Billy Porter
Actor and singer Billy Porter, 52, revealed to the world he lives with HIV in 2021. He was diagnosed 14 years earlier.
Porter told The Hollywood Reporter that playing the character of Pray Tell in Pose, who also has HIV, enabled him to work through some of the initial shame he felt about contracting the virus. He said that speaking out about his status furthered that journey.
“The truth is the healing,” he said. “I was the generation that was supposed to know better, and it happened anyway,” Porter told THR. “It was 2007, the worst year of my life. I was on the precipice of obscurity for about a decade or so, but 2007 was the worst of it. By February, I had been diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes. By March, I signed bankruptcy papers. And by June, I have been diagnosed HIV-positive.”
If that year was an all-time low point, life has only continued to improve for Porter since then. He has found success through Pose, released music, appeared recently in the movie Cinderella, and is making his debut as a director. He’ll soon appear opposite Luke Evans in a drama about a same-sex relationship divorce. In real life, he’s also fallen in love and wed.
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Related: Ryan Murphy pays beautiful tribute to Billy Porter after he reveals HIV status
Jonathan Van Ness
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Queer Eye’s Jonathan Van Ness, 35, revealed they’re HIV positive in 2019 in their memoir, Over The Top. They were diagnosed in 2012. At the time, they were working in a hair salon and heavily into using drugs (Van Ness entered rehab twice and has since cleaned up his act).
“That day was just as devastating as you would think it would be,” they wrote.
In 2020, Van Ness gave an interview to Self about the decision to talk about his status.
“There’s a younger part in me that was scared that if I did come out with my status and talk about it, that that was going to be the only facet of me that people were going to want to talk about or think about or acknowledge,” they said. However, he reached the understanding that, “if that’s the only facet that people are going to see me for, that’s on them, that’s not on me.”
Related: Jonathan Van Ness on HIV stigma: “Rejection sucks”
Oliver Sim
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Oliver Sim, 32, is a founding member of the British band, The xx. Earlier this year, he released his first solo album, Hideous Bastard. It was preceded by the video, ‘Hideous’.
The song addresses being HIV-positive and the stigma around the virus, directly questioning why that should make him “hideous” in the eyes of some people. The song and video also featured former Bronski Beat singer Jimmy Somerville.
In a statement about the album, Sim said the collection deals with feelings of fear and shame.
“I’ve been living with HIV since I was 17 and it’s played with how I’ve felt towards myself, and how I’ve assumed others have felt towards me, from that age and into my adult life.
Greg Louganis
Louganis, 62, is a US diver who won gold medals at the 1984 and 1988 Summer Olympics. He tested positive for HIV six months before the Seoul Olympics (1988). His doctor placed him on the then experimental HIV drug, AZT, which he at first took religiously every four hours (a regime no longer required).
Louganis believes he acquired HIV from his manager, R. James “Jim” Babbitt, with whom he was in an abusive relationship for much of the 1980s. The two split up and Louganis subsequently took out a restraining order against him. Babbit died of AIDS in 1990.
Louganis publicly came out as gay in 1994. He revealed his HIV status in 1995 in an interview with Barbara Walters. He also talked about it that year in his memoir, Breaking The Surface.
Trinity K. Bone’t
Trinity K. Bone’t (aka Joshua Jamal Jones), 31, is a former RuPaul’s Drag Race contestant. She found out she was HIV positive in 2012 when she attended a ball. Attendees could save $30 on the ticket price if they agreed to get tested at the scene.
“Later on throughout the ball, the guy brought me back, and he was like, ‘I just want to tell you that you were positive. I was like, ‘OK.’ He was like, ‘Are you OK?’ I said, ‘Yeah, I feel OK.’ And the same situation with my mom. Everybody is like, ‘Are you alright?’ I was like, ‘I said I’m fine, d*mn!’”
She revealed her status whilst appearing on season six of Drag Race in 2014.
“The thing about me when it comes to sex is my particular community, it’s very taboo when it comes to being open and honest about their status,” she said. “Being a person who is openly HIV positive, for a long time I was a lot of secrets for a lot of people. But I’m nobody’s secret. I’m successful, I got my shit together, I’m good in bed. I’m taking care of myself, I’m undetectable which is untransmittable.”
Other Drag Race queens have also disclosed their HIV-positive status, including Ongina and Charity Kase (from Drag Race UK).
Andy Bell
Bell, 58, is the singer with the synth-pop duo, Erasure. He’s been out as gay since Erasure began having hits in the late 1980s. The band is best known in the US for their song, ‘A Little Respect’ (later covered by Wheatus).
Bell revealed in 2004 that he had been living with HIV since 1998.
In an interview earlier this year with The Guardian he talked about Erasure’s glory years (they enjoyed over a dozen top ten hits in their home country), a ten-year cocaine addiction, living with HIV, and now taking care of himself through 12-step recovery and reiki.
“I’m not a saint or anything; your life doesn’t change overnight,” he said. “But I just felt so grateful to be alive still. The network is amazing, for HIV-positive people, and the stigma becomes much less. I think eventually, you forget about it, especially when it becomes undetectable.”
André De Shields
André De Shields, 76, is a Broadway legend. An actor, singer, dancer, director, and choreographer, he scooped a Tony award in 2019 for his role as Hermes in the original Broadway production of Hadestown. TV viewers may also recognize him from his recent role on the Netflix show, Uncoupled. He played a neighbor of Neil Patrick Harris’ lead character.
De Shields talked about his status to The Body in 2020. His life partner and mentor, Chico Kasinoir, died from AIDS-related complications in 1992. De Shields has been living with the virus for around 30 years.
“If you consider contracting the human immunodeficiency virus a problem, this is what I suggest: Invite the problem to sit down for a cup of tea and ask, “Why are you here?” Be patient, because the answer will reveal itself. And while the answer is being revealed, and while you are being patient, you will achieve radiant health in spite of the HIV.
“I want to make this as clear as I can. Once the psychopomp understands that the individual he is visiting is not looking for a higher love, then there’s nothing to collect. So we’ll have tea, and then you’re going away.”
Holly Johnson
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Johnson, 62, was the lead singer of the British band Frankie Goes To Hollywood. The group had a worldwide hit in 1984 with ‘Relax’. The band had a string of further hits in their home country and Johnson also released a couple of successful solo albums.
Johnson, who heralds from Liverpool, was one of the first out gay men in pop. He was diagnosed HIV positive in 1991. At the time, he did not think he would live for much longer and wrote a memoir, A Bone In My Flute. However, with effective antiretroviral treatment arriving in the mid-90s, Johnson has continued to thrive. He still performs live and has also developed a sideline as a painter.
He told the Guardian in 2014 he lives a very health-conscious lifestyle: “I’m so lucky in many respects. Many beautiful friends who were my gay extended family have gone. So I’m kind of living for them also in some ways.”
Mykki Blanco
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Blanco, 36, is a singer, rapper, activist, and performance artist. In 2015, during Pride season, they revealed on Facebook that they had been living with HIV since 2011.
“I’ve been HIV-Positive since 2011, my entire career. Fuck stigma and hiding in the dark, this is my real life. I’m healthy I’ve toured the world 3 times but I’ve been living in the dark, it’s time to actually be as punk as I say I am. No more living a lie. HAPPY PRIDE.”
Blanco hesitated to share the information as they feared it would harm their career. However, they told Plus magazine, “I did it for myself. At a certain point, my real life has to be more important than this career.”
Their Facebook posting received a flood of supportive messages and Blanco’s fear’s of the news harming their career proved unfounded. They went on to collaborate with the likes of Kanye West and Madonna. Their latest album, Stay Close To Music, came out in October 2022.
John Grant
John Grant, 54, garnered press attention as the singer with the alt-rock act The Czars. The band split in 2006 and Grant went on to achieve greater commercial success as a solo artist, with his breakthrough album being 2013’s sophomore offering, Pale Green Ghosts.
In 2012, he revealed on stage that he had been diagnosed HIV positive the year before. He explored some of his feelings about it in the song, ‘Ernest Borgnine’.
“I was messing around with my life and indulging in destructive behaviors and ended up getting a disease that could have totally been avoided. When I look at the fact that there are millions of children in Africa with HIV, who never got to choose, it makes me need to figure out why I let that happen to myself. That song (‘Ernest Borgnine’) is saying all those things.”
