Billy Porter Reveals He’s Been Living With HIV for 14 Years: ‘The Truth is the Healing’

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Billy Porter has revealed for the first time that he was diagnosed HIV-positive 14 years ago.

The Pose star, who plays an HIV-positive character on the FX series, made the revelation in a new Hollywood Reporter cover story.

“I was able to say everything that I wanted to say through a surrogate,” he noted, adding that nobody involved with the show knew he was HIV-positive in real life.

The actor explained that in 2007, which he described as “the worst year of my life,” he was diagnosed with Type II diabetes, filed for bankruptcy and then diagnosed with HIV.

“The shame of that time compounded with the shame that had already [accumulated] in my life silenced me, and I have lived with that shame in silence for 14 years,” he said.

Porter went on to say that “everybody who needed to know, knew” about his diagnosis “for a long time,” except for his mother.

“I was trying to have a life and a career, and I wasn’t certain I could if the wrong people knew,” he said. “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. But quarantine has taught me a lot. Everybody was required to sit down and shut the fuck up.”

Thanks to medical advances, Porter said he has undetectable levels of the virus in his system and is “the healthiest I’ve been in my entire life.” He added, “This is what HIV-positive looks like now. I’m going to die from something else before I die from that.”

Porter further explained that he’s publicly revealing his HIV-positive diagnosis to help rid the “stigma” of the disease. “I’ve been living it and being in the shame of it for long enough. And I’m sure this will follow me,” he added. “I’m sure this is going to be the first thing everybody says, ‘HIV-positive blah, blah, blah.’ OK. Whatever. It’s not the only thing I am. I’m so much more than that diagnosis. And if you don’t want to work with me because of my status, you’re not worthy of me.”

Porter also revealed that portraying an HIV-positive character on Pose inspired him to tell his mother about his diagnosis, as well as the cast and crew of the series.

“I told them the truth because, at a certain point, the truth is the responsible road,” he said. “The truth is the healing. And I hope this frees me.”