As he bids farewell to the role that made him a household name, Billy Porter is opening up about his HIV diagnosis for the first time.
The “Pose” star appears on the cover of The Hollywood Reporter’s May 19 issue and, in the accompanying interview, reveals he tested positive for HIV 14 years ago. He chose not to disclose the information publicly at the time because he feared it would be used “to discriminate against me in an already discriminatory profession.”
“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,” said Porter, who is gay. “HIV-positive, where I come from, growing up in the Pentecostal church with a very religious family, is God’s punishment.”
The actor and singer went on to explain he’d received his diagnosis during a turbulent time in his personal and professional life. 2007, he said, was the same year he was diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes and filed for bankruptcy.
Porter’s fortunes began to improve in 2013, when he originated the role of drag queen Lola in Broadway’s “Kinky Boots,” for which he received a Tony Award. The musical was a critical and commercial smash, as well as an artistic catalyst for its star, who joined the cast of Ryan Murphy’s “Pose” five years later. In 2019, he became the first openly gay Black man to win an Emmy for lead actor in a drama for his performance as Pray Tell, a ballroom emcee.
Though Porter says “everybody who needed to know” knew about his diagnosis, he’d planned to keep it a secret from the media and 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 explained.
Over time, Porter came to see his “Pose” character, who is HIV-positive, as a “surrogate” for his own emotions. At a remove from his usual creative outlets amid the COVID-19 pandemic, he decided the time was right to live his truth. He told his mother about his HIV status shortly before his Hollywood Reporter interview, which took place on Porter’s last day of shooting on the third and final season of “Pose.”
“The truth is the healing,” he said. “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 ... I told my mother — that was the hurdle for me. I don’t care what anyone has to say. You’re either with me or simply move out of the way.”