[3.15] gh-81241: Fix importing ctypes from statically linked interpreters (GH-153890)

Doc/library/ctypes.rst

@@ -1704,6 +1704,10 @@ These prefabricated library loaders are available:
       :c:expr:`int`, which is of course not always the truth, so you have to assign
       the correct :attr:`!restype` attribute to use these functions.
 
+      .. note::
+
+         If the Python interpreter is statically linked, this may be ``None``.
+
 .. audit-event:: ctypes.dlopen name ctypes.LibraryLoader
 
    Loading a library through any of these objects raises an

Lib/ctypes/__init__.py

@@ -553,7 +553,10 @@ def LoadLibrary(self, name):
     # These are Unix-like platforms which use a dynamically-linked libpython.
     pythonapi = PyDLL(_sysconfig.get_config_var("LDLIBRARY"))
 else:
-    pythonapi = PyDLL(None)
+    try:
+        pythonapi = PyDLL(None)
+    except OSError:
+        pythonapi = None
 
 
 if _os.name == "nt":

Misc/NEWS.d/next/Library/2026-07-18-04-09-44.gh-issue-81241.gGRbBr.rst

@@ -0,0 +1,2 @@
+Fix :exc:`OSError` when importing :mod:`ctypes` from a statically linked
+interpreter.