Elizabeth Taylor once said she was a very committed wife, and she should have been, given how often she had been married. By the time she died in 2011 at the age of 79, she had been married eight times to seven men, an extraordinary record even by Hollywood standards. But the marriages were only part of the story. The men she married, and the lives they led after leaving her orbit, tell a quieter and often more tragic tale.

Her first husband was Nikki Hilton, a dashing hotel heir. Taylor was just 18 years old, fresh off the success of Father of the Bride, when she married him in 1950. From the outside, it looked glamorous: two beautiful young people with Hollywood money and headlines in their favor. But the fairy tale cracked almost immediately.

Hilton drank heavily, gambled recklessly, and turned abusive. Taylor left him after just nine months, and the marriage produced no children. Hilton went on to marry twice more and father four children, one of whom would become the father of Paris Hilton. But he never shook off his demons.

He died of a heart attack in 1969 at just 42, alone and diminished, a man who never quite outran his vices. For her second marriage, Taylor chose differently. Michael Wilding was a calm, cultured British actor, twenty years her senior, elegant and kind. She hoped he would bring stability.

They had two sons together, Michael Jr. and Christopher, and for a time things were peaceful. But her fame continued to soar while his began to fade. Wilding grew resentful of being overshadowed, and Taylor felt unfulfilled.

They divorced quietly in 1957, the same year her performance in Giant earned widespread acclaim and showed she was no longer just a beauty but a force on screen. Wilding remarried actress Margaret Leighton and had one more child. He died in 1979 after suffering an epileptic seizure and a fatal fall, his last years spent quietly out of the spotlight that had once embraced him. Her third husband was her first true love.

Mike Todd was a bold, brash, pioneering film producer who swept Taylor off her feet with extravagant gestures and relentless affection. He called her my Liz and lavished her with diamonds and laughter. They had one daughter together, Liza Todd. But the joy did not last.

In March 1958, just one year into their marriage, Todd died in a tragic plane crash. Taylor was supposed to be on that flight. Grief nearly consumed her. She later said she never fully recovered, and Todd’s death left a void no other man could fill.

Grief brought her to Eddie Fisher, Todd’s best friend. He comforted her, and soon that comfort turned into love, or something like it. There was just one problem: Fisher was married to America’s sweetheart, Debbie Reynolds. When he left Debbie for Taylor, the public turned on them.

It was one of the biggest scandals of the 1950s, and Taylor was branded a homewrecker. Yet professionally she reached new peaks, winning her first Academy Award for Butterfield 8 in 1961, a film she later admitted she disliked. Taylor herself later said she was never truly in love with Fisher. They had no children together, and the relationship proved unstable.

His career never recovered. He married three more times but never regained his former glory, and he died in 2010 from complications after hip surgery. Remarkably, in later years Taylor and Debbie Reynolds reconciled, even appearing together in the 2001 television movie These Old Broads, written in part by Reynolds’s daughter, Carrie Fisher. Fisher’s daughter later joked that her mother forgave Elizabeth but never Eddie.

The women moved on with mutual respect and even fondness. Taylor met Richard Burton on the set of Cleopatra in 1963. He was magnetic. She was already a legend.

The chemistry was explosive, and the affair, conducted while both were married, rocked the world. During filming, Taylor fell gravely ill with pneumonia and required an emergency tracheotomy that nearly killed her. The studio considered replacing her, but she recovered barely and returned to complete the film, which became one of the most expensive movies ever made. Her survival only added to its mythic status.

Taylor and Burton married in 1964. Their life together was passionate, excessive, and often volatile. There were diamonds the size of ice cubes, public screaming matches, and intense private love. Burton gave her some of the most iconic gems in the world, including the 33-carat Krupp diamond and the 69-carat Taylor-Burton diamond.

Their extravagant gift-giving became legend, symbols of a love both grand and tempestuous. They divorced in 1974, remarried in 1975, and divorced again in 1976. They had no children together, but they had history and jewels. Burton remarried twice, both times to women named Sally.

He died in 1984 from a cerebral hemorrhage. Taylor kept his love letters until the day she died. After Burton, Taylor sought something different again. Shortly after winning her second Academy Award for Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, a role that exposed the rawness beneath her glamour, she married Republican Senator John Warner and traded the red carpet for Washington’s political corridors.

But politics did not satisfy her. She missed the spotlight and struggled with depression. They had no children, and after six years they divorced. Warner never remarried.

He died in 2021 at the age of 94, remembered as a statesman but also as the man who married a queen of Hollywood. Her final husband was perhaps her most unexpected. Larry Fortensky was a construction worker twenty years her junior. They met while both were in recovery at the Betty Ford Clinic.

Taylor described him as a good man who did not care about her fame. Their romance was honest, if improbable. They married at Michael Jackson’s Neverland Ranch in 1991, complete with helicopters, paparazzi, and celebrity guests. But the pressures of fame weighed heavily on Fortensky.

He could not adapt to Taylor’s world, and they divorced in 1996. They had no children, but she continued to support him financially until her death. He died in 2016 after a fall and years of declining health. Taylor died in 2011 surrounded by her children and grandchildren.

After years of declining health that included congestive heart failure, a hip replacement, and the effects of a life filled with surgeries, she left behind four children: Michael Wilding Jr. , an actor and advocate; Christopher Wilding, a film editor; Liza Todd, a sculptor who stays mostly out of the public eye; and Maria Burton, adopted by Taylor in the 1960s, who has worked in nonprofit and humanitarian efforts. Together they have preserved her legacy through the Elizabeth Taylor AIDS Foundation, which she founded in 1991, serving as ambassadors, board members, and stewards of the cause. Between them, she had ten grandchildren, many of whom also support the foundation and continue to speak proudly of their iconic grandmother.

She outlived four of her husbands. Others remarried, some were redeemed, some forgotten, but none escaped the long shadow she cast. Eight marriages, seven men, and one woman who never apologized for how fiercely she lived. As Taylor once said, I am a very committed wife, and I should be.

I’ve been married enough.