A friend of the late Elizabeth Taylor has claimed the actress opened her house to AIDS victims and supplied them with unapproved medication.

Kathy Ireland, an American model and close friend of Taylor’s, said the actress ran a ‘safe house’ in the vein of those represented in the Oscar-winning film Dallas Buyers Club.

“Talk about fearless, [it was] at her home in Bel Air,” she said.

“It was a safe house and a lot of the work she did was illegal, but she was saving lives,” Ms Ireland told Entertainment Tonight on Tuesday, World AIDS Day.

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“Her business associates pleaded with her, ‘leave this thing alone’, she received death threats and friends hung up on her when she asked for help, but something I love about Elizabeth is her courage.”

The claims have not yet been verified by Taylor’s estate.

Dame Elizabeth Taylor was a champion of AIDS prevention and cure during her lifetime.

The actress and activist was inspired to act after her close friend Rock Hudson, her personal assistant and her former daughter-in-law all contracted the disease.

Her assistant committed suicide after his diagnosis.

Taylor famously said of President George Bush in 1992: “I don’t believe the president is doing anything about AIDS. In fact, I’m not even sure if he knows how to spell AIDS.”

Taylor co-found the American Foundation for Aids Research in 1985, and used the $1 million People Magazine paid for the exclusive pictures of her 1991 wedding to Larry Fortensky to start her own AIDS foundation.

Elizabeth Taylor passed away in 2011 from heart failure.