American Vogue: Winona talks about her busted shoplifting in 2001, blames act to painkillers

Winona finally surfaces after years of hiding. And she has this to say about her embarrassing theft at 90210's Saks's Fifth Avenue:
"I didn't have this tremendous sense of guilt, because I hadn't hurt anyone. Had I physically harmed someone or caused harm to a human being, I think it would have been an entirely different experience."

About the media and people's disbelief on the incident: "I never said a word. I didn't release a statement. I didn't do anything. I just waited for it to be over."

"The attention was what was embarrassing."

She says life wasn't a piece of cake before the stealing: "Two months prior to that, I broke my arm in two places, and the doctor, a sort of quack doctor, was giving me a lot of stuff and I was taking it at first to get through the pain. And then there was this weird point when you don't know if you are in pain but you're taking it."

[The] painkillers of the type she was on – such as Oxycodone, which should not be confused with OxyContin – left her in a state of "confusion," but that her arrest "in a very weird way, was a blessing, because I couldn't do that [painkillers] anymore."
People.com