{"id":4118,"date":"2021-05-19T18:11:44","date_gmt":"2021-05-19T22:11:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/femimagazine.com\/?p=4118"},"modified":"2021-05-19T18:11:54","modified_gmt":"2021-05-19T22:11:54","slug":"billy-porter-reveals-hes-been-living-with-hiv-for-14-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/femimagazine.com\/?p=4118","title":{"rendered":"Billy Porter Reveals He\u2019s Been Living with HIV for 14 Years"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Billy Porter spoke publicly about living with HIV for the first time since being diagnosed 14 years ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a new interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Billy\u00a0opens up about the shame that compelled him to hide his condition from his cast mates, collaborators and even his mother.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

via THR<\/a>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI have to start in 2007,\u201d he says, having settled in across the table.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

He\u2019s here, at Little Owl in the West Village, to get something off his chest \u2014 something that\u2019s been shrouded in secrecy so long, he can barely remember life before.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIn June of that year,\u201d he continues, a ball of nerves, even if the performer in him refuses to let on, \u201cI was diagnosed HIV-positive.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the 14 years since, the Emmy-winning star of Pose has told next to no one, fearing marginalization and retaliation in an industry that hasn\u2019t always been kind to him. Instead, the 51-year-old, who has cultivated a fervent fan base in recent years on the basis of his talent and authenticity, says he\u2019s been using Pray Tell, his HIV-positive character on the FX series, as his proxy. \u201cI was able to say everything that I wanted to say through a surrogate,\u201d he reveals, acknowledging that nobody involved with the show had any idea he was drawing from his own life.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now, as the Peabody Award-winning series, a ball-scene drama set against the backdrop of the AIDS crisis, concludes its third and final season, Porter is preparing for what\u2019s next. There\u2019s a memoir, over which he\u2019s agonized and blown deadlines, set for later this year; a Netflix documentary about his life, which will keep him in business with Pose co-creator Ryan Murphy; a 2021 take on Cinderella, in which he\u2019ll play the fairy godmother; a directorial debut; a host of new music; and much, much more.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the Broadway-trained actor, who is an Oscar shy of an EGOT, isn\u2019t interested in entering the next phase of his life and career with the shame that\u2019s trailed him for more than a decade. So, with Murphy by his side for support, and a cadre of documentary cameras hovering above, Porter tells his story. An edited version follows.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Having lived through the plague, my question was always, \u201cWhy was I spared? Why am I living?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Well, I\u2019m living so that I can tell the story. There\u2019s a whole generation that was here, and I stand on their shoulders. I can be who I am in this space, at this time, because of the legacy that they left for me. So it\u2019s time to put my big boy pants on and talk.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I was the generation that was supposed to know better, and it happened anyway. 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 was diagnosed HIV-positive. 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. HIV-positive, where I come from, growing up in the Pentecostal church with a very religious family, is God\u2019s punishment.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2007, it all came tumbling down.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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, \u201cI\u2019ve got to get this taken care of,\u201d so I went to the Callen-Lorde clinic and the queen at the front desk was like, \u201cYou want an HIV test? They only $10.\u201d I said, \u201cYeah, yeah, it\u2019s time.\u201d I got tested every six months, like you were supposed to. So I went in, got the pimple drained and got tested, and then the doctor came back and looked at me. I was like, \u201cWhat?\u201d He sat down, and I was like, \u201cNo. Nooo.\u201d And he said, \u201cYour test came back positive.\u201d Wheeeew.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

For a long time, everybody who needed to know, knew \u2014 except for my mother. I was trying to have a life and a career, and I wasn\u2019t certain I could if the wrong people knew. 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 f*** up.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

My husband and I rented a house on Long Island because I have a preexisting condition and I can\u2019t be in the middle of it. I have to protect myself, and I have the means to. I\u2019d never been given the luxury to even think about self-care or balance on any level before. It\u2019s like I had to just keep going. COVID created a safe space for me to stop and reflect and deal with the trauma in my life. Now, I\u2019ve been in therapy for a long time. I started when I was 25, and I\u2019ve been going on and off for years. But in the last year, I started real trauma therapy to begin the process of healing. I started peeling back all these layers: having been sent to a psychologist at age 5 because I came out of the womb a big old queen; being sexually abused by my stepfather from the time I was 7 to the time I was 12; coming out at 16 in the middle of the AIDS crisis.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

There has never been a moment that I\u2019ve not been in trauma, which is what I\u2019ve discovered this last year. And it was my engine for a very long time. My trauma served me, my story has served me, in terms of forward motion. And as an artist, I\u2019m grateful to have been given opportunities to work through my shit. When I got Kinky Boots, the trajectory for my character, Lola, was about forgiving her father. To be given the gift of practicing forgiveness in a narrative eight times a week for three years \u2014 eight times a week, I was allowing myself to forgive my father onstage and both of them [my father and my stepfather] in the ground. Every day was another release. Then came Pose. An opportunity to work through the shame [of HIV] and where I have gotten to in this moment. And the brilliance of Pray Tell and this opportunity was that I was able to say everything that I wanted to say through a surrogate. My compartmentalizing and disassociation muscles are very, very strong, so I had no idea I was being traumatized or triggered. I was just happy that somebody was finally taking me seriously as an actor.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

You can read the more of Billy Porters story\u00a0here<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Photo: Santiago Felipe \/ Getty Images file<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Billy Porter spoke publicly about living with HIV for the first time since being diagnosed 14 years ago. 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