Elizabeth Taylor's Son Recalls 'Difficult' Family Intervention Over Drinking and Drugs: 'We Were Terrified'

Mar. 15, 2025

Elizabeth Taylor in 1982.Photo:Tom Wargacki/WireImage

Tom Wargacki/WireImage

Elizabeth Taylorfaced some serious difficulties after the end of her marriage to Senator John Warner in 1982.

In the final episode ofElizabeth Taylor: Rebel Superstar, which aired Oct. 11 on the BBC, the iconic actress' loved ones look back at her struggles with drugs and alcohol.

“She had physical ailments, especially bad back problems, for which the use of pain meds was a legitimate recourse,” her sonChristopher Wildingexplains. “When she was little, we had all these miracle drugs and you took a pill. That was her approach — better living through science.”

However, those closest to Taylor knew she was “abusing alcohol and pain meds, including injectable ones.”

“We’d talk to her, but things got to the point where it was decided an intervention would be necessary,” Wilding recalls. “We just wanted her to get help. Close family members flew in and boy, that was difficult.”

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Elizabeth Taylor and son Chris Wilding in 2002.J. Vespa/WireImage

J. Vespa/WireImage

In a recording, Taylor talks about the experience herself, sharing, “The family intervention stopped me so dead in my tracks. It leaves you totally speechless, and it’s so sincere and done with such love that you know it must be agony for them.”

Taylor’s loved ones took turns sharing how her addiction had impacted them.

“We were all petrified. She was a formidable woman,” Wilding remembers.

In another recording, Taylor recalls, “It was like being slapped in the face with reality. And I thought, ‘My God, I thought I was a good mother. How have I allowed myself to do this to the people I love most in the world?’ "

AFP via Getty

In her time at the Betty Ford Clinic, Taylor “had to do a lot of things she never had to do in her adult life,” Wilding points out.

“She had to share a room with a stranger. Everyone was assigned kind of life, domestic chores.”

Along with those tasks, she engaged in therapy and took it very seriously as she delved into pain stemming from her past.

Elizabeth Taylor in 1987.Photoshot/Getty

When she completed treatment, Taylor didn’t pull back from talking publicly about the experience and what she learned from getting help.

Her ex–daughter-in-law Aileen Getty, who was married to Wilding from 1981 to 1989, says, “She lived in everyone’s home. We witnessed her suffering and maybe that did have power too. She shared that suffering with us.”

“If she hadn’t have gone public, the chances are it would have leaked to the press anyway,” she says. “That’s when I think there was a real switch that flicked on, like, ‘Actually, better to be the one that puts it out to the world so that you control the narrative.’ ”

source: people.com