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Gia's Mother Breaks Her Silence In The National Enquirer 07/17/01 Gia: The Dark, Desperate Days of The World's First SuperModel by David Wright (Article Highlights)
"The Mother of Gia, the world's first supermodel, has finally broken her silence - to speak out about her daughter's tragic death. In a heartbreakingly frank exclusive Enquirer interview, Kathy Sperr detailed Gia's descent from the cover of Vogue and the fashion catwalks of New York and Europe to a career destroying addiction to heroin and a headline making death at just 26 - one of the first women ever to die of AIDS. "I was with her to the end", she said. "I was reading the 23rd Psalm to her, and as I got to the words, 'Yea, though I walk through the shadow of the valley of death,' suddenly out of the corner of my eye I saw one of the machines she was hooked up to going haywire - and I knew my baby was gone." "Gia's fast life and sad times were chronicled in a best selling book and an HBO TV movie. Superstar actress Angelina Jolie starred and received an Emmy nomination for her portrayal of the hottest cover girl of the 1970's. Even though she hated the movie, Kathy, 65, stayed silent about it. "It was torture," she told the Enquirer. "I was livid because Gia wasn't the person Angelina played and I certainly wasn't the horrible mother people wrote about. The hurt will never end - but now it's time to tell the truth." Kathy is also working with the producers of a new documentary, "The Self-Destruction Of Gia," to be released this August. Off the catwalk, where she made $10,000 a day, the popular young beauty glittered in the celebrity studded spotlight of Studio 54, New York's most glamorous nightclub and a hotbed of drugs and sex. She had a long procession of lovers - many of them women. "She partied with some of the most famous celebrities in the world," said Kathy. "She told me Jack Nicholson gave her the key to his hotel room one night - but she didn't use it." Gia had been the toast of New York for two years when Kathy first suspected that drugs had taken over her daughter's life. "She was missing work and was irritable," she explained. "I tried to get her help, but no one wanted to deal with heroin addicts. Addiction experts told me, 'You can't help her - just save yourself.' Kathy tried to counsel Gia herself - to no avail. By 1984 Gia hit bottom. Her career was in ruins ... Kathy finally persuaded her to go into rehab. It was June 1986 and Gia had been diagnosed with AIDS. Within five months the once brightest flame in the fashion world would be extinguished forever. "AIDS had always been in the back of my mind because of her using needles - but she was a woman and back then AIDS didn't happen to women," said Kathy. "We sat in the park and talked. We both knew she wasn't long for this world. Gia suddenly blurted out, 'I overdosed three times - why did God save me then, only to have me go like this?' After that, with every breath you could see her slipping away." "Gia's face was beautiful to the end. She'd gotten a renewed faith in God. She had a portrait of Jesus pinned to her bedroom door. Just before she was hooked up to life support four weeks before her death, Gia turned to her mother and spoke her last words. "She said, 'I think I'm going to see HIM tonight,' said Kathy. I said, No, no, stay here for Mommy. But I knew she was leaving me." |