Billy Porter: Pose star reveals he has been living with HIV for 14 years

‘I feel my heart releasing,’ said the actor. ‘It had felt like a hand was holding my heart clenched for years — and it’s all gone’

Pose star Billy Porter has revealed that he has been living with HIV for 14 years.

The actor said that he chose to keep his condition private throughout that time, but has opened up in a new interview with The Hollywood Reporter.

In the acclaimed FX drama, Porter plays Pray Tell, a figure of the 1980s and 1990s New York ballroom scene who is HIV-positive.

“[Pose was] an opportunity to work through the shame [of HIV] and where I have gotten to in this moment,” said Porter. “And the brilliance of Pray Tell and this opportunity was that I was able to say everything that I wanted to say through a surrogate.

“My compartmentalizing and disassociation muscles are very, very strong, so I had no idea I was being traumatized or triggered. I was just happy that somebody was finally taking me seriously as an actor.”

Porter said that he kept his diagnosis private from his co-stars and from his mother, describing the “shame” he had internalised, having grown up with a religious upbringing.

However, after the Covid-19 pandemic gave him the time to “sit down and shut the f*** up”, he decided to tell her. He recalled her response: “‘You’ve been carrying this around for 14 years? Don’t ever do this again. I’m your mother, I love you no matter what. And I know I didn’t understand how to do that early on, but it’s been decades now.”

“And it’s all true,” added Porter. “It’s my own shame. Years of trauma makes a human being skittish. But the truth shall set you free. I feel my heart releasing. It had felt like a hand was holding my heart clenched for years — for years — and it’s all gone.”

In the piece, Porter also said that his T-cell count is healthy, and that he is “so much more than that diagnosis”.

Sharing the piece on social media, the actor and singer wrote: “My truth. In my time. Thank you @THR.”