H: I THOUGHT I’D DIE FROM AIDS... I WAS ONLY NINE
STEPS STAR SCARED BY GRAVEYARD ADS
TEPS star Ian ‘H’ Watkins feared he was going to die of Aids at the age of nine because of terrifying TV ads s shown in the 1980s.
The gay star, now 45, was growing up in an era when the government’s Section 28 clause banned any education about homosexuality.
After watching Channel 4’s It’s A Sin – his friend Callum Scott Howells played Welshman Colin – H told Guilty Pleasures:
‘I was affected so emotionally by it. I just want to talk about it all the time.
‘There were those god-awful adverts with the gravestones and the iceberg. They frightened the holy s*** out of me. I was probably about nine or ten.
‘I remember those adverts and I didn’t really understand about being gay because Section 28 was in place. If it wasn’t, maybe I would have been a little bit more informed and not so scared.
‘I thought I was going to die because of those adverts. I was nine, which is just ridiculous, but they frightened so many people and shamed people into not getting tested, which spread the disease.’
Even in his early days as a pop star, before he came out, H would pretend to magazine interviewers that he fancied Britney Spears.
But now, with Steps announcing new album What The Future Holds Pt 2, he is free to be ‘an openly gay man talking about being a father and doing HIV tests – look how far we’ve come. Small ripples can make big waves’. He added: ‘You can control HIV with the correct medication. It’s not the death sentence it was many years ago.
‘I think it is really important to talk about taboo subjects. Kids today think they are untouchable, but you have to know your status and play safe. I am just trying to use my platform for positive things.’
H made history as part of the first same-sex partnership on Dancing On Ice and is proudly making up for lost time. ‘I wish I had been more comfortable and more confident to come out sooner,’ he said. ‘Everyone’s journey is different and they shouldn’t be forced. I’d have loved to have been more comfortable to come out sooner but I hope I’m making up for it now.’