The iris of Elizabeth Taylor’s eyes was naturally colored violet.
For decades, there has been speculation about the eyes of Hollywood icon Elizabeth Taylor and questioning their true color: Are they velvety blue, deep purple or bright violet?
Taylor’s sparkling eyes are so legendary that she even named a fragrance after them: Elizabeth Taylor Violet Eyes.
In fact, the debate over Taylor’s striking eyes continues on social media, even years after her death in 2011, with posts on Reddit, TikTok and Instagram repeating the long-held claim that the screen legend was born with purple-tinted eyes.
For example, in 2023, a post on the r/WhatisMyEyeColour subreddit referred to Taylor as “the stunning actor with purple eyes” before asking, “Were they really purple? To me they look more like a super intense blue.”
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The eyes never lie – but the camera can
While some people claimed Taylor had purple eyes, others say her eyes were a striking shade of blue, which she highlighted through clever makeup tricks, clothing choices, and skillful lighting.
Classic Hollywood Central, for example, said Taylor’s eyes were “probably a very deep blue that could appear purple in the right light. She has also emphasized this effect throughout her career by using a lot of blue and purple eye shadow shades.”
To confirm Taylor’s eye color once and for all, Snopes contacted Elizabeth Taylor’s estate. A spokesperson for House of Taylor, a company that manages the luxury brands and archives created by the estate, confirmed that Taylor never wore contact lenses or colored contact lenses, but did not explicitly state her true eye color.
When the “Cleopatra” actress’ career began in the 1940s, black-and-white photographs reinforced the myth surrounding her eye color. As Hollywood began to use more color film, images were often oversaturated to emphasize features such as eye and lip color. In publicity photos, the “purple” color of Taylor’s eyes was often altered to make them stand out and appear brighter.
Taylor often wore clothing, accessories, and eye makeup in jewel tones like blue, green, or purple to accentuate her eye color. In a close-up scene in the 1974 drama “The Driver’s Seat,” Taylor’s character quickly applies blue eye shadow with a small cosmetic applicator. In 2016, celebrity makeup artist Mario Dedivanovic (whose famous clients include Kim Kardashian) posted the scene on Instagram, writing, “Love this. #elizabethtaylor. She did this eye in seconds with this tiny brush – eye shadow, crease, and eyeliner. Boom 👏.”
Eye color is determined by melanin in the iris
Lighter eyes often reflect shades of blue, green, and aquamarine, depending on the person’s clothing and the lighting conditions, whether natural or enhanced. Like many people with blue or green eyes, Taylor’s eye color seemed to change hue depending on clothing and makeup.
Blue eyes can create the optical illusion of appearing violet or purple under certain lighting conditions. Eye color can change due to the eyes’ absorption of light, whether from the sun or reflection from clothing and enhanced lighting.
Even among ophthalmologists, Taylor’s “true” eye color is a matter of interpretation. Live Science spoke with laser and microsurgeon ophthalmic surgeon Dr. Norman Saffra, who told the outlet, “There are various shades of blue and gray and many in between. Purple may have been her typical pigmentation,” adding, “It’s possible to have that eye color; it all depends on the amount of melanin.”
Violet is a color closely related to purple, and is next to blue on the color wheel of red, yellow, and blue. Violet or purple eyes, while extremely rare, can also be caused by a lack of melanin, or natural pigment, in the iris, usually due to albinism or a genetic mutation.
Melanin is a natural pigment responsible for the color of skin, hair, and eyes. Eye color depends on the amount of melanin in the front layers of the iris. People with dark brown eyes have a large amount of melanin in their iris, while people with lighter shades, such as light blue or green, have much less of this pigment in their iris.
Taylor’s eye color probably appeared purple at times and blue at others. This is due to the amount of melanin in the stroma (the thickest layer of the cornea) of her iris and the way light is reflected and scattered in her eye.
The American Academy of Ophthalmology does not mention violet or purple eyes when talking about the rarest eye color, pointing out that green eyes are naturally the rarest in the world population:
Green eyes are the rarest, with only about 2% of the world’s population having them. Green eyes are not only due to the amount of melanin in the eye, but also to the way light is scattered by the eye. The optical effect of light scattering from the melanin in these eyes is what makes them green.
Violet eyes are so rare that they are probably a genetic mutation
Meanwhile, the Optical Academy points out that “true violet-colored eyes are extremely rare and are usually due to albinism. While some people, such as Elizabeth Taylor, have deep blue eyes that can appear violet, true violet eyes are found in less than 1% of the world’s population.”
Ocular albinism is a genetic condition that specifically affects the eyes and is characterized by a significant reduction or complete absence of pigment in the retina. This pigment deficiency causes several vision problems, including sensitivity to light, and often results in very light blue eyes that may appear purple or even pink in certain lighting conditions. Ocular albinism affects 1 in 50,000 people.
According to the National Organization for Albinism and Hypopigmentation: “A common myth is that people with albinism have red eyes. In fact, there are several types of albinism and the amount of pigment in the eyes varies. Although some people with albinism have reddish or purple eyes, most have blue eyes. Some have hazel or brown eyes. However, all forms of albinism are associated with vision problems.”
Taylor had no known optical mutations or vision problems that would have affected her eye color, but she suffered from the rare genetic mutation distichiasis, which caused an extra row of natural eyelashes to grow on her upper and lower lash lines. This genetic mutation likely improved the appearance, but not the color, of Taylor’s eyes.
As mentioned above, it is incredibly rare to have violet eyes unless you have ocular albinism. In all likelihood, Taylor’s eyes were actually a rare shade of blue that appeared violet under certain lighting conditions and with certain clothing and makeup. It is highly unlikely that they were actually violet, as this color is mainly found in the small group of people with ocular albinism. Although she did have a genetic mutation, it resulted in thick eyelashes, not her signature blue-violet eye color. For these reasons, we rate the claim that Taylor’s eye color was naturally violet as “unproven.”
In a previous fact check, Snopes investigated the claim that Alexandria’s Genesis is a mutation that turns people into “perfect humans” who have purple eyes six months after birth.
