Sharon Stone Tears Up As She Recounts Backlash Against Her Support Of AIDS Charity AMFAR — Red Sea Festival
deadline.comAn emotional Sharon Stone told a talk at Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea Film Festival on Friday that her decision to take get behind AIDS research fundraising organisation amfAR in the mid-1990s had been a career-destroying move at the time, but one she never regretted.
The actress, artist and activist explained she had been incredulous when the organisation first approached her in 1995 to stand in for then-chairwoman Elizabeth Taylor at its famous annual fundraising event in Cannes Film Festival. “I had pretty big shoes to fill with Elizabeth Talyor at amfAR… When I was approached in Cannes, I was like, ‘Can I take Elizabeth’s place?’” Stone discussed the proposition with her then-publicist Cindy Berger. “She said, ‘If you do this, it will destroy your career”.
At the time you weren’t allowed to talk about AIDS. She got hives on her neck. I said, ‘I know, but I am going to do it, you’re gonna kill me’.
She replied, ‘And if you don’t, I am gonna kill you.” Stone was then asked to take on Taylor’s role for another three years, in a journey that resulted in making a game-changing contribution to financing research into the then-deadly virus. “I had no idea of the resistance, cruelty, hate and oppression that we would face,” she said. “So, I put on a hazmat suit and I had them show me it [the virus] under the microscope.
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