What disease killed Jenny in the movie Forrest Gump?

The movie is vague. Jenny tells Forrest she has some virus and the doctors do not know what it is. At no point in the movie itself does it disclose more information regarding why she died.

It appears that the popular opinions are one of the following:

  • AIDS. It would have weakened her immune system, allowing something else to finish her off. HIV/AIDS is spread primarily through blood and sexual contact. Jenny appears to have multiple partners throughout the movie and is living in the era of "free love." This seems to be the most popular opinion.

  • Hepatitis C. Per Wikipedia, this is primarily spread via blood contact and drug use. Jenny is seen in the movie (ab)using drugs multiple times at a point in history when drug use was even more rampant than it is today. Hepatitis C was also unknown in the late 1980s which is the rough timeframe of when the end of the movie would have taken place, which could explain it being an "unknown virus."

While we can debate which disease it might have been, is there any definitive, credible proof? Interviews with producers, directors, scriptwriters? Specific references to a script or other source material?

The accepted answer must include some credible, out-of-universe proof explaining the specific cause of Jenny's death.

  • The script does not say what it is, only that she has a virus and the "doctor's don't know what it is." – CGCampbell Aug 16 '15 at 4:16
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    The movie heavily implies the virus with no cure is HIV. – Simba3696 Aug 16 '15 at 4:35
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    I am aware the script doesn't say anything specific, and that the movie implies certain things. I am looking for credible evidence, most likely interviews with people of authority in the production of the movie. The Internet already has much conjecture and assumption, I am looking for objective data. – user9311 Aug 16 '15 at 4:40
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    Correction: Jenny's gravestone says she died March 22, 1982. Early 80's, not late 80's. – Swan May 31 '16 at 22:16
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    Also, in the early 80's, hep C was well known, we just didn't know the exact virus that caused it. It was diagnosed as "Non-A, Non-B Hepatitis". If hep C was the problem, she would have told Forrest the doctors said she had hepatitis. – Swan May 31 '16 at 22:21

The evidence:

Jenny says she has a virus, but doctors don't know what it is or how to treat it.

Jenny: Forrest, I'm sick.

Forrest: What, do you have a cough due to cold?

Jenny: I have some virus, and the doctors, they don't know what it is, and there isn't anything they can do about it.

It is now thought that people were infected with AIDS as early as the 1920s, and the current epidemic began in the '70s, but it wasn't recognized until 1980-1981:

It is widely believed that HIV originated in Kinshasa, in the Democratic Republic of Congo around 1920 when HIV crossed species from chimpanzees to humans. Up until the 1980s, we do not know how many people developed HIV or AIDS. HIV was unknown and transmission was not accompanied by noticeable signs or symptoms.



In early 1980 through 1981 there were 26 cases of a rare form of cancer called Kaposi Sarcoma – 20 from New York and 6 from California. By May of 1981 there were 5 cases of Pneumocystis Carinii Pneumonia...

By the beginning of July 1982 a total of 452 cases, from 23 states, had been reported to the U.S. Center for Disease Control (CDC). In hindsight, we now know these early AIDS patients had HIV for years prior to 1981 (as we know a person without treatment can have HIV for five to ten years before AIDS is imminent). - History of HIV/AIDS in the U.S., The Institute of Human Virology

The HIV/AIDS panic began in mid-1981.


On June 5 1981, the Associated Press and the Los Angeles Times report on the MMWR. On June 6, the San Francisco Chronicle covers the story. Within days, doctors from across the U.S. flood CDC with reports of similar cases.

In addition to reports of cases of PCP and other opportunistic infections among gay men, CDC also receives reports of a cluster of cases of a rare, and unusually aggressive, cancer, Kaposi’s Sarcoma, among a group of gay men in New York and California. In response, on June 8, CDC establishes a Task Force on Kaposi’s Sarcoma and Opportunistic Infections (KSOI) to identify risk factors and to develop a case definition for national surveillance.

On July 3, the New York Times reports on cases of Kaposi’s Sarcoma affecting 41 gay men in New York and California.

By year-end, there is a cumulative total of 270 reported cases of severe immune deficiency among gay men, and 121 of those individuals have died. - A Timeline of HIV/AIDS, AIDS.gov

Doctors finally use the name "AIDS" for the first time in September 1982, months after Jenny died.

On September 24, CDC uses the term “AIDS” (acquired immune deficiency syndrome) for the first time, and releases the first case definition of AIDS: “a disease at least moderately predictive of a defect in cell-mediated immunity, occurring in a person with no known case for diminished resistance to that disease.” - A Timeline of HIV/AIDS, AIDS.gov

The virus that causes AIDS is first isolated and identified in May of 1983; it is initially called Lymphadenopathy Associated Virus (LAV).

On May 20, 1983, Dr. Françoise Barré-Sinoussi and her colleagues at the Pasteur Institute Exit Disclaimer in France, report the discovery of a retrovirus named Lymphadenopathy Associated Virus (LAV) that could be the cause of AIDS. - A Timeline of HIV/AIDS, AIDS.gov

Jenny informed Forrest of her diagnosis sometime in 1981, and died in March of the following year. From the script:

                                 "FORREST GUMP"

                                  Screenplay by

                                    Eric Roth

                               Based on a novel by

                                  Winston Groom

           EXT. A SAVANNAH STREET - DAY (1981)

           A feather floats through the air. The falling feather.

One of the women to whom Forrest tells his story is reading the November 17, 1980 issue of People magazine, so the scene probably takes place early in 1981 (people usually don't read magazines a year after they come out):

People magazine cover, November 17, 1980 enter image description here

Jenny died in March, 1982.

enter image description here

In the early '80s, most AIDS patients died within a year and a half of diagnosis:

From 1981 through 1987, the average life expectancy for people diagnosed with AIDS was 18 months. - History of HIV/AIDS


According to Dr. Woodrow Myers, a public health official from Indiana, the life expectancy of someone who had HIV in 1987 was 18 months. - The History of HIV Research, The Borgen Project

Ruling out other possibilities:

Cancer: Cancer is not a virus, and it was neither unidentified nor untreatable in 1981.

Hepatitis A & B: Hepatitis A & B are viruses, but were well known by the '80s. Hep B was isolated in 1963, hep A was isolated in the early 1970s. By the '80s, there were vaccines and treatment regimens for both.

Hepatitis C: The actual hepatitis C virus wasn't isolated until 1989, but it had long been known to be a form of hepatitis. Before it was isolated, it was called "Non-A, Non-B Hepatitis", and doctors knew what it was and how to handle it. Furthermore, life expectancy for people diagnosed with hep C - even without treatment - is only a few years less than normal. It would be extremely unusual for an otherwise apparently healthy woman in her 30s to die of hep C within a year or two of diagnosis, and doctors would have been able to tell her she had Non-A, Non-B Hepatitis.1

Jenny's risky behavior:

We don't know for sure how Jenny would have contracted HIV/AIDS, but there were three main routes of infection in the days before the virus was identified: unprotected sex (especially with a large number of partners); intravenous drug use sharing dirty needles; and, far less commonly, blood transfusions/organ transplants. It is strongly implied that Jenny engaged in two of these three behaviors.

Intravenous drug use:

We know Jenny was around IV drug-users, and had been in at least one relationship with a heroin addict. The scene below takes place some time after 1973 (Lynyrd Skynyrd's 1973 hit Free Bird is playing on the radio), but probably before the disco craze of the late '70s. Judging by her appearance, she might have been a junkie herself at this point.

enter image description here

Unprotected sex:

It is certain that she was sexually active - after all, she has a son - but the only person we know she slept with is Forrest himself, the one guy that we can safely assume didn't give her the disease. However, there are several scenes (including the one above) that strongly imply a sexual relationship, and perhaps even that Jenny is a prostitute. Here's one such scene, set on New Year's Eve 1971:

enter image description here

The Forrest Gump wikia claims that Jenny was indeed a prostitute:

Forrest doesn't see Jenny again for a long time, but he frequently thinks of her and is hoping that she is happy in whatever she is doing. However, during this time, Jenny succumbs further to a life of drugs and prostitution. She eventually hits an all time low, and comes close to attempting suicide by almost leaping off the top floor of a hotel.2 - Forrest Gump Wikia, Jenny Curran

The verdict:

It is all but certain that Jenny was engaging in risky sexual behavior, including sexual relations with intravenous drug users; she may well have been using intravenous drugs herself (and even worse, sharing needles); it is possible that she was even a prostitute. Even today, IV drug users and people who have unprotected sex with multiple partners - especially prostitutes - are still the demographic groups most likely to contract HIV/AIDS. The one risk factor that existed in the '80s but is no longer a significant danger - blood transfusions and organ transplants - is the only one that doesn't appear to apply to Jenny.

"Word of God":

Director Robert Zemeckis said this:

Q: Was Jenny's death AIDS related?

Robert: It could have been, but it didn't matter. I mean... everyone thought that because it was so topical in the era... but we never said it. We never said it in the movie. We didn't want that to be, you know, the issue.


We have the following pieces of information:

  • Jenny tells Forrest of her diagnosis in early 1981, smack in the middle of the early stages of the HIV/AIDS panic.

  • She says she has an untreatable, unidentified virus; HIV/AIDS is a virus, and at that time, it was still unidentified and untreatable.

  • She dies about a year and a half later; at the time, life expectancy for people with HIV/AIDS was 18 months.

Conclusion: Jenny almost certainly died of HIV/AIDS.


1 For the sake of clarity, some explanation would be useful. When we hear that a virus has been "isolated in [insert year here]", it means that that was the year in which a virologist finally figured out which species/genotype of virus causes the illness with which it is associated.

In the case of hepatitis C, doctors knew that there was a form of hepatitis that wasn't caused by the virus species/genotypes that caused hepatitis A or B. They knew it was some sort of hepatitis, they knew how it was transmitted, they knew what the symptoms were, and they knew how to treat those symptoms. They called it "Non-A, Non-B Hepatitis" for years before, in 1974, someone finally identified the specific species/genotype of virus that caused it; after that point, it was designated as "Hepatitis C". The doctors knew most of the useful information before 1974, they just didn't know if it was one species/genotype or several different species/genotypes.

By way of analogy, we might compare this to a park ranger finding a hiker who has been mauled by an animal. At first, he doesn't know what kind of animal did it - was it a mountain lion, a wolf, a coyote, or a bear? This is like a doctor treating an illness two centuries ago, with only the vaguest sense of what the problem might be. The ranger looks at the wounds and animal tracks and determines that the culprit was a bear - but what kind? Was it a black bear or a grizzly? This is a bit like practicing medicine a hundred years ago. Then the ranger sees a few hairs under the victim's fingers, and notices that they are too dark to have come from a grizzly. Now he knows he's looking for a black bear, he knows what kind of rifle to bring,but he doesn't know exactly which one he needs to shoot. He's like a doctor treating "Non-A, Non-B Hepatitis" in 1971: he knows what he needs to do, he knows what to look for, but he doesn't know exactly who the culprit is. Finally, the ranger checks the GPS tracking data from all the bears in the park and sees that the bear with the tag numbered #81187B was the only one in the area where the hiker was attacked at the time of the mauling. He knows he should go out and shoot bear #81187B. He's like a doctor after Hepatitis C was isolated in 1974.

2 The near-suicide scene they are referring to takes place immediately after the shot of the heroin addict, shown above.

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    Without definitive evidence from the producers, process of elimination points to AIDS being the most likely cause. Also, that quote is almost saying "yes, but we didn't want the movie to be about AIDS." – user9311 May 31 '16 at 22:59
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    Without the bolding of every sentence and the use of unnecessarily animated pictures this could even be worth a bounty. But thanks anyway for this very insightful answer, I always wondered about this but never assumed AIDS was so unknown during her death (partly due to the fact that I actually thought her death was in the 90s already), albeit it being the most reasonable answer seeing her lifestyle. +1 – Napoleon Wilson Jun 1 '16 at 11:59
  • Totally agree with this answer, as someone who grew up through that period and was a young adult, it was clear to me what they meant when it was mentioned in the movie. Something that needs to be explored and evidenced by people who were not around during that time. – user31942 Nov 23 '16 at 23:41
  • Here's one such scene, set on New Year's Eve 1971 That is not a scene suggesting she's a prostitute. That is a scene showing us how she is leaving an abusive partner. Prostitutes wouldn't pack their bags at a client's (nor at their own place). – Flater Sep 10 '18 at 14:40
  • I would add that the movie itself lives off zeitgeists - it's practically what it's about. And since HIV/AIDS was the big topic of the early 80s, it makes sense within the theme of the story that this would be what she would die of. – colmde Sep 10 '18 at 15:51

Out-of-universe for the film, there's this: The 1995 sequel novel (Gump & Co.) says Jenny died of Hepatitis C. So, the "word of God" (from the author) is: Hepatitis C.

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    Can you cite the book more directly? Perhaps a quote? – Catija Aug 17 '15 at 2:54
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    All due respect Hep c is a well known disease in the 80's as opposed to the newly discovered hiv. But co-occuring in a patient the hiv can reduce the bodies ability to fight the hepatitis c virus making it quite deadly. – JayCouture.com Aug 17 '15 at 3:06
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    @JayCouture.com does it matter? If the text truly says it was Hep C, then it was and that's the answer. – Catija Aug 17 '15 at 5:17
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    From the question: "The accepted answer must include some credible, out-of-universe proof explaining the specific cause of Jenny's death." Do you have a quote that can prove this? – user9311 Aug 19 '15 at 23:10
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    Jenny did not die in the book version of Forrest Gump - that change was made by the screenwriter(s) for the movie. The book's sequel 'Gump & Co.' was written after the movie, so any speculation by author Winston Groom about Jenny's cause of death is based on events in the movie. – Drew C Jun 1 '16 at 5:14

Well, I think it isn't absolutely AIDS. When she say an "unknown virus" it's the movie present (1982).(Jenny’s gravestone says she died in 1982.)

AIDS was discovered in the early 1980s and it quickly becomes a very well-known disease. The condom becomes very popular in the 80's because of AIDS and in early 90's celebrities like Magic Johnson and Freddie Mercury got a lot of attention for it, so it's impossible to say that it's "unknown". Hep. C it's a good candidate for Jenny's disease, although a treatment for it was approved in 1991. The virus was discovered in 70s but in the late 80s was "published" and get attention. Only in the middle 90s and becomes a "well known disease". So, it's possible to say that Jenny got Hep C. Jenny was a junkie and the contact with infected needles (Injection drug) is the principal mode of transmission of the HCV.

  • Wait!, Is 1994 the movie present? Because of novel and the Regan's Attempted scene – pevallec May 31 '16 at 19:29
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    "The accepted answer must include some credible, out-of-universe proof explaining the specific cause of Jenny's death." This answer reads more like a comment, soliciting discussion, and not an answer providing canon references. Remember, Stack Exchange is not a forum. – user9311 May 31 '16 at 21:19
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    The movie's present is not 1994. Little Forrest is conceived on the US bicentennial in 1976, meaning he would be 18 years old in those scenes where he is getting on the school bus at the end if it were 1994. Based on the date of death on Jenny's tomb stone it is 1982. – Drew C Jun 1 '16 at 5:19

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