Billy Porter has revealed he is HIV positive after keeping his diagnosis a secret for 14 years.
Now, Porter, 51, has opened up about his own diagnosis in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter in an effort to tackle the stigma surrounding HIV, telling the world: "This is what HIV-positive looks like now. I'm going to die from something else before I die from that."
The Tony winner explained that he was diagnosed in June 2007, and that he felt "silenced" by the "shame of that time compounded with the shame that had already [accumulated] in my life"
Porter went on to say: "I have lived with that shame in silence for 14 years. HIV-positive, where I come from, growing up in the Pentecostal church with a very religious family, is God’s punishment."
Explaining how his diagnosis came about, he continued: "It was a fluke. I had a pimple on my butt, and it got larger and larger and harder and harder, and then it started to hurt. One day I was like, 'I’ve got to get this taken care of.'
"So I went to the Callen-Lorde clinic and the queen at the front desk was like, 'You want an HIV test? They only $10.' I said, 'Yeah, yeah, it’s time.' I got tested every six months, like you were supposed to."
When Porter was tested for infection by doctors, the results came back positive.
In the years since receiving the news, the actor has told some people close, with the exception of his mother.
The performer explained: "For a long time, everybody who needed to know, knew - except for my mother. I was trying to have a life and a career and I wasn't certain I could if the wrong people knew.
"It would just be another way for people to discriminate against me in an already discriminatory profession. So I tried to think about it as little as I could. I tried to block it out."
Porter went on to say that feelings of shame prevented him from going public with his status.
He added: "It wasn't a fear that [my status] was going to come out or that somebody was going to expose me; it was just the shame that it had happened in the first place,' he said.
The broadway star won an Emmy in 2019 for his portrayal of Pray Tell, who is also HIV-positive, on the FX show Pose - a role he says has helped him "worth through the shame".
Porter says that he is the healthiest he's ever been in his life, and that his brave declaration "is for [him]".
"I don't care what anyone has to say. You're either with me or simply move out of the way," he concluded.
