Billy Porter has opened up about the sense of relief he's felt since revealing his HIV diagnosis. Per <a href="https://people.com/health/billy-porter-a-free-man-after-revealing-hiv-diagnosis/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">People magazine</a>, Porter appeared on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon where he revealed what life has been like since telling the public about his diagnosis. The 51-year-old Emmy-award-winning actor spoke about being diagnosed with the virus in 2007 and lived through the AIDS crisis. Take a look at the interview with Porter in the video below: [[youtubewidget||https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y9xKHR2LNB8]] He said: "I lived with the shame of it for a really long time and last week I released that shame, I released that trauma and I am a free man, honey! Free! I've never felt joy like this before." The live audience can be heard cheering in support of Porter's honesty, who then continued: <blockquote>"You know, we talk about it in the Black church. You know, this joy that I have — the world didn't give and the world can't take it away. I got it. I got some joy now. It really feels good, it really feels great."</blockquote> The actor and performer <a href="https://vt.co/entertainment/celebrity/billy-porter-reveals-hes-hiv-positive-breaking-14-year-silence" target="_blank" rel="noopener">made his diagnosis public</a> in a recent interview with <a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/general-news/billy-porter-hiv-positive-diagnosis-1234954742/">The Hollywood Reporter</a>, stating "This is what HIV-positive looks like now. I'm going to die from something else before I die from that." [[twitterwidget||https://twitter.com/THR/status/1394994765893144578]] 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." <img class="size-full wp-image-1263108977" src="https://img.vt.co/2021/05/BillyPorterFI2.jpg" alt="" width="1535" height="800" />[[imagecaption|| Credit: Ovidiu Hrubaru / Alamy]] 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." <h6>Featured Image Credit: Alamy/UPI</h6>

Billy Porter says he's a 'free man' after revealing HIV diagnosis: 'I've never felt joy like this'

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