Porter’s hidden HIV diagnosis

Billy Porter spent more than a decade struggling with a secret, said Lacey Rose in The Hollywood Reporter. In 2007, the Broadway actor and Emmy-winning star of TV’s Pose tested positive for HIV. “HIV-positive,” says Porter, 51, “where I come from, growing up in the Pentecostal church, is God’s punishment.” The Pittsburgh-born actor—who came out as gay at age 16—decided he would keep the diagnosis to himself, because his mother had already “been through so much persecution by her religious community because of my queerness. I didn’t want her to have to live through their ‘I told you so’s.’” His plan was to “let her die before I told her.” He figured that moment would arrive soon after he moved her into a nursing home, but five years later, he says, “She ain’t going anywhere.” So, earlier this year, Porter phoned her and revealed all. “You’ve been carrying this around for 14 years?” he says his mother told him. “Don’t ever do this again. I’m your mother. I love you no matter what.” Porter felt an immediate release. “It had felt like a hand was holding my heart clenched for years—for years—and it’s all gone.”