People have had to deal with the reality of living with HIV for as long as we’ve known about it. Disclosing your HIV status to family and friends can be difficult, and when you’re in the public eye, coming out as HIV positive adds a major decision about whether you want the entire world to know, glamsquad reports.
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Many celebrities have chosen to share that aspect of their personalities with the general public. That decision often benefits the rest of us: by coming out, they can humanize the virus for many people who would not otherwise know anyone who is openly living with HIV. They can aid in raising awareness and combating stigma.
Here is a list of some of the most famous people living with HIV today and in the past.
Billy Porter
Billy Porter’s Emmy-winning performance as “Pray Tell” in the groundbreaking television series Pose may have made him famous, but Porter has been a star his entire career. That’s why his revelation in The Hollywood Reporter in May 2021 that he’s been living with HIV since 2007 is so compelling.
Rather than resting on his laurels, Porter used his interview to tell the world, “I’m so much more than that diagnosis.” And if you refuse to work with me because of my position, you are unworthy of me.”
With those words, Porter confronted his trauma of previously being rejected by Broadway and the music industry for demanding that he be celebrated as a Black queer man, and took a stand not only for himself, but for the entire HIV community.
Equally important, by admitting that his decision to disclose did not happen overnight, he has taught readers all over the world that confronting one’s trauma is the key to personal liberation. Stigma and homophobia may still exist, but with Billy Porter as the culture’s newest guiding star, it is clear that nothing can stop us.
Jonathan Van Ness
The breakout star of Netflix’s Queer Eye reboot is Jonathan Van Ness. Van Ness came out about living with HIV in a September 2019 profile in The New York Times ahead of the release of his memoir, Over the Top, as the new Fab Five gained prominence and a place in pop culture.
Van Ness also discussed his own past experiences with sexual assault and drug addiction, as well as his compounding traumas, in the profile.
“It was really difficult when Queer Eye came out because I was like, ‘Do I want to talk about my status?'” he told the Times. “And then I thought, ‘The Trump administration has done everything they can to allow the stigmatization of the LGBT community to thrive around me.'” “I do feel the need to talk about this,” he continued.
Charlie Sheen
Charlie Sheen is well-known for his off-screen antics as well as his on-screen comedic abilities. When he revealed he had HIV in November 2015, he had just left one of CBS’ most successful sitcoms, Two and a Half Men, where he had been replaced by Ashton Kutcher.
Sheen is also known as the youngest member of the Sheen family of actors, which also includes Martin Sheen and Emilio Estevez. He was known as a Hollywood “bad boy,” openly discussing drug use, a lot of s*x, and sex with s*x workers.
Sheen was forced to come out while the National Enquirer was preparing a story that would have revealed his HIV status, demonstrating that HIV stigma continues to have a negative impact on people living with HIV today. Sheen revealed that he was on antiretroviral medication and that he was undetectable.
According to one study, Charlie Sheen’s disclosure was a more effective HIV awareness campaign than any city health department could concoct. Within 24 hours of his disclosure, Sheen’s announcement:
The day saw the highest number of HIV-related searches ever seen on Google: 2.75 million more than any other day.
That day, HIV searches increased by 471 percent.
1.25 million of those searches included terms like “condoms,” “HIV testing,” and “HIV symptoms.”
Searches remained relatively high for approximately 72 hours after the announcement.
Magic Johnson
It would be difficult to discuss celebrities living with HIV without mentioning Magic Johnson. When Johnson, one of the greatest basketball players of all time, revealed that he had HIV in 1991, it was a watershed moment in HIV awareness. He was a strong, physically capable athlete who came out before we had effective HIV medications, when the most common depiction of a person with HIV was one who died from HIV.
He has thrived since his diagnosis, leading some to believe that he has been cured. But, in his public appearances, he continues to educate and remind people that he is not cured, but is simply on effective medications.
“I have it, and I’ve had it for 22 years.” It’s just dozing off in my body. “The drugs did their part, and I did mine by exercising and keeping a positive attitude about having HIV,” Johnson explained on SiriusXM radio’s Hip-Hop Nation in 2014.
Rock Hudson
Rock Hudson embodied the 1950s straight, male, macho movie star. Many people were taken aback by his AIDS diagnosis and death in 1985. Prior to his public appearance, his publicist stated that he had liver cancer. Hudson came forward in July 1985, making him the first major celebrity to admit to having AIDS.
Hudson passed away a few months later, in October 1985, at the age of 59. Many saw Hudson as a far cry from the buff matinée idol he had been only a decade before. Following his death, his Giant co-star Elizabeth Taylor became a well-known AIDS activist and led the fight to raise funds for research within Hollywood.
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Mykki Blanco
Mykki Blanco, a 29-year-old genderqueer rapper, revealed on their Facebook page in June 2015 that they had been living with HIV since 2011—or, as they put it, “my entire career.”
“Fuck stigma and hiding in the dark,” they wrote in their first post. “No more lying,” they added in the comments section of the post.
Blanco has chastised some national AIDS organizations for stereotyping celebrities living with HIV since coming out. Blanco tweeted in February 2018, “It would be awesome if you would book me to perform at one of your Galas like you do so many HIV-negative pop stars instead of using me as a token.” Blanco was referring to amfAR, which had used Blanco to highlight its own efforts in support of National Black HIV/AIDS Awareness Month, but had invited HIV-negative bisexual singer Halsey to perform at its gala.
Freddie Mercury
Freddie Mercury was the frontman for Queen, one of the best-selling rock bands of all time and the masterminds behind iconic stadium rock songs like “Bohemian Rhapsody” and “We Will Rock You.” Mercury tested positive for HIV in 1987 and died four years later of AIDS-related pneumonia, only one day after revealing his HIV status to the world.
If you’ve seen the film Bohemian Rhapsody, you’ll know that the facts surrounding his diagnosis were a little skewed. One of the many controversies surrounding the film was that it manipulated the timeline to make Freddie Mercury appear to apologize for contracting HIV and being reckless. That, however, was not the case. The film raised a number of ethical concerns about portraying people living with HIV after their deaths.
Bohemian Rhapsody was also the second film in recent years to star an HIV-negative actor who went on to win an Academy Award for portraying an HIV-positive person. It happened twice in 2014, when Matthew McConaughey and Jared Leto both won Academy Awards for their performances in Dallas Buyers Club, the latter for portraying a transgender woman living with HIV.
Gia Carangi
Gia Carangi was one of the first international supermodels. She was one of the fashion industry’s most sought-after models, having appeared on the covers of Vogue and Cosmopolitan. Her career, however, was cut short when she died in 1986 as a result of a heroin addiction.
Carangi is credited with paving the way for some of the most well-known fashion models of the early 1990s, including Naomi Campbell and Cindy Crawford. [Her death was mostly kept under wraps.]
Despite her celebrity, her funeral was held in a small, modest venue and was not widely publicized.
Carangi was eventually portrayed by Angelina Jolie in the HBO biopic Gia.