Tatum's Terrible Childhood

Tatum O'neal hates to recall her childhood because she was the most miserable little girl.

While the public saw her as a young OSCAR-winner with money, talent, fame and celebrities for parents - Ryan O'Neal and JOANNA COOK MOORE, the Paper Moon star was a hellraiser in desperate need of love, attention and supervision.

O'Neal, who has just detailed her terrible upbringing in new book A PAPER life, admits no one saw the abuse she and her brother GRIFFIN had to endure as their young lives spiralled out of control.

She says, "When I was a little girl, what people didn't know about me was I was really lonely, I needed a lot of love and that I probably didn't get that much.

"My mother was on speed. My mother was beating us, her boyfriend was beating us, we were getting sexually abused. I was running away every day. I wasn't in school. I was a tiny little girl who needed to be supervised, who wasn't being supervised.

"I would just be running around, drinking everyone's alcohol and fell asleep on the bathroom floor, probably in my own vomit."