In a 2011 interview, actress and close friend Betty White stated that Liberace was gay, and that she often served as a beard to counter rumors of the musician's homosexuality. Following Liberace's death from an AIDS-related illness in 1987, the paper asked for the award to be refunded.
Their defence contended that there was no libel as no accusation had been made, rather than arguing that the accusation was true. The newspaper responded that columnist William Connor 's words (written under his byline 'Cassandra') did not imply that Liberace was gay. For example, in 1957 American pianist Liberace, successfully sued the Daily Mirror for merely insinuating that he was gay. Outing may be found to be libel by a court of law. Vandenberg Jr., who had briefly served as President Eisenhower's Appointments Secretary. Among the political figures targeted by the magazine were former Under Secretary of State Sumner Welles and Arthur H. In the 1950s during the Lavender Scare, tabloid publications like Confidential emerged, specializing in the revelation of scandalous information about entertainment and political celebrities. In response, Brand wrote, "when someone - as teacher, priest, representative, or statesman - would like to set in the most damaging way the intimate love contacts of others under degrading control - in that moment his own love-life also ceases to be a private matter and forfeits every claim to remain protected hence-forward from public scrutiny and suspicious oversight." Left-wing journalist Kurt Tucholsky disagreed, writing in Die Weltbühne, "We fight the scandalous §175, everywhere we can, therefore we must not join the choir of those among us who want to banish a man from society because he is homosexual." United States Left-wing journalists outed Adolf Hitler's closest ally Ernst Röhm in 19. In 1928, Kurt Hiller argued that it would be permissible to out a member of a cabinet preparing an anti-homosexual law, arguing: "Our solidarity with the homosexuals of all classes and political viewpoints extends very far but it does not include traitors to their own cause." Many activists of the first homosexual movement denounced outing as "the way over corpses". Harden's accusations incited other journalists to follow suit, including Adolf Brand, founder of Der Eigene. Left-wing journalists opposed to Kaiser Wilhelm II's policies outed a number of prominent members of his cabinet and inner circle-and by implication the Kaiser-beginning with Maximilian Harden's indictment of the aristocratic diplomat Prince Eulenburg. The Eulenburg affair of 1907–1909 was the first public outing scandal of the twentieth century. See also: Krupp affair, Eulenburg affair, and Röhm scandal