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the seven husbands of elizabeth taylor · gasp! the pod

0:00
Let's remember biggest allies are usually gay.
0:13
Welcome back everyone to GASP the Pod, the podcast for the
0:18
gays, the girls, and especially the gay girls.
0:22
And special shout out to bisexuals this week.
0:24
As a bisexual, this is Bisexual Visibility Day.
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And listen, hot take. I feel like bisexuals with
0:34
boyfriends have had a lot of visibility this year.
0:36
So shout out bisexuals with girlfriends because everyone
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forgets we exist. For real.
0:42
Let's get into it in a little over a week.
0:44
Taylor Swift. We all know her.
0:46
You guys know her. We'll release her 12th album,
0:48
The Life of a Showgirl. One of the unheard tracks is
0:53
called Elizabeth Taylor. We know there's always a reason
0:56
that Taylor Swift does pretty much anything, so why is she
1:01
writing a song about Elizabeth Taylor?
1:02
Of course, we haven't heard it yet, but we know it's about or
1:06
referencing Elizabeth Taylor. So pretty good jumping off
1:08
point, right? Is Taylor inspired by
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Elizabeth's long, dazzling Hollywood career?
1:13
Is she enamored by photos of her Violet eyes?
1:16
That's why I'm wearing purple today.
1:18
Is she intrigued by Elizabeth's infamous list of husbands, 7
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specifically, might I add? And does she relate to how
1:26
America and the world used Elizabeth's love life as their
1:31
own entertainment? Today we're diving into the life
1:34
of Elizabeth Taylor. We're talking about her
1:36
enchanting career, her stardom, all seven of her husband's, the
1:41
theory that she inspired the seven husbands of Beth and Hugo,
1:44
and how all of this connects back to Taylor Swift's life and
1:47
experience with fame. And of course, the upcoming
1:51
album Life of a Showgirl was the real Elizabeth Taylor.
1:55
As she said in her own words, quote, one version of me is
2:00
flesh and blood and one is cellophane.
2:03
Before we get into that and before we get into Elizabeth
2:05
Taylor's life and career housekeeping stuff, please
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So today I'm shouting out my my #1 Gasper.
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Jenna D Thank you so much for listening and subscribing.
4:06
All right, let's talk about Elizabeth Taylor because I feel
4:09
like Elizabeth Taylor is one of those like iconic Hollywood
4:13
household names that we all like reference, but we don't know
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much like really about at least that was my experience.
4:20
I feel like of course, everyone knows Elizabeth Taylor, like
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Richard Burton, Elizabeth Taylor, and I feel like that's
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kind of where the story ends for people.
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But I've learned so much. And again, this is one of those
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moments where thank you, Taylor Swift, for like making me dive
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into certain people that I don't think I would have at least like
4:40
this much of A deep dive because there's the stories that we hear
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from Hollywood and then there's the truth about people.
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Sometimes those things are the same thing.
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A lot of the times it's not. So First off, let's just start
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out with Elizabeth Taylor, the icon, what the world knows about
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her, right? She was born in 1932, lucky
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number 32 for me, and died in 2011.
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She was a Pisces, which I feel like makes sense.
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And she was an English American actress and activist.
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She was a child star in the 40s. So like she really got into the
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industry pretty young and had her like peak fame in the 50s
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and 60s, but of course was an icon for her entire life.
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And now like she's one of those like icons that's like real true
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Hollywood, like just the Hollywood Elizabeth Taylor, same
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thing, right? The Elizabeth Taylor biography
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website has a lot of really interesting information about
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her and does more than just like states facts, but actually like
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talks about her feelings as well, which is really
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interesting. So I would go check out that
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website. But here's one of the quotes
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about her career from the biography website quote.
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With striking beauty and undeniable talent, Elizabeth
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Taylor captivated audiences as a precocious child actor.
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Precocious, an unforgettable leading lady, she played
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legendary female characters who embodied strength, integrity,
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and unapologetic femininity. Her career, which spanned 6
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decades, earned her 5 Oscar nominations and two Best Actress
6:13
wins. Who's best Actress wins from the
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Academy was Best Actress for Butterfield 8.
6:19
And who's afraid of Virginia Woolf?
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If you're a Swifty, as I'm sure most of you are, that's going to
6:25
seem relevant to you, right? We'll get into that later.
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Another quote From the mid 1980s until her death, Elizabeth's
6:32
greatest role was that of activist and a society paralyzed
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by fear. She used her fame to shine a
6:38
light on the injustices and ignorance surrounding the HIV
6:41
AIDS epidemic, which is so iconic and important for that
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time for someone that big to talk about this.
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She Co founded amfar and founded the Elizabeth Taylor AIDS
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Foundation, receiving many awards for her advocacy
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including the Presidential Citizens Medal slide.
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And in 2000, Queen Elizabeth the Second named her a Dame
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Commander of the Order of the British Empire.
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I don't know what the fuck that means but it sounds important.
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I'm sure everyone's heard of amfar.
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Like that was literally Co founded by Elizabeth Taylor like
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truly an icon. All right, final quote.
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Throughout her life, Elizabeth possessed an abiding will to
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survive in the face of personal tragedy, which we'll get into as
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well in an extraordinary capacity for love.
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She was married 8 times to seven men iconic.
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And her greatest joy in life was her family and four children, 10
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grandchildren and four great grandchildren.
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Pretty iconic long list of accolades.
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Super famous, amazing actress, activist, mother, grandmother,
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etcetera. How did the world see Elizabeth
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Taylor because the actual woman, the person is not always
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reflected in how Hollywood presents someone and how the
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world receives a person. And that's kind of something
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that's like at the basis of my podcast is pretty much like
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exploring the real like thoughts and feelings behind like
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stardom. I think that's one of the most
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interesting aspects of pop culture and not a lot of people
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like necessarily recognize that the, you know, facade is maybe
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different than the person, pretty basic concept.
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But that's what's so interesting about pop culture in Hollywood.
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Like they make money off of this image and what they like sell a
8:29
person to be. It's like a real life fairy
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tale, a real life movie. She, throughout her life, was
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really known as a sex icon and like, the center of global
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scandals. At one point, the Pope actually
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commentated on her relationship scandal.
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That's how much this was taking over the world, right?
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She was the star of Cleopatra. That's also very relevant to
8:52
Taylor Swift's photo shoot for upcoming album.
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She was this film star. She was this captivating actress
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and very iconically and very notably, she actually was a
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Violet eyed beauty. Her eyes were actually Violet.
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They looked Violet in certain lighting, just like mysterious
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beauty, talented icon we're talking about, right?
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I feel like you guys kind of get a sense now of who Elizabeth
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Taylor was as is presented by Hollywood and the world of
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entertainment. She was like she always she
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wanted to be an actress, right? The issue with being an actress
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at the time and also kind of now is you have to be gorgeous.
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You have to be pretty to be an actress.
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But at the same time, once you get into that door, you're then
9:39
only viewed as your beauty. And so her talent I feel like is
9:43
really kind of looked over and she's just kind of like, Oh my
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God, icon, amazing, beautiful. It's like she was a talented
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actress. That's why she became famous.
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That was her business. That was her craft.
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Let's go and tell Elizabeth Taylor, the person who was
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Elizabeth Taylor, the real woman, right?
10:02
Because all of that information, we don't really know who she
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really is with that information. So what's really kind of amazing
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and honestly haunting about Elizabeth Taylor is that she
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actually did a very long taped interview in 1964 by journalist
10:18
Richard Merriman. This is 40 hours of interviews
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and she was 32 at the time. So this is in 1964, and some of
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them were in 1965. These tapes were made for
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biography, but it was never made.
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When did we get access to these tapes?
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Literally in fucking 2024, which is pretty fucking iconic.
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These tapes were stored in the journalist's attic and then they
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were found. If you guys haven't read 7
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Husbands of Evan Hugo, I'm probably going to give away a
10:47
lot of information over the course of this episode.
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So I don't know, either read it, come back to this episode or
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just you know, this is will be a teaser for the book.
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This is very similar to the seven husbands of Ebony Hugo.
11:00
There was like a taped interview of Evelyn Hugo.
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Now it's different because that was at the end of Evelyn's life,
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but this is kind of this is really interesting that we have
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her own words talking about her life in a very like candid way.
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Not in the, you know, she's not trying to pitch herself as a
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Hollywood icon. She's being truthful and dig it
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back. These actually were reclaimed in
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like 2019. But regardless, this is all
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actually after this is 7 husbands of Bethen Hugo was
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released, which is kind of ironic that after this happened,
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there's still more details like pointing to how similar the
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character Reverend Hugo and Elizabeth Taylor are.
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In this interview, the reporter asks, quote, what do you think
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your image is? And Taylor says, quote,
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completely Elizabeth Taylor, completely superficial, immoral.
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There's the person that my family knows and the other
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Elizabeth Taylor. The commodity 1 is flesh and
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blood and the other is cellophane.
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That gave me chills when I first read it because this is
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something that really only a woman at this peak of fame can
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understand and something that Taylor's and a lot of other
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people have talked about and Taylor Swift has talked about of
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how she has to split herself into.
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There's two of you. There's one, the one for the
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public eye and there's the other.
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There's the real woman. And it's just so crazy that then
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we get this actual quote of her, and no one knew it until the
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2000s. Elizabeth Taylor was thrown into
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the industry very young. She was thrown into it at age
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10. And she actually did want to be
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an actress. So she wasn't forced to do this
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against her will. But obviously, you know, pushed
12:49
around by the industry and abused for sure.
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She was very quickly treated as a woman when she was a child and
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sexualized by the industry, but at the same time was expected to
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be pure. Hollywood and America and the
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world expected this young girl to be pure in the face of
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everyone sexualizing her. It's a very interesting dynamic
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that women and famous women have to go through.
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You have to be OK with other people putting sexual like
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viewing you in a really sexual grown up way.
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But at the same time you have to be like poison yourself as like
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a Christian virgin. She was also under a long MGM
13:30
contract that restricted and confined her.
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This is very similar to a lot of stars at the time.
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And we can see this today with, like Taylor Swift being under a
13:38
contract that like, didn't allow her to have as much creative
13:43
control as she wanted and also didn't give her as much like,
13:47
monetary benefit. The real Elizabeth Taylor also
13:50
converted to Judaism. She faced tragedy of the death
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of one of her husband's at one point, which was a plane crash.
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Super, super scarring. And of course, you don't see any
14:01
of this on the outside. This is who the real woman is.
14:05
One of the Oscars, the first Oscar that she won for
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Butterfield 8. She hated the movie.
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It's just so fascinating, like hearing about the truth of this
14:16
person versus the outside. You have to be like gracious and
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be like, Oh my God, I won an Oscar for this movie.
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Meanwhile, she hated it. The reason why she hated it, and
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this is from the Elizabeth Taylor biography website, is
14:28
quote. The film played an insidious
14:30
part in the defamation of Elizabeth's public image as her
14:34
character engaged in two love triangles, painting her yet
14:37
again as the irresistible homemaker the world already
14:40
believed her to be due to the scandal that arose from her
14:43
relationship with Eddie Fisher. And she's forced to do this
14:46
movie like she didn't choose to do this movie.
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At one point, she almost died from pneumonia.
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She also faced addiction and checked herself into a rehab
14:54
facility. And, you know, a lot of women
14:56
stars around the 40s, fifties, 60s, they were like, forced to
15:02
take drugs and methamphetamines. Like, that's a huge part of Judy
15:06
Garland's story. And just so they can work harder
15:10
and harder. Like, it's crazy how much
15:12
Hollywood has fucked up women in the industry.
15:16
And you don't see any of it. But I don't know why people
15:19
think that like all of a sudden they would just stop.
15:22
It hasn't gone from this bad to just perfect.
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OK, There is still elements of this type of abuse in Hollywood
15:29
today. Reelizabeth Taylor was a mother
15:31
and grandmother and she loved acting.
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She wanted to be an actress and she this was her dream.
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He was also perfume developer. She created one of the most
15:39
successful perfume lines. She was also a businesswoman.
15:43
She wasn't just like this pretty girl that like other people used
15:47
to make money. She was also the brains behind a
15:50
lot of these projects as well. She negotiated her Cleopatra
15:53
contract and she actually at this point negotiated a $1
15:58
million upfront salary at this point is unheard of.
16:03
And she knows that her image and her being in the movie is going
16:07
to make everyone else money. She's using this as leverage.
16:11
What does this sound like? Like, I'm sorry, I just have to
16:13
bring everything back to Taylor Swift because women in this
16:17
industry are not usually negotiating their contracts and
16:21
using this to benefit them. Because it was really difficult
16:24
to. And Elizabeth Taylor really was
16:26
like the first person to really do this.
16:29
At the point that she made this $1 million deal, it made her the
16:33
highest paying actor in history up to this point, man or woman,
16:39
insane icon. But of course, you wouldn't know
16:42
this because at the time that she's like promoting Cleopatra
16:46
and there's all of these like love affairs being talked about
16:48
on the news. That's what's being talked
16:50
about. Not her like strategy, not her
16:52
business, and not like how smart she is and powerful she is.
16:58
And yes, money is power, but more about being like, Oh my
17:01
God, the sex affair, That's what's being talked about.
17:05
Interesting, right? She was also an activist against
17:07
AIDS. And I know people talk about
17:08
that now, but this is one of the biggest parts of her career and
17:12
what she really cherished a lot. And she may have been queer.
17:18
We shall get into that. I mean, she probably was queer.
17:22
We don't have documentation of like long term affairs she had
17:26
with women, but we do have documentation of like a affair
17:30
she had with a woman. We'll get into let's talk about
17:34
the seven husbands of Elizabeth Taylor.
17:37
It is really fucking crazy that she had exactly 7 husbands and
17:41
just like of course she inspired the seven husbands of Bevan
17:45
Hugo. Even Elizabeth Taylor's official
17:47
website has a page titled the seven husbands of Elizabeth
17:51
Taylor. And I know they're trying to
17:52
like milk off the book for sure, but like, it's just like, come
17:56
on, guys, that's crazy. Some of them are very similar to
18:00
the characters and the seven husbands of Evelyn Hugo,
18:03
Elizabeth Taylor's first husband is name was named Conrad and
18:07
Nikki Hilton Junior. They were married from 1950 to
18:10
1951. And I'm pretty sure Elizabeth
18:12
Taylor was only 18. Conrad was actually like pretty
18:16
abusive. And as the Elizabeth Taylor
18:19
website says, quote, what began as a fairy tale quickly became a
18:23
nightmare and that Elizabeth endured both mental and physical
18:27
abuse that actually resulted in a miscarriage, which is
18:30
literally God awful, leading to their divorce 8 months into the
18:34
marriage. So this marriage really only
18:36
lasted like around a year and very similar to Don Adler.
18:43
And again, these are spoilers for seven husbands of Evan Hugo,
18:46
but Don Adler is Evelyn Hugo. These are all fictional
18:49
characters, second husband and again has kind of the elements
18:54
of Ernie Diaz because like first husband and she was really
18:57
young, but also more so Don Adler because Don Adler was
19:02
physically abusive towards Evelyn.
19:04
And at this point, it's giving that Taylor Jenkins Reed is like
19:09
modeling the husbands and the whole character and everything
19:12
around Elizabeth Taylor. Elizabeth's second husband is
19:16
Michael Wilding. They were married from 1952 to
19:19
1957. He was 20 years older than her
19:22
and looked it, I'll say for sure.
19:27
And he was also an actor and they had two sons together.
19:30
Elizabeth Taylor website says that their divorce ended because
19:34
he struggled to accept that she was a breadwinner, which is
19:37
iconic of her, that she was like the breadwinner and he was like,
19:40
you know, a distinguished, renowned actor, right?
19:44
The third husband was Mike Todd and they were married from 1957
19:48
to 1958. As you can see, at this point,
19:50
from 1950, she's married every single year, two different men.
19:55
Serial monogamist for sure, but kind of just fucking awesome.
20:01
Like I'm like kind of obsessed that she like finishes the
20:03
marriages and then is like, I'll have another right away.
20:07
Like they're just lined up. Elizabeth Taylor website says
20:09
that Mike Todd was one of Elizabeth's true great loves.
20:12
Again, I don't know if like she shared this with them or this is
20:14
just like their idea. They married in 1957.
20:18
They ended up having a daughter together, but tragically he was
20:21
the one that actually passed away in a plane crash in March
20:25
1958, which is really fucking traumatic and at this point.
20:29
She is really young and she's already been married.
20:32
This is her third husband and now he passes away.
20:35
Like, that's a lot to handle. That's a lot.
20:38
Then comes Eddie Fisher, who she is married to from 1959 to 1964.
20:43
The Elizabeth Taylor website says that she sought solace and
20:46
comfort in Mike's closest friend, Eddie Fisher.
20:50
Here's the fucking drama, guys. Debbie Reynolds was Eddie
20:55
Fisher's wife and he left Debbie for Elizabeth.
20:59
Apparently she and Elizabeth Taylor were also friends.
21:02
So it's not great. It's not looking good for
21:04
Elizabeth Taylor or Eddie Fisher.
21:06
Where this also gets really dramatic is, you know, this was
21:10
a huge fucking scandal, huge fucking affair.
21:12
People are freaking out, and this is when MGM decides to make
21:16
the movie Butterfield 8 starring Eddie Fisher and Elizabeth
21:21
Taylor. So you can see how now they're
21:24
like capitalizing on this drama of hers.
21:27
She didn't like this, though. It's not like this is her own
21:30
doing. And she's like intentionally
21:32
trying to capitalize on it. And that's when she wins the
21:35
Oscar. It's really fucked up that MGM
21:39
like makes them kind of like play out what was happening in
21:42
real life. This so connects to the seven
21:45
husbands of Evan Hugo because multiple reasons.
21:48
Eddie Fisher was a singer and seven husbands of Evan Hugo.
21:51
One of the husbands is Mick Riva, who is a singer, and it's
21:59
a huge fucking scandal when Evelyn and Mick get together and
22:02
have like a quick romance, right?
22:05
And of course, we need to remember most of the husbands in
22:08
Evelyn Hugo are PR relationships.
22:11
Most of them are not real. We're assuming in the story of
22:15
Elizabeth Taylor, like her real life, that most of these are
22:19
real relationships. Like, I don't think she was a
22:21
lesbian. But again, we don't really know.
22:25
We don't. So just keep that in mind.
22:28
There's just a lot of connections right now with the
22:31
husbands. Another husband of Evelyn's is
22:34
Rex North, and even though this character is not actually very
22:37
similar to Eddie Fisher, they have this like scandal of
22:43
affairs and that's during a movie that's starring them two
22:48
together. So Rex North and Evelyn Hugo are
22:51
in a movie together this APR relationship and then they stage
22:54
an affair. So that's so fucking related to
22:59
the fact that Elizabeth Taylor and Eddie Fisher are in a movie
23:02
about their affair. It's a little bit too on the
23:05
nose, right? Do you see how many similarities
23:07
right now? And that's just like, besides
23:10
the fact that it's 7 husbands specifically, after Eddie Fisher
23:14
becomes comes the iconic Richard Burton.
23:17
Richard and Elizabeth are married from 1964 to 1974.
23:21
So this at this point is her longest marriage.
23:23
They divorced in 1974, then they get back together in 1975, and
23:27
then they divorce again in 1976. Pretty fucking iconic, like kind
23:33
of a sleigh. Elizabeth Taylor website says
23:36
the love of her life and the marriage.
23:38
She married twice. Apparently.
23:39
It was like, you know, what kind of a passionate, like tumultuous
23:42
relationship. And it seemed like there was
23:45
almost like too much passion for the marriage.
23:48
That's kind of like the idea. They started multiple movies
23:51
together and they met on the set of Cleopatra.
23:54
They both starred as the leads and they just became like one of
23:58
the most iconic couples of all time.
24:00
Taylor Swift references like Burton to my Taylor.
24:03
Like, they were like pop culture royalty.
24:05
OK, everyone was talking about them.
24:08
And at this point, remember, like, Elizabeth Taylor is so
24:11
famous kind of because of all of these relationships and how
24:17
beautiful she is and like, you know, captivating on screen, but
24:21
also like the lore and the stories that we're hearing about
24:26
her. And it sounds a lot like Taylor
24:28
Swift. What is on purpose, what is
24:29
purposeful? We don't know how much she's
24:31
controlling this narrative. We're never really going to
24:34
know, right? But I think what's iconic right
24:38
now is the fact that like we have to separate, like what we
24:41
hear about these marriages versus like what maybe was
24:44
actually going on. What we see is not necessarily
24:48
what's true. So we hear about all these
24:51
relationships, We hear about the affairs.
24:53
Is that exactly what happened every single time?
24:55
Probably not. This is this famous, iconic
24:59
woman, and her affairs and her scandals are helping her
25:03
success, bringing her to all time fame.
25:06
Some of that is great for her, and some of that is like
25:09
unintended consequences that she did not want.
25:12
But what's difficult for women in Hollywood is like you kind of
25:15
have to use the system that's already against you to your
25:18
advantage. And that's what she does with
25:19
Cleopatra, negotiating that $1 million deal.
25:22
So after Richard Burton, she marries John Warner from 1976 to
25:26
1982. This is her like, political
25:29
regal era. That's kind of like a little bit
25:31
random. But also she starts like her
25:34
activism at this point too. He becomes a senator.
25:38
So fucking wild. And at this point, this is her
25:42
6th husband. Oh, she's such a star.
25:45
OK. Then after this, her last
25:47
husband, which may have been like her most iconic venture
25:51
yet, is Larry Fortenski. They were married from 1991 to
25:55
1996. Larry Fortenski was actually a
25:59
construction worker 20 years younger than her.
26:03
Like you cannot make this shit up.
26:05
It's so fucking iconic. I don't think all of her
26:07
relationships are PRI, think maybe like a very select few of
26:10
them were. But Larry Fortenski, I'm like,
26:13
you're not just randomly dating him for PR.
26:15
Like you are in love with this random man and I'm actually
26:18
obsessed with it. She met him at the Betty Ford
26:20
Center in 1988 and he was her final marriage.
26:25
This marriage. Here's the weirdest thing I
26:27
found out this wedding was in 1991, so it wasn't that long
26:31
ago. And it's just kind of wild how
26:33
long she lived. Like she was a star in the 40s
26:36
and now she's getting married by Marianne Williamson.
26:41
Yep, Marianne Williamson randomly married Larry Fortunsky
26:45
and Elizabeth Taylor and they had like 200 guests.
26:50
It was a huge wedding. It was like helicopters
26:53
watching. It was crazy.
26:55
And they had their wedding at Michael Jacksons Neverland
27:00
Ranch, which is disgusting. That's not a great look for
27:04
Elizabeth Taylor. And then after that, she never
27:07
married again. And she died in 2011.
27:09
As much as like, you know, people were saying, oh, this is
27:12
like so ridiculous. Like she's a slut, like she's a
27:15
serial monogamist. She can't keep a husband, all
27:19
this stuff. This is really breaking
27:21
boundaries of her to come up into stardom in the 40s and 50s
27:26
and have multiple marriages, not just multiple 7 marriages and
27:31
have all these affairs when she's supposed to be this pure
27:35
girl that other people sexualize.
27:36
But then she decides to do whatever the hell she wants in
27:40
her love life. That is unheard of.
27:42
Like that is so important to just like decide to do whatever
27:45
you want to do. And as she got older, she
27:47
decided to like take more of her own life into her own hands and
27:51
do what she wanted to do and be like an anti AIDS activist and
27:56
marry a construction worker. Like, Oh my God, so iconic.
28:00
OK, let's talk about all the connections to the Seven
28:02
Husbands of Evelyn Hugo. Obviously we've already talked
28:05
about a lot, but what have we not talked about yet?
28:10
What is a huge part of Seven Husbands and of Evelyn Hugo?
28:14
It's the queerness aspect. Through what I found out through
28:18
my research, it seems from a documented source that Elizabeth
28:25
Taylor had an affair with Marilyn Monroe.
28:29
And I'm absolutely going to have to do Marilyn Monroe episode
28:31
because it seems like Marilyn Monroe was a lesbian.
28:34
I don't know where I've been, but like, are all these bitches
28:38
lesbians? It seems like there was like a
28:40
underground ring of Hollywood stars, all women sleeping
28:45
together. Who was going to tell me that
28:48
this is like my whole thing? So get ready for some good juicy
28:51
old Hollywood lesbian content because I'm going to be all
28:55
about this. We're going to go 1 by 1 by 1,
28:57
and we're going to talk about all of them being gay.
28:59
Now, again, Elizabeth Taylor may have been a part of this ring.
29:03
It seems like she absolutely was.
29:06
But again, I do think that she was like romantically with these
29:09
men, which is possible by sexual awareness.
29:13
People forget. OK, So yes, so she may have
29:16
slept with a Marilyn Monroe. Here's the evidence.
29:19
So there's a biographer that did a whole biography on Marilyn
29:23
Monroe. So it's not necessarily
29:25
Elizabeth Taylor focused. However, it is called the
29:28
passion and the paradox pretty much talking about Marilyn
29:32
Monroe's sexuality and the idea that she may have like spent her
29:35
entire life hiding it, Which again, it's crazy how we can
29:40
like still learn about people like this idea of Marilyn Monroe
29:45
being this like sex crazy male focus star is completely
29:51
constructed by Hollywood and how much we still consume that
29:56
narrative today until you start peeling back layers and like,
29:59
I'm in gay media and I'm and I think I've heard whispers of
30:05
this, but how am I now just hearing about this?
30:08
Like it's actually crazy and scary.
30:11
There's so many lesbians, so many gay people, and all of this
30:13
has been hidden from us, especially these like, blonde
30:17
hot women seeming like, you know, familiar.
30:21
Taylor Swift can get away with being queer because no one
30:25
expects them to though. Here's an extract of the book
30:28
that was also published in The Guardian.
30:30
OK quote, At Frank Sinatra's cabaret opening at the Sands Las
30:34
Vegas in June 1961, Monroe allegedly had a one off sexual
30:39
encounter with Elizabeth Taylor. Elizabeth Taylor?
30:42
Allegedly. No.
30:43
Again, Do I have pictures of Elizabeth Taylor's journal?
30:46
No, but this is pretty damn close.
30:48
This is like fucking evidence, bitch.
30:50
OK, like, but this is from her journal.
30:52
She wrote about Marilyn Monroe and I quote her touch was
30:57
electric. I wanted to see how far the
31:00
bitch would go, but she had to do all the work.
31:07
I'm guys, in fact, there's so much here.
31:11
First of all, Marilyn being the top makes so much fucking sense.
31:14
That makes so much fucking sense.
31:16
Also, I wanted to see how far the bitch would go is fucking
31:20
crazy. And it's like we have this idea
31:23
and maybe not just we, but like America, the world that these
31:27
certain stars, because they became famous in this like
31:31
purity 1950s, like perfect Christian virginal world where
31:38
women are not supposed to own their sexuality.
31:40
We have this idea that they were also like that and that they
31:44
were not just real humans with real emotions that cursed and
31:48
were flagrant and sexual. Because when you see pictures of
31:52
Elizabeth Taylor, you know, in the 50s and 60s, you don't think
31:56
that this girl will be saying, I wanted to see how far the bitch
31:59
would go. So fucking iconic.
32:03
So. So it seems like Elizabeth
32:05
Taylor is sleeping with women and also having relationships
32:08
with men, but also like having affairs.
32:10
And all of this is happening behind the scenes of her
32:14
stardom. And she has these 7 husbands.
32:18
Maybe some of them were beards. And this is inspiration for the
32:22
seven husbands of Evelyn Hugo. And lest we forget, Taylor Swift
32:27
is writing a song called Elizabeth Taylor who is one of
32:32
the more clear inspirations for this gay ass fucking book that
32:37
people have tied to Taylor Swift herself.
32:40
More connections to the seven husbands of them and Hugo.
32:42
In the book Evelyn is in Little Women.
32:46
She plays a character in Little Women.
32:48
Guess who is also in Little Women?
32:51
Elizabeth Taylor was in Little Women.
32:53
It's just two on the nose. There's also like specific
32:57
risque, like artsy movie in Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo
33:02
that Evelyn does that kind of like makes people be like, Oh my
33:06
gosh, whoa. She's taking chances.
33:08
She's like doing different stuff.
33:10
And Elizabeth Taylor did a lot of these roles.
33:12
Specifically she did Who's afraid of Virginia Woolf?
33:16
Who's afraid of little old me? And another thing, Taylor
33:20
Jenkins Reed, who is the writer of seven husbands Bevan Hugo has
33:25
pretty much said that Elizabeth Taylor was partially the
33:29
inspiration for the book. So this is not like a crazy
33:33
theory that she inspired 7 husbands.
33:36
OK it's pretty obvious that this is like mirroring her life.
33:40
Taylor is mirroring the inspiration for a gay book about
33:45
someone who has PR relationships.
33:47
Like what? And I feel like people are
33:50
really forgetting that. In 2017, Taylor Jenkins read
33:54
responded to a tweet about Taylor.
33:58
The tweeter said. Is that a thing?
34:00
Tweeter said. Could Taylor Swift maybe be
34:03
Evelyn Hugo Taylor Jenkins Reed responds almost certainly.
34:08
But y'all are getting on me for saying Oh my God stop saying
34:12
she's gay yet Taylor Jenkins Reed is like yeah, most
34:16
certainly. Taylor Jenkins Reed also said
34:19
about Elizabeth Taylor and her being an inspiration.
34:22
Said quote, Liz Taylor is the most apartment comparison.
34:26
OK, so right guys, what are the other similarities between
34:31
Elizabeth Taylor and the seven husbands?
34:33
OK, there's that abuse from her husband.
34:36
It's the similar movies. The characters and almost kind
34:39
of the names of the husbands are similar to Elizabeth Taylor's
34:42
husbands. LGBTQ Activism Evelyn Hugo is a
34:45
huge LGBTQ activist and decides to use her pocketbook to help
34:49
LGBTQ people when she can't come out herself.
34:52
Elizabeth Taylor has become one of the most famous AIDS
34:56
activists, raising money and starting multiple foundations to
35:00
find a cure and destigmatize the disease.
35:04
That's a huge connection, too. And let's remember, biggest
35:07
allies are usually gay. They're also both queer.
35:10
I mean, Elizabeth Taylor was probably queer.
35:13
And I really think it's so annoying when people are like,
35:15
Oh my God, don't label someone that.
35:17
Like, who hasn't labeled themselves?
35:19
Back then you couldn't say you were gay.
35:22
OK, you barely can now. And I don't know the fact that
35:26
they both had exactly 7 husbands.
35:29
Get real. We will end talking about the
35:32
connections between Elizabeth Taylor, 7 Husbands of Love and
35:35
Hugo and Taylor Swift and more So my predictions for what's
35:39
going to happen with this song in this album.
35:41
OK, we've touched on a lot of this, but who's afraid of
35:44
Virginia Woolf? But Taylor won an Oscar for this
35:47
role, and the whole film is really a critique of a 1950s
35:52
patriarchal marriage, right? And a lot of it really is
35:56
strikingly TTPD esque. Okay.
36:01
And I don't know who's afraid of little old me.
36:04
It's this woman kind of going crazy and the pressures of this
36:09
marriage just get to her and she just kind of loses her mind and
36:13
flips out. And it feels very psych ward
36:16
like the catharsis of the torture post department of just
36:21
this woman kind of being at her breaking point and just like
36:24
letting out everything. It's so obvious that Taylor
36:28
Swift use this as a jumping off point for the song.
36:33
This movie also had a huge gay response.
36:35
It became like a gay cult classic, kind of like Taylor
36:38
Swift. In general.
36:39
It's very clear that Taylor Swift has used Elizabeth Taylor
36:42
as inspiration even before this. I mean, in wildest dreams, I
36:45
think she looks like Elizabeth Taylor with like her dark brown
36:48
hair. That music video, she has that
36:51
lyric Burton to this Taylor. There's a lot of connections and
36:55
now she has a very obvious song on her upcoming album, Elizabeth
37:00
Taylor. And I really don't think it's
37:02
any coincidence that she is probably the inspiration for
37:06
Seven Husbands with Hugo Elizabeth Taylor.
37:09
I mean, Taylor Swift knows that you guys.
37:13
She knows that Elizabeth Taylor had 7 husbands and she's
37:17
definitely fucking read 7 husbands.
37:18
She's like an avid literary nerd.
37:22
If you guys have not read 7 Husbands, I highly recommend you
37:25
do so. There's so many lyrical
37:28
similarities in Taylor Swift music to the specific writing
37:31
style and like the wordage used in seven Husbands.
37:35
I'm rereading it right now and I have all of these little pages
37:38
like Marked of where are these similarities are?
37:42
I think I'm probably going to make a whole other episode of
37:44
like besides Elizabeth Taylor, like the connections between 7
37:47
husbands and Taylor Swift. And it's littered with
37:50
connections, but one that I thought was really poignant is
37:54
like at one point Evelyn Hugo says it's rapturous.
37:58
Taylor Swift has a vinyl for life of a showgirl that says
38:01
it's rapturous or like ACD called it's rapturous.
38:05
Such a specific word. What do you mean?
38:07
There's a lot of those similarities that I really
38:10
recommend reading it. And then of course, the life of
38:12
a showgirl cover is so similar to the cover of Seven Husbands.
38:16
There's this green that's unforgettable and kind of like
38:20
comes out of nowhere, hasn't really been explained.
38:22
We knew that orange was going to be TS 12, but the green hasn't
38:26
really been explained. The colors are like exactly the
38:30
same. The nails of Taylor and the
38:33
nails of Evelyn on the cover, same exact color, lip color,
38:37
same exact color. And the text is very, very
38:42
similar. And I feel the need to emphasize
38:44
it again. Taylor Swift is admitting that
38:47
she draws inspiration from Elizabeth Taylor.
38:49
She's writing a song called Elizabeth Taylor.
38:51
She knows that Elizabeth Taylor inspired this book.
38:56
She knows that gaylors have drawn connections between her
39:00
and seven husbands before. If she wasn't queer, she
39:05
wouldn't do this. OK?
39:08
Because unless she was intentionally queer baiting.
39:11
And I know people say, oh, my God, real people can't queer
39:13
bait. But I do think projects can.
39:16
And I don't think she's queer painting.
39:17
I think she's queer. Both Elizabeth Taylor and Taylor
39:19
Swift were both like business women and focusing on like how
39:23
to use how Hollywood, you know, turns them into commodities, how
39:26
to use that for their own advantage and spin it to like
39:30
work for them. They're both splitting
39:33
themselves into two people, one for the public and one, they're
39:37
like inside life. They've had to learn how to
39:41
separate themselves in that way. We've had toxic relationships
39:45
with the fame and the media, and there's times where they've been
39:48
completely exploited and stuck in these contracts with these
39:53
big studios that are abusing them.
39:56
They're both arguably queer, question mark, question mark
39:59
question mark. Both had rumored flings with
40:03
rival blondes in the industry. It's kind of bizarre the
40:08
language in all three of these people, slash projects, Taylor,
40:12
Elizabeth, and Evelyn are all insanely, insanely similar.
40:16
And I guess with all that said, my argument is.
40:21
I believe Taylor Swift is mirroring her life and taking
40:24
inspiration from a lot of these old Hollywood women.
40:29
All the wisest women had to do it this way.
40:31
They had to use, and this is like feminism and queerness
40:35
together. It's not just queerness.
40:37
They had to use what other people made them do.
40:41
Look what you made me do. They had to use what the
40:43
industry push them out to be for their own advantage.
40:48
They had to create an inside life and protect it by giving
40:51
people what they wanted, what they knew the American public
40:55
would want. They wanted to stay successful
40:58
in their craft. They were business women.
41:01
It's not just Elizabeth Taylor, it's Clara Bow, it's all of
41:03
these. It's Judy Garland, it's all of
41:05
these huge starlets that Steven Nicks that Taylor has
41:11
researched, use as inspiration, studied and tried to emulate and
41:17
I think has a lot of reverence towards them as well.
41:20
So I don't think she's just going to write a song called
41:23
Elizabeth Taylor that's just like jewels perfume.
41:25
And if she does, it's a bait and switch because there's
41:28
definitely more to it. So for Life of a Showgirl, I do
41:31
think that she is really talking about this theme that I just
41:34
mentioned and talking about how all of these biggest showgirls,
41:39
at the end of the day, at the end of the night, when they're
41:41
done performing, they're done, you know, at the studio, they're
41:44
done singing. They come back to their real
41:47
life, their real personal life. And it's women that are being
41:52
abused by the industry, exploited and having a life that
41:57
most people don't really know about.
42:00
Do we really know these people? Do we really know these women or
42:03
do we just know what Hollywood is pushing them out to be?
42:06
So I hope you guys enjoyed this episode.
42:09
I hope you guys think this is as interesting as I do.
42:13
I would really highly recommend, like reading more about
42:15
Elizabeth Taylor and like watching this HBO documentary.
42:19
Like, it's just so fascinating. And old Hollywood, you know, we
42:23
only get one side of it. And I cannot wait for this
42:27
upcoming album, the music video, specifically reminder that I am
42:31
going live so we can like react together and we're just going to
42:35
have a ball and have some wine, have some fun.
42:40
And I also have that Patreon bonus episode coming out with my
42:43
high reactions to the New Heights podcast.
42:47
I had a very fun time doing it. So I hope you guys enjoy it.
42:51
All right, I think I won't have an episode until Afterlife of a
42:54
Showgirl. So I will see you live.
42:58
Go check out that bonus content on Patreon.
43:01
And yeah, have a great week. Love you guys.