We’ve gotten further along on how we treat HIV/AIDS, and while it’s something to be proud of, we have to know that there’s a number of people who carried on advocating for research on the disease when it was still a taboo word.
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Sharon Stone is one of those people, and her experience is an enlightening one on how society reacts to topics we haven’t grown comfortable with.
Sharon Osbourne – Sacrificed Her Career To Become An AIDS Activist
Sharon Osbourne knew that her career would be ruined if she took up AIDS activism and yet she chose to wear the shoe for the greater good. Perhaps what she didn’t anticipate was the hate speech and death threats she received.
Speaking on her experience working with AIDS research centers and how that affected her professional career, the 64-year-old Academy Award nominee said she “didn’t work for 8 years” after first taking over for late friend and then-amfAR chairwoman Elizabeth Taylor at the organization’s annual Cannes fundraising gala in 1995, according to Deadline.
“I had pretty big shoes to fill with Elizabeth Talyor at amfAR,” the “Flight Attendant” star told Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea Film Festival, recalling that her assistant warned her that “If you do this, it will destroy your career.”
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She recounted: “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 then accepted to fill in for Taylor for the next three years, but she could never have anticipated “the resistance, cruelty, hate and oppression that we would face.”
“So, I put on a hazmat suit and I had them show me it [the virus] under the microscope,” she continued. “I thought I really need to see this thing that is making everyone go nuts.”
“I stayed for 25 years until we had AIDS remedies being advertised on TV like we have aspirin. It did destroy my career. I didn’t work for eight years. I was told if I said condom again, funding would be removed. I was threatened repeatedly, my life was threatened, and I decided I had to stick with it,” added Stone.
The journey may have been hard, but Osbourne believes it’s all worth it because lives are now being saved as a result of the research she helped champion.
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Sharon Osbourne – Has No Regrets After Choosing Research On AIDS Over Her Successful Acting Career
If you’re waiting for Osbourne to have regrets over the years she didn’t spend adding to her acting portfolio, then you’re going to wait a long time. The actress also expressed her joy to be part of something that saves lives.
“37 million are living with HIV AIDS, living functioning and healthy,” Stone said tearfully.
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