In early 1991, the composer Alan Menken took a keyboard to St Vincent's hospital in New York to visit his friend and creative partner, the lyricist Howard Ashman. Ashman was in the final stages of Aids-related illness, but was determined to finish his work on Disney's Aladdin.
As, Dr. Bill Lipsky noted in his 2022 remembrance for the San Francisco Bay Times, Campbell had been diagnosed with Kaposi's sarcoma (KS) the previous October, becoming just the 16th person in the city to be diagnosed with the rare form of skin cancer that was suddenly popping up among young men. During those early days of the epidemic, before doctors identified HIV and AIDS, patients like Campbell were described as having "gay cancer."
Osbourne's subtle support for gay folk in the '80s came at a time when AIDS was ravaging the community, and few with a platform were doing much about it.