Larry Fortensky 'Sick and Tired of the Lies' About His Life With Liz Taylor

Elizabeth Taylor has reportedly left her last husband $800,000 in her will. Larry Fortensky was number seven in Taylor's long line of spouses (eight marriages/seven men) and after years of

staying mum on their relationship, the 59-year-old former builder recently opened up to London's Daily Mail.

In a lengthy interview, Fortensky insisted that he was never after Taylor for her money. He reflected on the couple's happy times together and claimed to only be breaking his silence now in an effort to stop the rumors about him being a gold-digger.

"This is nothing to do with money, I have been offered so much over the years," he said. "This is about wanting people to know the real story. I am sick and tired of the lies."

To the public, the two seemed an unlikely match from the get go: he was a construction worker who never finished high school and was 20 years younger, she was among Hollywood's most glamorous, well-known (and well-bejeweled) movie stars.

The pair met during stays in rehab at Betty Ford in 1988 and were married at Michael Jackson's Neverland Ranch in 1991. The marriage was over by 1996 and Fortensky walked away with $1 million in the divorce settlement, which for Taylor was a drop in the bucket (her worth was recently estimated between $600 million and $1 billion).

Fortensky's health has been ailing ever since he fell down the stairs in 1999 while he was drunk and he's had more than his share of financial troubles since (his house was repossessed last year). Still, he argued that while he accepted money from Taylor over the years, he never asked, not even when they were married.

"I am a proud man and I like to work. I didn't want her money," he said. "I'd get up at 6am to go to the construction site. Elizabeth would get up, put on a kaftan and we'd have breakfast."

With such a financial gulf between them, Fortensky said he never tried to compete with Taylor- the year she gave him a Harley for Christmas, he gave her chocolate covered roses. Warming to the spotlight though was something he could never do.

"Everywhere we went there were cameras," Fortensky recalls. "Elizabeth would put lipstick on constantly because she said she never knew when she was being photographed. I found it hard. It wasn't my cup of tea, those cameras everywhere. Elizabeth was used to it. I never got used to it."

Fortesnky's short-term memory is suffering, but he was able to take the Mail through a highlight reel of his years with Taylor, from the time she threw a fur coat over her nightgown and ran outside to make a snow angel, to how much the two enjoyed riding his Harley along the coast before stopping for burgers at biker bars.

"Of course she was very pretty and I wasn't too bad-looking in those days either. We had an instant physical attraction," Fortensky said. His sister Donna, who lives with him in a town two hours south of Los Angeles, chimed in a little too much on the subject of their sex life.

"She would call Larry her 'stallion.' He loved that," she said. "They were very sexy together. Larry would get up from the table and drag Liz off to the bedroom."

Forstensky said he and Taylor were not only very much in love during their marriage, but that they continued to have an amicable relationship following the divorce. The two spoke on the phone several times each month.

"I love her, I always will. And I know she loved me, too."

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Colin Farrell on pal Elizabeth Taylor: "I miss her"

Colin Farrell may have seemed like an unlikely guest at Elizabeth Taylor's funeral last week, but the Irish actor and the Hollywood icon were actually good pals.

"How did we become friends? You know, the old story of boy meets girl, and boy pesters girl with too many phone calls at inappropriate hours of the night," Farrell joked to "Access Hollywood." "I was just lucky enough to become her friend in the last year and a half. I adore her … still."

Taylor was also a big fan of Farrell. In an interview published in the March issue of Harper's Bazaar, the movie legend dished about today's crop of leading men. "I love Johnny Depp, and I love Colin Farrell — both brilliant, nuanced actors with great range," she said.

Farrell read the poem "The Leaden Echo and the Golden Echo" at Taylor's funeral and said he was "sad and honored" when a friend of the star called to ask him to be part of the service.

"It was a tricky poem as well," he noted. "Even in passing she had me under the thumb, sweating bricks! … I just miss her; I just miss her; I just miss her."

Death of Hollywood Queen Elizabeth Taylor

Elizabeth Taylor , the Oscar-winning movie goddess and pioneering AIDS activist whose off-screen marriages, divorces and death-defying exploits rivaled her films for drama died today, her family said in a statement.

She was 79, and had been hospitalized in recent weeks for congestive heart failure.

"Her legacy will never fade, her spirit will always be with us, and her love will live forever in our hearts," son Michael Wilding said.

Taylor starred in 50-plus movies. She made the leap from child star to world's biggest star. She won two Oscars, for Butterfield 8 and Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf ?
Other signature films included National Velvet , Father of the Bride , Giant , and Cleopatra , on the set of which she began a notorious love affair with costar Richard Burton , whom she would marry, divorce, remarry and divorce again.

In all, Taylor celebrated eight marriages and endured seven divorces.
"I never planned to acquire a lot of jewels or a lot of husbands," she said in a recent interview with Kim Kardashian for Harper's Bazaar . "For me, life happened, just as it does for anyone else."

Of all her off-screen accomplishments, most notably she helped raised more than$200 million for AIDS research. In the family statement, Wilding praised his mother's "brave and relentless fight" for the cause.
In 2009, Taylor announced, via her Twitter page—yes, she rolledwith the times—that she was to undergo heart surgery to repaira valve. Her most recent hospitalstint, at L.A.'s Cedars-Sinai, where she died, began in February.
"Everything was handed to me. Looks, fame, wealth, honors, love," she said in 1999. "But I've paid for that luck with disasters,the deaths of so many good friends, terrible illnesses, destructive addictions, broken marriages."
"All things considered, I'm damnedlucky to be alive."