How Marianne Williamson Came to Officiate Elizabeth Taylor's Last Wedding
Earlier this week, the second round of Democratic presidential debates pitted 20 candidates against each other in a two-night matchup. By now, Americans have gotten a good glimpse at the major candidates, as well as some of the more unlikely players. One candidate who has emerged as a bit of an internet sensation is Marianne Williamson, the self-help author and spiritual advisor who counts Oprah as a close confidante. But long before her time in the political spotlight, Williamson had an equally interesting life—and group of friends.
In 1991, the Democratic presidential hopeful officiated Elizabeth's Taylor's wedding to her seventh, and last husband, Larry Fortensky (though, it was technically Taylor's eighth wedding, since she married Richard Burton twice). The couple met at the Betty Ford Clinic in 1988, where Taylor was being treated for an addiction to painkillers, and were married a few years later at Michael Jackson's Neverland Ranch.
Jackson himself made a brief appearance to walk the bride down the aisle.
Taylor and Fortensky divorced on October 31, 1996, and Taylor never remarried. Williamson recounted the story of how she became involved in the wedding for the Hollywood Reporter:
She [Taylor] called and asked if I would officiate. She was very excited about her nuptials. I've officiated at many marriages. What was funny to me was that after her divorce, any time I ran into her she seemed to want to explain almost apologetically how her marriage did not work — almost concerned that I might have taken it personally. It was rather touching.
Williamson herself is currently single, though she was briefly married (she described it as, "for a minute and a half"). She has one child, a daughter named India Emma, who was born in 1990.
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