(5/14/99)
OWENSBORO, Ky. (AP) -- A reporter who was fired after acknowledging she lied in a series of columns about dying of cancer, claiming she did so to avoid the stigma of AIDS, now says she doesn't have AIDS, either.
``I forgot that I didn't have AIDS,'' she acknowledged.
In an interview published today by the newspaper that fired her, 33-year-old Kim Stacy said she began making up stories about her health several years ago so she could make friends.
The Messenger-Inquirer fired Ms. Stacy on Monday after she told editors that she did not have cancer and had never been treated for it. She said at the time she was being treated for AIDS but did not want to reveal that.
On Thursday, Ms. Stacy told the newspaper that to the best of her knowledge, she has never had any symptoms of AIDS-related illnesses and was never tested for it or treated for it.
In a story earlier this week, Ms. Stacy was asked how would readers know that she's telling the truth about having AIDS. ``I don't have an answer for you all,'' she said, ``Will you all be my friends anyway?''
Her columns on cancer, one of which was distributed by The Associated Press in Kentucky, described trips to Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tenn., where she said she was being treated. She said Thursday the trips to Vanderbilt never occurred.
Ms. Stacy said she began lying about her health shortly after moving in 1995 from Grundy, Va., to Pikeville, in eastern Kentucky.
``I don't know where the idea came from,'' she said in today's Messenger-Inquirer. ``At the time I was having trouble with my blood sugar and going to the doctor a lot, and everybody was real nice to me, real concerned. It seemed like to me they really made an effort to be friends with me. It turns out, they were only friends with my disease.''
In late 1995, she told co-workers at the Appalachian News-Express in Pikeville she had cancer.
``I don't remember thinking and planning that,'' she said. ``One day I walked in and just told them'' that she had stomach cancer.
Ms. Stacy said she has had stomach problems but attributes them to stress. ``Sometimes I have night-sweats, and occasionally I have a rash around my neck and on my chest,'' she told the Owensboro newspaper. ``I even get colds sometimes. It's horrible.''
Ms. Stacy's father, Monroe Stacy, told the Messenger-Inquirer that she is diabetic. He said her mother, Pauline, died of complications of diabetes in 1990, and that he died of a stroke in 1996.
Ms. Stacy joined the Messenger-Inquirer in April 1998. Several months later, she told co-workers she had had stomach cancer in the past and that it had returned. Later, she said her stomach cancer again had gone into remission after chemotherapy.