Sharon Stone feels like her ''entire DNA changed'' after suffering a brain haemorrhage in 2001.

The 57-year-old actress admits it took her years to fully recover from the medical emergency and she is still feeling the effects of brain damage.

The 'Casino' star said: ''It almost feels like my entire DNA changed. My brain isn't sitting where it used to, my body type changed, and even my food allergies are different.''

But the blonde beauty, who once feared she would never be able to read or speak again, believes the experience taught her a lot.

She told the September issue of Harper's Bazaar magazine: ''I became more emotionally intelligent. I chose to work very hard to open up other parts of my mind. Now I'm stronger. And I can be abrasively direct. That scares people, but I think that's not my problem. It's like, I have brain damage; you'll just have to deal with it.''

Despite being confident enough to pose nude for the publication, Sharon thinks her butt ''looks like a bag of flapjacks.''

She added: ''But I'm not trying to be the best-looking broad in the world. At a certain point you start asking yourself, 'What really is sexy?' It's not just the elevation of your boobs. It's being present and having fun and liking yourself enough to like the person that's with you. If I believed that sexy was trying to be who I was when I did 'Basic Instinct,' then we'd all be having a hard day today.''