Michael Jackson and Elizabeth Taylor were an "odd couple" who showered each other with gifts.
Michael Jackson
A new book on the pair called 'Elizabeth and Michael: The Queen of Hollywood and the King of Pop - A Love Story' has revealed some of the strange details of their 30-year friendship and claims it gave the 'Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?' star "another chance in life".
According Entertainment Tonight the author Donald Bogle claims Michael was also reliant on Elizabeth as it gave him the chance to be "a kid again".
The 72-year-old author wrote: "Loving Michael seemed to have given Elizabeth another chance in life, and in turn, it gave her life another dimension.
"Loving Elizabeth had given Michael a chance to be a kid again and also a man of the world."
The book charts how the 'Thriller' hitmaker - who died of an overdose of propofol, lorazepam, and midazolam in 2009 at the age of 50 - was "transfixed with the Hollywood star and bought her extravagant gifts like diamond jewellery.
The biography also reports that Elizabeth reciprocated by giving Michael an elephant named Gypsy.
Donald goes on to claim in the book that the pair behaved like children drinking tea with a chimpanzee and watching Disney films together, and that their special relationship was borne out of the fact that they were both child stars.
Elizabeth rose to fame as a child actor in films like 1944's 'National Velvet' and Michael became a star with the Jackson 5 in 1969.
Despite being several years older Michael Elizabeth outlived the King of Pop and died in 2011 at the age of 79 of heart failure.
Michael's death was ruled as homicide and his personal physician, Conrad Murray, was charged with involuntary manslaughter.
'Elizabeth and Michael: The Queen of Hollywood and the King of Pop -- A Love Story' is out now.
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