Celebrities living with HIV who are smashing the stigma

These celebrities are helping the world by talking openly about their HIV status

The AIDS crisis of the 1980s and ‘90s was a dark time in queer history, but since then, medical advances have been made, and the stigma against HIV continues to dwindle every year.

While there are still people who are uncomfortable talking about the disease, there are celebrities who are public with their HIV-positive status and are using their star power to fight for people living with HIV all over the world. Some opened up about their status decades ago, and some have shared more recently, but they all use their stories to open people’s hearts and minds.

So, we’re shouting out the LGBTQ+ celebrities living with HIV who are helping to change the way the world see how you can truly live with HIV.

Jonathan Van Ness

Jonathan Van Ness, one of the hosts of Netflix’s Queer Eye, was diagnosed with HIV when they were 25, but when the show first started Van Ness wasn’t sure they wanted anyone to know their status. Ultimately, the hair stylist decided being open and vulnerable was worth it and they now lives their life out, proud and in the spotlight.

“When Queer Eye came out, it was really difficult because I was like, ‘Do I want to talk about my status?,” Van Ness said in a New York Times interview in 2019. “And then I was like, ‘The Trump administration has done everything they can do to have the stigmatization of the L.G.B.T. community thrive around me.’” He paused before adding, “I do feel the need to talk about this.”

Mondo Guerra

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Mondo Guerra (@mondoguerra)

Mondo Guerra hit it big when he was the runner-up on season 8 of Project Runway, later taking home the big prize on the first season of Project Runway Allstars. The fashion designer was diagnosed with HIV when he was in his twenties, but was willing to risk dying from the disease rather than seek treatment and risk anyone finding out. Years later he decided to come out publicly with his diagnosis on Project Runway and at the viewing party for the episode Guerra raised money for the treatment center that helped him get healthy.

Zachary Willmore

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Zachary (@zacharywillmore)

The wildly successful TikTok star Zachary Willmore has already amassed 1.9 million followers on the app, and he’s only 20 years old. In February of this, when he was only a college freshman, Willmore opened up to his TikTok followers and told them he had recently been diagnosed with HIV. He was terrified about what this meant for his life, but now, nine months later, he’s surprised by how little has changed, and both his fans and his family have been supportive. “I’ve been so lucky,” he told Teen Vogue. “HIV has not impacted my life. … Besides taking a pill in the morning, I have been pretty much unchanged.”

Billy Porter

Queer actor Billy Porter first learned he had HIV in 2007 but kept it secret for over a decade because he feared the stigma. Porter finally worked through these feelings while starring in Pose, about the ballroom scene during the AIDS crisis of the '80s and ’90s in New York City. Porter finally broke his silence when he realized he had lived when others had not. “Well, I’m living so that I can tell the story,” he said, according to The Hollywood Reporter. “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.”

Danny Pintauro

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Danny Pintauro (@dannypintauro)

Danny Pintauro spent eight years playing the younger brother on Who’s the Boss? Pintauro was first diagnosed 20 years ago when he was struggling with an addiction to crystal meth. He was terrified people would find out, but in 2015, he decided to be brave and share his HIV status on an episode of Oprah: Where Are They Now, and he’s been open about it ever since.

Charity Kase

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Charity Kase (@charitykase)

RuPaul’s Drag Race star Charity Kase first spoke openly about living with HIV on season three of Drag Race UK. Since then, the fierce queen has used her platform and fame to raise awareness about the virus and the remaining stigma. Two years ago, for World AIDS Day, Kase raised money for the National AIDS Trust to try and change the way HIV is portrayed in the UK. “I like to use the voice that I have to speak up on issues that I think are important and so I did that for HIV as it’s something that I know very well as it’s my experience,” she told the Gay Times.

Trinity K. Bonet

RuPaul’s Drag Race season 6 star Trinity K. Bonét, revealed her HIV positive status back in 2021 when she was a contestant on Drag Race Allstars. By sharing her story on TV, Bonét has sparked conversation about HIV within the drag community and has helped to normalize it for the viewing audience too.

Javier Munoz

Gay Broadway icon Javier Muñoz is best known for playing Usnavi de la Vega in the 2008 musical In the Heights and as Alexander Hamilton in the musical Hamilton from 2016 to 2019. Muñoz, who is also a cancer survivor, found out he was HIV positive back in 2002.

Mykki Blanco

Back in 2015, genderqueer rapper Mykki Blanco revealed on Facebook that they’d been living with HIV since 2011. “Fuck stigma and hiding in the dark,” they wrote in their original post. “No more living a lie,” they added in the comments. Since then, Blanco has been fighting stigma by calling out hypocrisy within the national AIDS organizations that the star says tend to typecast the stars they choose to represent HIV survivors.

Andre De Shields

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Theatre Under The Stars (@tutshouston)

Andre De Shields is an accomplished actor, singer, dancer, choreographer, and director with 14 Broadway credits, a Tony Award, and an Emmy to his name. After three decades of hiding his status, De Shields came out as HIV positive in 2020.

“First of all, I love myself,” De Shields said in an interview with The Body. “I’m not in love with myself, but I do love myself, because I’ve learned if I can’t love me, how can I love someone else? And I trust myself, which is why my soul is not ready to leave. Because we’re having a good time here. We’ve got things to do, places to go, people to see, things to achieve.”

Nathaniel Hall

Actor and HIV activist Nathaniel Hall is so open about his experience living with HIV that not only did he star in It’s a Sin, a miniseries about a group of queer friends during the AIDs crisis, but his own life story about contracting HIV during his first sexual experience at age 16 became material for his play First Time.

But when he first was diagnosed, he was so ashamed that he kept it a secret from his friends and family for 15 years while his life spiraled out of control. “I wasn’t dealing with the stigma and shame. I was a loud and proud gay man but behind closed doors, I was carrying so much shame,” he told The Independent. Today, he is open about his status and is in a loving relationship with a man who accepts him as he is.

Conchita Wurst

Drag queen and Eurovision winner Conchita Wurst came out publicly as being HIV-positive back in 2018 when an ex-boyfriend allegedly threatened to reveal her status without her consent. She had been diagnosed several years earlier, and while her family and friends already knew, she didn’t want to let he ex control how the information was disclosed to the public, so she released a statement on Instagram instead.

“Coming out is better than being outed,” she wrote, according to the Guardian. “I hope to show courage, and to take another step towards the destigmatisation of people who have become infected with HIV due to their actions or through no fault of their own. To my fans: the information about my HIV-status may be new to you – [but nothing about me has changed]! I’m healthy and well, and I’m stronger, more motivated and liberated than ever. Thank you for your support!”

Oliver Sim

Oliver Sim, singer and bass guitarist for the British indie pop band the xx, kept his HIV-positive status under wraps until 2022, when he released a solo project with a single about his complex feelings about living with HIV since his diagnosis at age 17. The single, “Hideous,” off of his first solo album Hideous Bastard, was the first time he ever publicly discussed living with HIV.

In a letter to fans that accompanied the album's release, Sim wrote, “Two thirds in, having a good idea of what the record was about, I realized I’d been circling around one of the things that has probably caused me the most fear and shame. My HIV status. I’ve been living with HIV since I was 17 and it’s played with how I’ve felt towards myself, and how I’ve assumed others have felt towards me, from that age and into my adult life.”

Greg Louganis

Olympic gold medalist Greg Louganis contracted HIV in the late ‘80s at the height of the AIDs crisis during a time when most people had to hide their status due to stigma and few people survived. He immediately went on antivirals, but in 1993 his health began to fail and he gathered his friends and family to say a final goodbye. Luckily he survived and in 1994 he came out as gay at the Gay Games and in 1995 he spoke publicly for the first time about his HIV-positive status in an interview with Barbara Walters during the real of his memoir Breaking the Surface.

Louganis went on to become an LGBTQ+ activist and HIV awareness advocate and now spends his time fighting for LGBTQ+-inclusive mental health resources and support for older queer people living with HIV, according to Healthline.

Ongina

RuPaul's Drag Race star Ongina spoke out for the first time about living with HIV on an episode of the first season of the popular reality competition show. “It was when I first told people that were outside my family and friends. I had just won the challenge on Episode 4, where we had to create a MAC Viva Glam campaign, and because of the work the campaign does to help people living with HIV/AIDS, I was overcome with emotions and shared my status,” Ongina told Latin Alternative TV. “It was such a defining moment in my life because once the words came out of my mouth, I felt a huge weight lifted off my shoulders. I felt free to live my life without holding back to letting people know who I am entirely.”

Dahli

Dahli, the nonbinary season 4 winner of The Boulet Brother's Dragula, has been outspoken for years about being HIV-positive, including posting about the medication they take and educating their fans on what it means to have an undetectable viral load.