In 1990, Hudson's live-in publicist Tom Clark and publicist Dick Kleiner published "Rock Hudson, Friend of Mine". In the book, Clark said he believed Hudson acquired HIV from blood transfusions during quintuple bypass open-heart surgery in 1981; never acknowledged that their relationship went beyond being roommates; and characterized Christian as disreputable. Christian filed a $22 million libel suit against the authors and publisher, charging that he had been labelled "a criminal, a thief, an unclean person, a blackmailer, a psychotic, an extortionist, a forger, a perjurer, a liar, a whore, an arsonist and a squatter".