certainly wasn’t my intention to harm, and I think that’s all I’m supposed to say about it.”

Turner’s book, “Send Yourself Roses,” is currently available through Amazon.com.