Elizabeth Taylor's son reveals her response to intervention over drug abuse

Elizabeth Taylor had her share of struggles with alcohol and drugs after her marriage to Senator John Warner ended in 1982.

In the final episode of the BBC documentary Elizabeth Taylor: Rebel Superstar, her loved ones recalled seeing her suffer with addiction.

"She had physical ailments, especially bad back problems, for which the use of pain meds was a legitimate recourse," her son Christopher Wilding explained. "When she was little, we had all these miracle drugs and you took a pill. That was her approach — better living through science.”

He went on to share that those close to her knew that she was "abusing alcohol and pain meds, including injectable ones." Her loved ones then decided to hold an intervention for the icon actress.

He continued: "We’d talk to her, but things got to the point where it was decided an intervention would be necessary. We just wanted her to get help. Close family members flew in and boy, that was difficult.”

"The family intervention stopped me so dead in my tracks. It leaves you totally speechless, and it’s so sincere and done with such love that you know it must be agony for them. We were all petrified. She was a formidable woman," Wilding recalled.

His mother had a positive response to the intervention and agreed to check into rehab.

In a recording, she said: "It was like being slapped in the face with reality. And I thought, ‘My God, I thought I was a good mother. How have I allowed myself to do this to the people I love most in the world?’ "

At the rehab, the actress had to share a room with someone and do chores, things she had never done in adult life, per her son. She also received therapy.

Opening up about her time at the rehab, Elizabeth Taylor said: "I felt really for the first time in my life like I wasn't being exploited by anyone. I was being accepted for myself. I was forced to look at the honest truth of who I was.”