Elizabeth Taylor’s addiction to drugs, alcohol led to family intervention: son

Elizabeth Taylor’s life was plagued with problems in 1982.

At the time, her marriage to Senator John Warner was coming to an end. The screen siren also battled a crippling addiction to drugs and alcohol.

The star’s loved ones recalled her struggles in the final episode of the BBC documentary, ‘Elizabeth Taylor: Rebel Superstar’, which was produced by Kim Kardashian. It’s about the life and legacy of the actress, who died in 2011 at the age of 79.

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Senators John Warner and Elizabeth Taylor in Regines, circa 1976 in New York City. (PL Gould/Images/Getty Images)

Those closest to the Oscar winner said she was “abusing alcohol and painkillers, including injectables.”

“She had physical ailments, particularly back problems, for which the use of pain medication was a legitimate recourse,” explained Taylor’s son Christopher Wilding, as quoted by People magazine.

“When I was little, we had all these miracle drugs and you took a pill,” she said. “That was his approach: better living through science.”

Elizabeth Taylor is seen here participating in a political fundraising event. (© Wally McNamee/CORBIS/Corbis via Getty Images)

However, Taylor’s dependence on drugs to cope with the pain worsened over time.

“We talk to her, but things got to the point where it was decided that an intervention would be necessary,” Wilding said. “We just wanted her to get help.”

“Close relatives flew in and boy, that was hard,” he admitted. “… We were all petrified.”

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Elizabeth Taylor, seen here on the set of “Cleopatra” alongside Richard Burton, died in 2011. She was 79. (API/GAMMA/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images)

According to the outlet, Taylor is heard on a recording talking about the experience, noting that the intervention “stopped me so dead in my tracks.”

“It totally blows your mind,” the “Cleopatra” star said.

“… It was like being slapped in the face with reality. And I thought, ‘Oh my God, I thought I was a good mother. How did I let myself do this to the people I love most in the world?’ “

“We talk to her, but things got to the point where it was decided that an intervention would be necessary. We just wanted her to help. . . . Close relatives flew in and boy, that was hard. . . We were all petrified.” .

– Christopher Wilding, son of Elizabeth Taylor

Elizabeth Taylor, left, and Betty Ford in Studio 54, circa 1979 in New York City. (Robin Platzer/Images/Getty Images)

According to Wilding, Taylor agreed to seek help, but only if he could wait until morning to leave for rehab. He stayed at the Betty Ford Clinic.

“I had to share a room with a stranger,” Wilding said. “Everyone was assigned…housework.”

Taylor said she was grateful for the experience.

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Dame Elizabeth Taylor and her son Chris Wilding during the InStyle Magazine Gala to celebrate the launch of “Elizabeth Taylor: My Love Affair with Jewelry” at Christies in New York City. (J. Vespa/WireImage/Getty Images)

“I really felt for the first time in my life that I wasn’t being exploited by anyone,” she said. “I was being accepted by myself. I was forced to look at the… truth of who I was.”

After completing her treatment, Taylor spoke about her experience publicly in hopes that it would encourage others to get help.

Wilding previously detailed her mother’s addictions in the book “Elizabeth Taylor: The Grit & Glamor of an Icon.”

According to author Kate Andersen Brower, three doctors wrote “a combined 1,000 prescriptions for 28 drugs between 1983 and 1988, which included tranquilizers, sleeping pills and pain relievers.”

Elizabeth Taylor went public with her help-seeking experience. (POOL/Jerome DELAY/AFP via Getty Images)

Wilding recalled a disturbing incident while meeting with his mother.

According to the book, she asked him to come to her room where she was holding a syringe of Demerol, which was used to treat severe pain. He claimed that Taylor asked him to “administer the shot.” He declined.

“… It wasn’t until I saw her that I realized she was already pretty screwed,” Wilding said, as quoted by Page Six. “… He looked at me with dull but disappointed eyes, took a breath, held his hand, and sank the needle into his flesh.”

Andersen Brower wrote that Taylor’s alcohol and drug use worsened during her marriage to Warner. After the couple said “I do” in 1976, she found herself “bored and lonely” living in Washington, DC, and picking up the pounds.

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Elizabeth Taylor once said that life as a senator’s wife made her “a drunkard and a junkie.” (Silver Screen Collection/Getty Images)

Taylor said life as a senator’s wife made her “a drunk and a drug addict,” Andersen Brower wrote.

However, moving back to Los Angeles after calling it quits with Warner didn’t help Taylor’s addiction to pain medication, the outlet reported.

“She surrounded herself with assistants and housekeepers who became family to her and were less likely to call her out on her growing problem,” Andersen Brower wrote. “He manipulated his doctors into giving him the pills he wanted, when he wanted them; it was very hard to say no to Elizabeth Taylor.”

Elizabeth Taylor and Larry Fortensky at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Beverly Hills, California. (Jim Smeal Collection/Ron Galella via Getty Images)

According to the outlet, Taylor checked into the Betty Ford Center for a seven-week stay after her family underwent an intervention. He stopped drinking but still took pills. He rationalized that they were legitimate because they were prescribed by a doctor.

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In 1988, his friend George Hamilton made a second intervention, the outlet reported. During her return to rehab, she got her eighth and final husband, construction worker Larry Fortensky, who was 20 years her junior. The couple married in 1991 but divorced in 1996.

Taylor remained friends with Fortensky and Warner until her death.