After the death of Hollywood icon Elizabeth Taylor, a confidential 1997 interview in which she claimed her friend James Dean was molested by his minister when he was 11 has surfaced. According to thedailybeast.com, Taylor told writer Kevin Sessums during an interview for POZ magazine, which is dedicated to AIDS activism, that she had kept the secret for most of her life.

The Academy Award-winning actress made Sessums swear to secrecy until she died. She also told him that Dean had confided in her that the abuse began after his mother died. Taylor said that she thought the abuse “haunted him the rest of his life. In fact, I know it did.”

Taylor added that Dean discussed it with her often. While they were filming the 1956 movie ‘Giant’ together, for which Dean earned his second posthumous Best Actor Oscar nomination, that they would “stay up nights and talk and talk, and that was one of the things he confessed to me.”

Dean died in a car accident in 1955 when he was 24 years-old. Taylor died at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center on March 23 at the age of 79, due to congestive heart failure.

Written by: Karen Benardello