Seems Like Elizabeth Taylor's Underground AIDS Drug Ring Was Perhaps Overhyped
In DepthLast week, Kathy Ireland went on Entertainment Tonight and spoke about her mentor Elizabeth Taylor’s activism on the issue of AIDS. It was packaged as a bombshell: Taylor ran a Dallas Buyers’ Club-style operation out of her Bel-Air home, getting experimental drugs to AIDS patients. Or did she?
Over at New York magazine’s Daily Intel, Walter Armstrong casts a skeptical eye upon on the (admittedly wonderful) story. Taylor’s tireless work in the fight against AIDS isn’t in question—Armstrong says she raised something like $270 million for the cause. But he talked to fellow activists from the era and he wasn’t the only one who thought this particular anecdote sounded off. For instance he spoke to Sally Morrison, who worked on amFAR’s PR, who said, “I don’t think Kathy Ireland’s story is true,” adding:
“I know that Elizabeth was very supportive of the work that Project Inform was doing with experimental AIDS drugs. She contributed to the organization as a private person. And she encouraged amfAR to include some experimental agents in our treatment information. But running a West Coast buyers club? That’s a bit of a stretch, isn’t it? But if she were alive today and you asked her, she would probably say, ‘I wish I had done that.’”
It’s hard to prove conclusively Taylor didn’t, but there’s not much evidence she did, either. Armstrong also spoke to Taylor’s longtime publicist, who said, “I have no knowledge at all about this.” Though she does remember “participating with her in a Lower East Side needle exchange program at a women’s shelter,” which is pretty badass.