Tatum O'Neal, 44, has been arrested in New York after allegedly buying crack cocaine.

Oscar-winning actress was seen purchasing the drug from a dealer in the Lower East Side district of the city, police said.

It is alleged that O'Neal asked approaching police officers: "Do you know who I am?"

She is then said to have claimed to be researching a role for a movie.

 

Tatum O'Neal has been given a misdemeanour charge of criminal possession of a controlled substance and will be arraigned at court on Monday.

The suspected dealer, named as Alan Garcia, 33, was also arrested and thought to have spent the night in custody.

O'Neal, who won an best supporting actress Oscar when she was only ten for her role in 1973's Paper Moon, chronicled her battles with substance abuse in her memoir A Paper Life. She completed a rehab course in 1996.

The former wife of John McEnroe had claimed that addiction was in her DNA as her mother, the late actress Joanna Moore, was an amphetamine-abusing alcoholic.