In one biography I read of Liberace (yes, I’ve actually read more than one Liberace biography- I’m that weird in my interests) the biographer says that Liberace was probably telling the truth when he said he had not engaged in homosexual activity at the time of that lawsuit. He lived with his mother (or she with him rather) and she even travelled with him on the road much of the time.
The biographer’s evidence and interviews suggested that he did not become sexually active until middle age, and then he made up for lost time (unfortunately, since he picked the really wrong time to enter gay promiscuity circuit). He was engaged twice, but it’s generally believed one was a publicity gimmick set up by his PR person and another was something he was semi-serious on but either he or she one finally said “Who are we kidding?”.
One of the many ex- Mrs. George Liberace’s said in an interview that George once sent a particularly beautiful high class call girl to his brother’s hotel room with their mother’s encouragement because even his beloved Mama was concerned about him. Liberace through the girl out and went into a rage towards his brother and mother.
By the time he denied ever having had gay sex in the Scott Thorson lawsuit he was lying his rhinestone studded butt off. The 70s was a time he experimented with drugs (cocaine especially- I don’t believe he ever had an addiction problem) and sex clubs and rent boys and just generally went into a delayed mid-life crisis. It’s thought he contracted HIV from rentboys and groupies he slept with after Scott.
The man was a major facade, not just on the “looking for the right girl” front. He was a heavy smoker (with a diamond studded cigarette case on display at his museum who, while not a lush, definitely drank, but claimed to be a non-smoking teetotaller. He wore a hairpiece but claimed his hair was natural. Even much of the image of him at home in those godawful de Medici whorehouse decorations was largely put on- his real bedroom (i.e. the one he actually slept on rather than the one with the Sistine Chapel on the ceiling and the gilded toilet) was almost monastic and his closest of the close friends (such as fag hags extraordinaire Debbie Reynolds and Liza Minnelli) recall that when there were no cameras and no visitors he would walk around bald (he kept his remaining hair very close cropped so that the very expensive wigs would fit better) in a loose old bathrobe that he loved and stay mainly in the more sedate rooms of the house. (He had many homes, but for the last few years he stayed mostly in Palm Springs and Vegas.)
Like Roy Cohn he denied having AIDS even on his deathbed. I suppose you can take the boy out of the early 20th century immigrant Catholic family but…