Monday, March 07, 2016

Did You Hear the One About the Statue of Liberty Having AIDS?


Boy Culture gets to the, um, bottom of this oft-repeated story that Ronald and Nancy Reagan died laughing when Bob Hope joked that Lady Liberty had gotten AIDS, either from the mouth of the Hudson or the Staten Island Fairy. Read HERE.


I can't tell you if it's true about her having AIDS. But I can tell you from first-hand experience that Lady Liberty is a bondage queen, as I discovered on my first visit to the Big Apple in 1985.


UPDATE:


A reader pointed me to this PSA Bob Hope made, which I'm told was an apology of sorts for that "joke" made about two years earlier.

3 comments:

Bill Carter said...

I remember hearing about Hope's disgusting "joke," but there was never any connection to the Reagans. As I recall, Hope made some kind of vaguely pro-gay PSA shortly after the incident.

Bill Carter said...

Here's a contemporary (1986) account from the LA Times. Again, no Reagan connection.

http://articles.latimes.com/1986-07-30/local/me-18831_1_miss-liberty-bob-hope-hope-s-joke

Bill Carter said...

And here's the PSA, which is stronger than I remembered:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pDO34rXZJg4