Pose star Billy Porter is opening up for the first time about his HIV-positive diagnosis, which occurred in 2007 when he was still a struggling actor and performer. Speaking to THR, Porter revealed that he chose to remain silent about his diagnosis, even to his mother and co-stars, until now, due to “shame†and a fear of receiving retaliation in the industry. His Pose character, an HIV-positive ballroom emcee, ended up serving as a “surrogate†of sorts for Porter when it came to the issue. “HIV-positive, where I come from, growing up in the Pentecostal church with a very religious family, is God’s punishment,†he explained. “I was trying to have a life and a career, and I wasn’t 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 fuck up.â€
Porter also said that working on Pose, as well as with the show’s creator Ryan Murphy, was “the catalyst†for publicly sharing his story. He hopes that his diagnosis can help de-stigmatize the shame surrounding people living with HIV and AIDS. “Yes, I am the statistic, but I’ve transcended it. This is what HIV-positive looks like now. I’m going to die from something else before I die from that,†Porter continued. “The truth is the healing. And hope this frees me … I survived so that I could tell the story. That’s what I’m here for.â€