Excerpts from Larry King’s Interview with Elizabeth Taylor

Larry King: Where did your friendship with Michael begin?

Elizabeth Taylor: I went to his concert. It was in a stadium. But I couldn’t see anything. I had brought 30 people with me. But even then we couldn’t hear anything. So we went home, so we could watch it on television. And Michael had heard that I hadn’t come there and had left. The next day he called me, and it was like he was about to cry, because he’d heard that I had left there angrily. But I didn’t do that—I just couldn’t see anything.

And then we talked on the phone for three hours. And after that we talked more and more. Then we met each other. And we spent more and more time together. We became really good friends. We told each other everything.

Larry King: Why do you love him so much?

Elizabeth Taylor: We’re very similar.

Larry King: Really?

Elizabeth Taylor: Yes. We both had terrible childhoods. Well, when you start working at age 9, that’s not childhood anymore. He started at age 3. And that definitely isn’t childhood.

Larry King: Have you talked to him recently?

Elizabeth Taylor: Yes, I did. I talked to him.

Larry King: How is he? Where is he?

Elizabeth Taylor: He seems very happy.

Larry King: Where is he?

Elizabeth Taylor: When I spoke with him, I think he was in London.

Larry King: But recently you were in Tokyo. Then he went to London.

Elizabeth Taylor: Yes.

Larry King: But he lives in Bahrain?

Elizabeth Taylor: That’s right.

Larry King: What did you think about his accusations?

Elizabeth Taylor: I’ve never been this angry about anything in my life.

Larry King: But Elizabeth, I’m sorry, Mrs. Elizabeth—don’t you think it’s strange to people that a man in his forties spends the night with children? I mean, just the appearance of the matter.

Elizabeth Taylor: That’s fine. I’ll give you my answer. Because I was there myself. When my nieces and nephews were there, and we were all in bed watching cartoons. Nothing was unusual. We were laughing like kids. Nothing bad happened.

Larry King: So you think they wanted to trap Michael somehow?

Elizabeth Taylor: Yes, I think so. It seems to me that the paparazzi started this whole thing. Not the paparazzi— the press.

Larry King: Do you think he’ll start his work again?

Elizabeth Taylor: I don’t think so. Unless in Europe.

Larry King: Don’t you think he’ll come back to the United States to live?

Elizabeth Taylor: Well, why would he do something like that? Here they treated him like trash.