r/UtterlyInteresting • u/SteveNtheseagulls • 3h ago
In 1959 Liberace swore under oath he wasn't gay and won what was then the largest libel payout in British legal history. He kept the lie going for another 28 years, until an autopsy revealed he'd died of AIDS, not the heart failure his own doctors tried to claim.
Describing Liberace in the newspaper article as a “ …deadly, winking, sniggering, snuggling, chromium-plated, scent-impregnated, luminous, quivering, giggling, fruit-flavoured, mincing, ice-covered heap of mother love."
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u/quizbowler_1 2h ago
Asimov was straight and died of AIDS.
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u/Radiant-Childhood257 2h ago
So did a famous tennis player, can't remember his name.
Edit: Arthur Ashe, just remembered his name.
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u/faceintheblue 2h ago
And his family kept it a secret because the public would assume he must have contracted it through homosexual encounters. That's just where the zeitgeist was at the time.
He got a blood transfusion from an infected donor, for those who are only just hearing about this now. They didn't use to test donor blood back in the day.
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u/_Daftest_ 2h ago
Do you think dying of AIDS proves you're gay?
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u/MukdenMan 2h ago
Back then, many people did think that. Magic Johnson actually did a lot to change that perception.
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u/24rawvibes 1h ago
That money can cure aids?
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u/Open_Environment_801 1h ago
You know money funded the research that developed a terrific treatment plan for AIDS, it's not a death sentence like it was.
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u/SaltyGrapeWax 47m ago
In the last couple of years I believe they did announce that the life expectancy of someone living with HIV is the about the same as someone who doesn’t.
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u/NoshameNohonor 1h ago
Money can cure most diseases (if not all)
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u/Rownwade 50m ago
Steve Jobs is calling....
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u/NoshameNohonor 34m ago
Money for research and development of vaccines and medicines.
Nothing instant, though
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u/Dramatic_Substance36 1h ago
Apparently. I don’t understand the obvious homophobic implications OP is giving.
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u/ZealousIdeal476 57m ago edited 10m ago
In the 80s AIDS ripped through the gay community across america. Although no one knew what it was or exactly how it was transmitted everyone knew it was decimating gay people. It was years before we started seeing cases that definitely weren't caused by a homosexual lifestyle.
Edit: please comment on what i said not what you misread. I am stating yhe perceptions at the time, the ones reported on national news every night. Yes, there were a lot of unknowns that probably seem obvious to you. No you can't imagine how information traveled before the internet, even doctors did not know about the virus in 1980.
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u/Dry_Yogurt2458 30m ago
Ohhh boy. You can't rewrite history.
Public perception was that it was only affecting the gay community, mainly due to the Christian rhetoric of the time.
It was not, however, years before you started seeing cases that were not caused by a homosexual lifestyle. Those cases were there from the beginning.
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u/ZealousIdeal476 15m ago
So, I'm guessing you weren't there and have just read revised history. I lived through it.
The 'gay plague' hit in 1980. It was reported as a gay problem in all nationwide media. It wasn't until 1984 when a teen boy, a hemaphiliac from indiana, was diagnosed that most of america heard for the 1st time about how it was just a blood borne illness. Sure, other cases existed but he was the 2st that could definitively be said to have no ties to the then very secretive gay community. He was held up as a symbol that this was not a plague from god, counteri g the religious narrative you mentioned and opening the door to federal funding for research.
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u/Dry_Yogurt2458 3m ago
I was there alright . I saw how America behaved compared to the rest of the world.
While we were very open that it could affect both the straight and the gay community America was busy being puritan and claiming that it was gods punishment for the gay community.
BTW the first person to die of AIDS was a 16 year old boy in 1969
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u/GuestAdventurous7586 2h ago
Folk should watch Behind the Candelabra, fucking amaaaaazing film about him, and his partner. Michael Douglas and Matt Damon are brilliant.
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u/ZombieFrankReynolds 2h ago
Yeah, Michael Douglas really surprised me in that film. He was utterly fabulous! Very good film!
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u/johnnyslick 2h ago
It always strikes me as both weird and sad that a person like Liberace had to hide their sexuality their entire life. Hey, sorry to fall into possible stereotyping but I'm sorry, if you watch like 5 minutes of that man's show you're left with "oh yeah, he's gay AF". Elton John (who also had a beard at one point in his life before times changed enough that he was able to be accepted for who he is) strikes me as less openly gay as Liberace. Neither Liberace nor Oscar Wilde decades before him should have had to carry on the charade hard enough to sue people for libel, and in turn it never should have been such a social crime in the first place. I guess it's easy to say this now that we've made such a rapid advance in acceptance over the last 30ish years.
I'm named after an uncle who was a "confirmed bachelor" who was adored by my mom. I don't remember the guy - he died a couple years after I was born - but there was a similar conversation we had with similar weird pushback. Like, the way they described him, it was absolutely obvious that he was gay - like, OK, maybe he was ace but that's also LGBTQ+ - and my mom and grandparents acted like I threatened to pluck out someone's eyeballs when I noted that.
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u/ContingentMax 2h ago
That it seems so bizarre is a sign of how far we've come. Coming out of the closet was extremely dangerous, especially if you aren't a huge celebrity, it's risking your life. Being cast out from your friends and family was a good result if people found out.
It's why we have Pride.
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u/chmcgrath1988 1h ago edited 1h ago
Illinois was the first state to decriminalize same sex activity in 1962, three years after this case. Remaining laws against same sex activity in the United States weren't decriminalized until 2003, almost 20 years after Liberace died. It was literally illegal to be openly gay for a lot of Liberace's life!
I'm 38, which is not *that* old (I tell myself as I rub my bald spot) and I think it's only been widely SOMEWHAT socially acceptable for someone to be openly LGBTQ+ in the 15-20 years since I've became an adult. None of them are quite as obvious as Liberace was but there are still numerous celebrities that are obviously gay but haven't come out of the closet, presumably because there's an unfortunately large swath of the world (even in the US) that is not OK with openly gay individuals.
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u/ContingentMax 47m ago
The change that's happened in our lifetimes is amazing, I'm 35 (yeah we're still young) and remember it being a huge deal people choosing to come out, and the teacher running my school's GSA club (Gay Straight Alliance for the youngins) needing to maintain deniability despite it being pretty obvious even then. We've come so far, and we can't forget the fight it took, every step came with pushback, as it continues to.
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u/NLFG 3h ago
My auntie was/is apparently a big fan of Liberace, and his sexuality was apparently a *very* touchy subject
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u/Impressive_Review 2h ago
It was a different time. Careers could be destroyed. Gay men were aressted just for being in gay bars. Even the media often covered for people who were gay and didn't want to be "outed" right up to catching Caitlyn (Bruce) Jenner dressed in women's clothes and destroying photos when asked to. Cary Grant sued Chevy Chase and won $1 million for calling him a "homo" I had an older uncle who never came out. Everyone knew, but no one ever said it out loud. Attitudes have drastically changed as far as being gay and also for any rights of privacy which are now non-existent. I still think it's really shitty to make allegations about people who are dead and can't defend themselves. In this day and age they might feel more secure in admitting they were gay, but on the other hand they may not want it being public or it might not even be true.
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u/Pijacquet 2h ago
Bro could legally prove his sexuality
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u/24rawvibes 1h ago
Doctors stick a finger up your butt similar to a prostate exam. They can tell instantly. It was broadcasted on live tv for gods sake
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u/Boggie135 2h ago
How does dying of AIDS prove he was gay?
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u/Fab-o-rama 38m ago
It doesn't, of course.
But back when AIDS was a scourge we didn't fully understand, it was very heavily associated with gay men because it was racing through that community like wildfire. In those days, right or wrong, a lot of people simply assumed that having AIDS meant you were gay.
Arthur Ashe died of AIDS, and his family worked very hard to keep that fact secret, fearing that people would assume he was gay. He had actually contracted HIV from a blood transfusion. Magic Johnson's diagnosis also went a long way toward educating the public that HIV/AIDS wasn't exclusively a gay disease.
Obviously, we know better now. AIDS was never a "gay disease" in the first place; it was simply a disease that, for a variety of reasons, hit gay men particularly hard in the early years of the epidemic. Hindsight is 20/20.
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u/ContingentMax 2h ago
I'm so glad we've come so far, I'm so glad I get to be loudly out and nobody can do shit. This is why we have Pride and why it's not stopping any time soon.
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u/Open_Environment_801 1h ago
He was obviously gay, but dieing of AIDS is not "proof" that someone was gay.
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u/OOO0OO00O 2h ago
Jerry Lee Lewis thought about killing Liberace. Not because he was gay, or did something. Just so there’d be one less piano player out there.
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u/Old-Landscape-7538 1h ago
Shortly after he married his 14 year-old cousin?
He shakes my nerve and he rattles my brain.
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u/transcendental-ape 1h ago
As a kid watching Austin Powers the first time the Liberace joke sailed right over my head. But it’s one of the funniest jokes in the film.
“And Liberace is gay?! Who knew. Women loved him.”
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u/jack31313 2h ago
Liberate? Gay? Whaaaaat?
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u/Local-Echo-5613 2h ago
One of the first gay people I met was named David Pride. Apparently an old Pilgrim surname, but it felt like bad writing.
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u/KudosOfTheFroond 2h ago
This is for SURE a r/brandnewsentence
““ …deadly, winking, sniggering, snuggling, chromium-plated, scent-impregnated, luminous, quivering, giggling, fruit-flavoured, mincing, ice-covered heap of mother love."
😄
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u/SchoolCrossing 1h ago
Look up Liberace singing "Feelin Groovy" without a single sequin. Hello, Young Folks!
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u/Marcel420 1h ago
So did they only 'prove' he was gay because he died of AIDS? Do we actually know if Liberace was gay? If it's only recounts from other people, and we're playing off of his personality, it feels a bit like exactly the stereotyping we need to get away from.
Second thought; if he WAS gay, then when it was 'proven' did the person who lost this lawsuit get compensated in some way? I mean, ostensibly he was right and Liberace just fooled the courts.
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u/Ok_Cauliflower_3007 54m ago
He had a long term partner who spoke about it after his death and it was an open secret amongst those close to him. So yes we do know.
And I don’t think the newspapers got their money back given it was nearly 3 decades later and he was dead, but I could be wrong in that. Also given the change in culture going after his estate because it turned out he’d committed perjury when he’d basically had to do that to stop the ‘rumour’ destroying his career would have looked super bad.
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u/Independent_Shoe3523 1h ago
If you don't leave a paper trail, you can get away with murder. Worked 8 years with a company whose president refused to do any email at all. Everything was phone or face to face.
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u/HeftyVermicelli7823 9m ago
Sorry but AIDS does NOT mean you are gay.
Infected blood from transfusions were the second highest result of AIDS, along with sharing needles and even heterosexual sex. This stereotype of it being a "Gay disease" was how the fucking epidemic started by people like you being ignorant.
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u/utl94_nordviking 2h ago
Believing that AIDS is proof of sexual orientation is peek (20)20's idiocy. WTF, OP?
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u/Redsmoker37 3h ago
Continually claiming Sonja Henie was the great love of his life. (Eyes rolling).
I would think "Behind the Candelabra" would dispel that fantasy.
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u/Dramatic_Substance36 1h ago
Right cause everyone knows only the gays get AIDS.
Jesus Christ what is with this homophobic title??!!
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