Actor, singer and style icon, Billy Porter has revealed all in an essay for The Hollywood Reporter, including his until-now hidden HIV positive diagnosis. Porter revealed he has been living with the immune-deficiency disease for over a decade.
Known for roles like Lola in Kinky Boots on the stage and Pray Tell from Pose on the screen, Porter reveals that 2007, the year he was diagnosed was the worst of his life.
Billy Porter Reveals His HIV-Positive Diagnosis
Not only was he diagnosed with diabetes and had to file bankruptcy that year, he then received the HIV diagnosis.
Porter said he felt extreme guilt, saying he was from the generation that “should have known better”. He has lived with this shame for the last 14 years , compounded by the belief that in the Pentecostal church, in which he grew up, HIV is widely believed to be God’s punishment for acting upon gay tendencies.
In the essay to The Hollywood Reporter, Porter speaks of how he visits his doctor every three months and is the healthiest he has ever been. “This is what HIV-positive looks like now,’ he stated. “I’m going to die from something else before I die from that.”
The 51-year-old has been in the limelight for several years now, but it was his 2019 role in FX’s Pose that changed everything for the star.
Cast as Pray Tell, a character also living with HIV, Porter felt he had a surrogate to say everything he wanted to say, but couldn’t as he hid his own illness in fear of discrimination and back lash.
He credits Pray Tell and the show, especially creator, Ryan Murphy– who encouraged him to “learn the joy of his character, Pray Tell” for helping him work through his personal shame and fears and be able to speak publicly about his condition for the first time ever.
He also cites the stillness of the Covid-19 quarantine as no longer allowing himself to push the HIV diagnosis down as he was “required to sit down and shut the f— up.”
Porter now says he no longer hold on to the fear and told the truth because “the truth is the responsible road. The truth is the healing.” He adds. “I hope this frees me. I hope this frees me so that I can experience real, unadulterated joy, so that I can experience peace, so that I can experience intimacy, so that I can have sex without shame.”
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