"Adjani has AIDS": when the actress is the victim of a monster rumor

The question seems strange to her. "Are you well?" a friend asks Isabelle Adjani. Her serious, even worried tone suggests she's not well. Yet, yes, she's very well. It's 1986. The actress is 31 years old, and has a recognized and admired career, already crowned with two Césars. While she's doing well, the world around her is no longer right. One innocuous question is followed by another, then another, each time more alarming, in a surreal dialogue that Adjani tells us, as if she had just heard it the day before:

“Are you aware?”

"Aware of what?" the actress retorts, annoyed.

– It would be good if you went out, we'll see that you're okay.

– Why would I need to show that I'm okay?

Suddenly, the slightest everyday gesture is marked by strangeness. The actress enters the era of suspicion, without grasping what could threaten her, without understanding what mark of infamy could characterize her. At the Carita hair salon, as she goes to wash her hair, she hears the woman next to her ask the employee: "Josyane, are you still wearing gloves?" At the restaurant, it becomes more difficult for her to ask for a spoon and fork - touching them would contaminate the rest of the table service. "I felt like no one saw me. I went out, I showed myself - which I hate doing - and it was as if there was no way to be seen," the actress says today.

Before the internet, social media, and fake news , Isabelle Adjani was the victim of a monster rumor, one of the most significant of the late ^20th century, fueled by word of mouth. The actress was said to have AIDS, the virus that, since the early 1980s, had killed mostly homosexuals and drug addicts.

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