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Pose's Billy Porter: I'm Living With HIV

Pose's Billy Porter: I'm Living With HIV

Billy

The gay actor revealed that he was drawing on real-life experiences for his character, Pray Tell.

Billy Porter has come out as HIV-positive.

The gay Pose star told The Hollywood Reporter in an interview published Wednesday that he was diagnosed as positive in June 2007. He kept this diagnosis a secret even from his collaborators on the groundbreaking FX series, in which he portrays an HIV-positive character, Pray Tell.

“I was able to say everything that I wanted to say through a surrogate,” said the 51-year-old Emmy winner.

It's a story that, as a survivor, he now feels is urgent to share with the world. “Why was I spared? Why am I living?” he said. "Well, I’m living so that I can tell the story. There’s 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’s time to put my big boy pants on and talk."

This story is developing...

Read Porter's full account on The Hollywood Reporter.

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Tracy E. Gilchrist

Editor

Tracy E. Gilchrist is the VP, Executive Producer of Entertainment for the Advocate Channel. A media veteran, she writes about the intersections of LGBTQ+ equality and pop culture. Previously, she was the editor-in-chief of The Advocate and the first feminism editor for the 55-year-old brand. In 2017, she launched the company's first podcast, The Advocates. She is an experienced broadcast interviewer, panel moderator, and public speaker who has delivered her talk, "Pandora's Box to Pose: Game-changing Visibility in Film and TV," at universities throughout the country.
Tracy E. Gilchrist is the VP, Executive Producer of Entertainment for the Advocate Channel. A media veteran, she writes about the intersections of LGBTQ+ equality and pop culture. Previously, she was the editor-in-chief of The Advocate and the first feminism editor for the 55-year-old brand. In 2017, she launched the company's first podcast, The Advocates. She is an experienced broadcast interviewer, panel moderator, and public speaker who has delivered her talk, "Pandora's Box to Pose: Game-changing Visibility in Film and TV," at universities throughout the country.
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