When Farrah Fawcett passed away after a long and ultimately unsuccessful battle with cancer, her son Redmond O’Neal was serving time for drug charges.

Farrah Fawcett funeralRyan O'Neal attends the funeral service for Farrah Fawcett at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels

Following his release in 2012, he’s finally spoken out about the death of his mother. "One minute she was alive and well, everything was good, and then bam! My dad was telling me she died... I was in jail at the time. I didn't even get to say 'bye to her,” explained O’Neal to U.S entertainment news show, Extra.

He also admitted that his mother didn’t know he was in jail, something he’s happy she didn’t have to process while living through her final weeks. “For the last four months she was living, I didn't even get to talk to her. She was bedridden, incapable of getting on the phone... The good thing is she didn't know I was in jail. My dad kept that from her."

For O’Neal, confused and alone in prison while the news sunk in, the news arriving on the same day as Michael Jackson’s death riled him. "It was in the paper, like front page. That was hard, too. I got all these inmates in the dorm, I was in reading this newspaper. She's on the front page, she and Michael Jackson... I remember, and I got mad 'cause Michael Jackson had a bigger page," he explained.

Ryan O'Neal has also spoken out about his pride that his son is fighting to stay clean. "I'm very proud of him. I know his mother was there for him and helped him jump some hurdles, and now I've got him and he's exactly what I wanted. There's a lot of his mother in him, so it's almost as if she's around."