Billy Porter has opened up about the sense of relief he's felt since revealing his HIV diagnosis.
Per People magazine, 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: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:
"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."
The actor and performer made his diagnosis public in a recent interview with The Hollywood Reporter, stating "This is what HIV-positive looks like now. I'm going to die from something else before I die from that."
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."
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."
