Pose star Billy Porter reveals he is HIV positive

Pose star Billy Porter has revealed he is HIV positive but kept his diagnosis secret for 14 years because he was 'ashamed'. 

The 51-year-old Broadway star and award-winning actor broke his silence to The Hollywood Reporter on Wednesday. 

Porter revealed that he was diagnosed back in June 2007 but that he kept it shrouded in secrecy for more than a decade because he feared it would harm his career. 

'For a long time, everybody who needed to know, knew - except for my mother. I was trying to have a life and a career and I wasn't certain I could if the wrong people knew,' he said.  

'It would just be another way for people to discriminate against me.

 

'I was embarrassed. I was ashamed. I was the statistic that everybody said I would be.' 

Until now, Porter said he has been using his Pray Tell character in the FX series Pose, who is also HIV-positive, as his proxy and that it helped him 'work through the shame'.

'I was able to say everything that I wanted to say through a surrogate,' Porter said.

The star added that nobody involved in the show knew he was drawing on his own experience and life. 

Reference: daily Mail: Emily Crane For Dailymail.com