Elizabeth Taylor’s life was dominated by wild rumors about her relationships, sexuality, and beyond. Taylor’s eight marriages, unconventional views (particularly for a woman of her time), celebrity friendships, and jet-set lifestyle gave the tabloids plenty of fodder. The actress would have been 84 today.
The media circus surrounding Taylor’s life hasn’t quieted one bit, as stories continue to surface (Colin Farrell’s relationship with the Cleopatra actress raised a few eyebrows in 2013). We’re looking at some of the craziest tales about Taylor — many of them unfounded, while other rumors remain in question. It’s a testament to the rich life she lived and the celebrity legacy she left behind.
According to a tell-all biography by Danforth Prince and Darwin Potter, Ronald Reagan (then 36 years old) allegedly invited a teenage Taylor to his home and seduced her. Taylor reportedly told a friend: “[Ronald] Reagan was treating me like a grown woman, and that thrilled me. We sat on his sofa and I could tell he wanted to get it on but he seemed reluctant to make the first move. I became the aggressor. . . . After a heavy make-out session on the sofa, we went into the bedroom.”
Taylor and Robert Stack
In the same unflattering book, the authors claimed that Taylor had a threesome with President John F. Kennedy and actor Robert Stack in a pool after a nude dip.
Kitty Kelley wrote the book His Way: The Unauthorized Biography of Frank Sinatra, claiming: “Elizabeth Taylor . . . toward the end of her unhappy marriage to Michael Wilding . . . found herself pregnant by Frank [Sinatra] and wanted to marry him. He arranged an abortion for her instead.”
Taylor, Michael Jackson, and Marlon Brando allegedly escaped New York City in a car after the September 11 attacks. Reportedly, they made it as far as Ohio. But Taylor’s representatives claim the story is false and that Taylor stayed in the city where she “went to a church to pray, and she went to an armory where people were who couldn’t get home or who’d stayed behind to look for the missing. She also went down to Ground Zero, where she met with first responders. Eventually, the airports opened and she flew home.”
Marilyn Monroe is at the center of several rumors about Taylor, including a tabloid story about Monroe’s bisexual flirtations that reportedly led to the actress seducing the National Velvet Star. And photographer Lawrence Schiller claims that Monroe did her famous nude photo shoot by a pool, because she was deeply jealous of Taylor and wanted to upstage her.
Katrina Longworth discussed the tryst Taylor reportedly had with National Velvet co-star Eddie Fisher following the death of Taylor’s third husband, Mike Todd, in an episode of her podcast You Must Remember This. But another story about the duo surfaced in the book The Life And Times Of Mickey Rooney:
Mickey Rooney’s ex-wife has alleged that the actor had sex with Elizabeth Taylor when the actress was just 14-years-old, and he was 26-years-old. A friend of Betty Jane Baker, who was married to Mickey Rooney between 1944 and 1949, made the claim in a new book entitled, The Life And Times Of Mickey Rooney. The book insists that Elizabeth Taylor and Mickey Rooney had an affair while the latter was married, which Betty Jane learnt of when she was pregnant and walked in on the pair engaged in a sex act.
Taylor was married eight times to seven men (twice to Richard Burton), but rumors about an eighth man were constantly swirling. One such gentleman was Mexican lawyer Victory Gonzalez Luna, whose daughter Irma claimed was a sure thing. NBC writes:
In 1983, the BBC shot this video of Elizabeth Taylor and the man we all thought would be hubby No. 8, Victor Gonzalez Luna. The engagement never got to the marriage stage though. At the time, Taylor was in Philadelphia’s Forrest Theatre, reuniting on stage with her most famous ex, Richard Burton for ‘Private Lives.’ Ironically, they played a divorced couple who each remarry and then run into each other on their honeymoons.
Bowie and Taylor? “Although an ageing Elizabeth Taylor — 15 years his senior — was rumoured to be one of Bowie’s most famous conquests, [author Wendy] Leigh merely describes their relationship as ‘an amorous friendship,'” says the Daily Mail. And let’s not forget that amazing photo shoot with the duo.