This story is just too weird not to be true.

[Guest BeachBoy]

Via Express UK:

Cooped up together for 500 miles were three of the world’s biggest and most charismatic stars – Dame Elizabeth Taylor, Marlon Brando and Michael Jackson.

The trio are said to have embarked on their journey to flee New York in a hire car the day after the 9/11 terror attack.

Fearing a follow-up attack, the trio first sought refuge in New Jersey, according to one of Jackson’s former personal assistants.

From there they undertook a 500-mile odyssey across America – with Brando and Jackson behind the wheel and stopping only to fuel up on Burger King and KFC takeaways – until they finally reached a mystery destination in the state of Ohio.

The remarkable tale, told to this month’s Vanity Fair magazine, is set to become the stuff of Hollywood legend – or possibly even part of a film script.

The US magazine says that Hollywood actors Brando and Taylor were in the Big Apple to watch Jackson perform at Madison Square Garden on September 10.

The following day, after hearing that the Twin Towers had collapsed, Jackson “hollered down the hallway of his hotel” for everyone in his entourage, including Brando, to leave immediately.

However, Jackson and Brando had trouble leaving the hotel garage “because fans kept banging on the car windows, following them down the street, screaming”.

Taylor, meanwhile, was said to be staying nearby at another hotel.

The former employee of Jackson reveals that he “led his entourage to a temporary safe haven” in New Jersey before the three superstars took to the open road.

“They got as far as Ohio – all three of them in a car they drove themselves!” he recalls in the magazine.

Rotund Brando, the star of On The Waterfront and The Godfather, apparently annoyed the others by demanding stops at every KFC and Burger King en route.

Another version of the story reports that Jackson attempted to get Taylor out of New York, but she was unable to fly out.

Former teen heart-throb and actor Corey Feldman, a friend of Jackson, who also was at the Madison Square Garden show, tells the magazine: “I remember Michael was trying to get Elizabeth out. He was at first looking for a private jet.”

However, one of Taylor’s closest friends and assistants disputes the tale. “Elizabeth stayed behind. She went to church to pray, and she went to an armoury where people were who couldn’t get home or who’d stayed behind to look for the missing,” he says.

“She also went down to Ground Zero. Eventually the airports opened and she flew home.”

But in a piece detailing the final years of Dame Elizabeth, who died aged 79 in Los Angeles in March, the magazine states: “She may well have done all of those things, although no reports surfaced in the media of sightings of Elizabeth Taylor ministering to the frightened and wounded or showing up at Ground Zero.”

Vanity Fair also reveals that the Oscar-winner loved listening to Britain’s Got Talent singing sensation Susan Boyle while driving her Cadillac Escalade car.

According to one of those who knew Dame Elizabeth best, there was “no such thing as a typical day” for the star.

Her devoted personal assistant of 25 years, Tim Mendelson, tells the magazine: “She had a genius for creating chaos around her. A typical day was whatever occupied her attention at the moment.

“That’s what was so great about working for her. One day it might be something to do with the dog, or a friend who needed help. Or she might just decide to spend a few days in bed watching television.”

Her alleged travelling companions are both also dead. Brando died in 2004 aged 80; Michael Jackson was 50 when he died in 2009.

[Guest hitoallusa]

Whether it is true or not, she led a wonderful life and loved by many. That's what matters. RIP.

[BiBottomBoy]

The author James Ellroy referenced that trip in one of his Esquire essays about the post 9/11 world, so I suspect it's true.