Sharing that he has been living with HIV for 14 years, actor Billy Porter said that he has decided to make it all known now as he hopes to free himself from "that shame in silence."
You would probably remember the 51 year old as having created history by winning an Emmy for his role as Pray Tell, a character that is HIV-positive, on the FX series Pose in 2019. Porter said that he used the part as a "surrogate" to tell his real-life story.
Porter told The Hollywood Reporter, "The truth is the healing. And 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. This is for me."
"This is what HIV-positive looks like now. I survived so that I could tell the story. That's what I'm here for. I'm the vessel, and emotionally that was sufficient -- until it wasn't. It's time to grow up and move on because shame is destructive -- and if not dealt with, it can destroy everything in its path," he further said.
Notably, Porter became the first openly gay black man to be nominated and win in any lead acting category at the Primetime Emmys.