Alyssa Milano first became an activist more than 30 years ago. But she tells the story of her eureka moment like it was yesterday.
In the late 1980s, when she starred in the sitcom Who’s the Boss?, one of her fans was a teenager named Ryan White who was HIV positive. The two became friends.
“He asked me if I would go on TV and give him a kiss to show that you couldn’t get AIDS from casual contact,” Milano recalls. She agreed and kissed White on Phil Donahue’s national talk show.
“It was the first time I felt that my being an actor, being on TV, had a purpose that was bigger than I was,” she says.
Since then she’s championed a number of causes including reproductive rights, gun reform and the #MeToo movement. Over time, she learned the good and bad of having both a high profile and a sense of purpose.
After Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, Milano, a UNICEF National Ambassador, used her social media platform to share the NGO’s messages.
She says the backlash was swift. “I felt like every time I posted from this place of peace, I was either a terrorist sympathizer or I did not fight strong enough for the oppression of the Palestinian people,” Milano explains. She says, while social media is a powerful tool for activism, “There’s no way to not be exposed to the vitriol” you get in return.
Celebrities are amplifiers
Oscar winning actor and Thelma & Louise star Susan Sarandon describes her lifelong activism as something that’s ingrained in her being.
“It’s a personality flaw,” she laughs, “I mean, when I was little, I thought that my dolls all came alive at midnight and I rotated their dresses so one doll didn’t have all the…
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