Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
The Schmooze

Oliver Stone’s Son Converts to Islam

In what sounds like a plot twist from one of his famous father’s films, 27-year-old Sean Stone — Oliver’s offspring — has reportedly converted to Islam on a trip to Iran.

According to the Tehran Times, the younger Stone, himself an aspiring director, underwent the conversion while attending the 30th Fajr International Film Festival, which ended Sunday. “Stone said he had become a Shia Muslim and had chosen the name Ali,” the paper said.

“The conversion to Islam is not abandoning Christianity or Judaism, which I was born with,” Stone fils told Agence France-Presse by phone from the Iranian city of Isfahan. “It means I have accepted Mohammad and other prophets.”

Sean — or Ali — has already shown a penchant for angering conservatives just like his father, according to the New York Daily News. In an interview last September, he drew criticism for remarks defending Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and that country’s right to build nuclear missiles.

“[Ahmadinejad] did come to America to extend a hand. And there’s a lot of mistranslation, literally, I’ve seen it. Ahmadinejad will say something and it will be mistranslated,” Stone said at the time. “A lot of this is bull—, mistranslation. It’s an aggressive attitude on both parts, mostly on the American side.”

There has yet to be any public reaction from Stone’s father, who is half-Jewish by birth and currently a Buddhist. Sean Stone’s mother is Christian, the Daily News said.

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse..

Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.