Rugby legend and Strictly star Gareth Thomas reveals he is HIV positive and that shock diagnosis left him suicidal
WALES rugby legend Gareth Thomas has revealed his secret battle with HIV – and admitted the diagnosis left him wanting to “drive off a cliff”.
The Strictly star, 45, says he wants to show people with the virus are misrepresented as “walking around with walking sticks who are close to dying”.
And the former British and Irish Lion has also revealed his “fear” at keeping the condition a secret.
Speaking to BBC Wales in an interview due to be broadcast on Wednesday, he said: “When I first found out that I was going to have to live with HIV, the first thing I thought was straight away: I was going to die.
“It’s not like I blame people for not knowing this.
“This is a subject that because of the 80s scenarios people don’t talk about it because that’s the only information they have.”
Thomas continued: “The overriding question that everybody said to me – the first question everyone says to me when I tell them I’m living with HIV – is ‘Are you going to be OK?’
“And it’s a really compassionate question to ask. But, this is meant the nicest way possible, it’s a really uneducated question.”
The Welshman, who admitted at his lowest point in 2018 he felt like dying, also compared living with HIV as similar to coming out as gay in 2009 due to “the fear, the hiding, the secrecy, the not knowing how people are going to react”.
He said: “But I think when it was all about my sexuality it just seemed like there was more empathy and more understanding because you had more knowledge, because you could turn on the telly and you could see that there was LGBT representation on most platforms.”
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Due to medical advances, people who are HIV positive are still able to live long and healthy lives.
And with effective treatment, the virus cannot be passed on.
Thomas says that other than taking a single pill each morning at 6am and going for a blood test every six months, HIV is having little impact on his life.