The legend’s BFF, Kathy Ireland, reveals how she swam with sharks and loved the Lord.
THE MODEL-TURNED-MOGUL SHARED A SPECIAL FRIENDSHIP WITH THE HOLLYWOOD ICON
Afearless Elizabeth Taylor once entered a shark cage while wearing her favorite diamonds. “She wanted to go down into the ocean and look at the sharks,” Kathy Ireland recalls to Closer. “The shark guys were telling her to take off her diamonds because it was going to attract too many sharks. She just said: ‘That’s the idea!’ ”
Kathy, 56, a swimsuit-modelturned-entrepreneur, shared a close friendship with the legend in her later years. “We became family,” says Kathy, who met Elizabeth through a mutual friend. “She had a very curious heart and I think that kept her young. She was always growing and learning.”
Kathy joined Elizabeth for Bible studies where they exchanged ideas about life. “She told me her thoughts about being a mom,” explains Kathy. “She was very detail-focused and a lot of the lessons she gave me were about looking at things from every angle.”
PAYING IT FORWARD
Elizabeth also inspired Kathy, who spoke with Closer at the Didi Hirsch Mental Health Services’ Erasing the Stigma Leadership Awards, to become passionate about philanthropy. “She loved without condition,” says Kathy of her friend’s “pure heart.”
Liz especially adored children. “Our kids would come to her home when they were toddlers and make a mess and she would just laugh,” recalls Kathy, adding that Liz’s own four kids were the lights of her life. “She loved her children ferociously,” she reveals. “To her, they were beyond jewels and beyond treasures.”
— By Louise A. Barile, reporting by Amanda Champagne-Meadows