Billy Porter is a 'free man' since announcing HIV positive status: 'I've never felt joy like this'

“I released that shame, I released that trauma and I am a free man, honey!”

“I’ve been positive since 2007.

And, you know, having lived through the AIDS crisis, it was heavy for me.

It was a heavy year, 2007,” he told Fallon.

I’ve never felt joy like this before."

“So I tried to think about it as little as I could.

I tried to block it out.

But quarantine has taught me a lot.

Everybody was required to sit down and shut the f— up.”

“Growing up in the Pentecostal church, there’s such a stigma surrounding it.

Having lived through it, I was supposed to know better, it happened anyway,” he said.

“You know, we talk about it in the Black church.

I got it,” Porter said proudly.

“I got some joy now.

It really feels good, it really feels great.”