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When Zachary Willmore uploaded a new video to his TikTok account on February 24, the tone was more somber than his typical post. Then a 19-year-old freshman studying business at San Diego State University, Wilmore’s two previous videos showed off his impressive ability to do repeated flips in stiletto thigh-high boots. In a light-hearted Valentine’s Day post, he front flipped down his dormitory hallway to deliver a tissue to a fictional off-camera friend recently dumped by her boyfriend. “Bestie, don’t cry!” he pleaded, as a neighbor peeked out to discern the source of the commotion.
But that day’s post was different: As he gingerly dabbed concealer onto his face alone in his dorm room, Willmore told his followers — around one million, at the time — that he had recently learned that he has HIV. Wearing a salmon-colored Destin, Florida sweatshirt, his emotions were raw and unfiltered as he processed the news he worried would ruin his life. “I just feel honestly so gross,” he said, his voice empty and distant. “I wish I could take, like, a big needle and drain all the blood out my body now. People keep telling me that I’m going to get through this. This honestly feels like the end of the world to me. All I can think about is how this disease is forever. I’m never going to be able to get rid of it. I just feel drained — emotionally, physically.”
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But speaking over the phone nine months later, Willmore said that what’s been so remarkable about his journey with HIV is that the diagnosis changed virtually nothing. He is still the same person that he was before: a sunny, optimistic Barbie boy who is obsessed with finding bargains on the clothing resale website Poshmark. “I’ve been so lucky,” he tells Teen Vogue. “HIV has not impacted my life. … Besides taking a pill in the morning, I have been pretty much unchanged.”
Willmore, now a 20-year-old sophomore, has uploaded more than two dozen videos to TikTok since February in which he details his process of coming to terms with HIV, many of which have gone viral. When he first learned of his status, Willmore says that the fear and apprehension captured in that first video illustrate how little he knew about the condition. He learned almost nothing about HIV in his sexual education courses, he says, except that it “was not something you wanted to get.” Everything he knew about the virus came from depictions of the 1980s in media and popular culture: back in the early days of the epidemic when little was understood about HIV, including how to prevent transmission.
“That’s the mentality that people still have,” Willmore said. He noted that the perception of the virus, among some, has not changed since the New York Times first reported of a “rare and often rapidly fatal form of cancer” found among 41 gay male patients, a fifth of whom died within a year of becoming HIV positive. “That’s part of what creates stigma around HIV today.”
More than 86 million people have been diagnosed with HIV since the Times article was published in July 1981, and today, more than 39 million people around the world currently live with the virus. But in meeting with a social worker following his own diagnosis, Willmore would quickly learn that HIV was no longer the death sentence that it was 42 years ago. As the result of dramatic advances in medication and treatment, HIV-positive individuals can now expect to often live just as long as anyone else. In 2019, the oldest known person living with HIV reportedly “died peacefully” in his sleep at the age of 100. And adhering to daily antiretroviral therapy can also reduce the presence of the virus in a person’s bloodstream to such a low level that HIV is not transmissible through sexual intercourse.
Willmore waited a week after diagnosis to post a video about having HIV, he says, until he had his medication in hand. Now that he was better informed, Willmore wanted to show other people that they could still live happy, healthy lives after acquiring HIV. “When I started making videos that were like, ‘I’m actually pretty fine. It doesn’t affect my life as much as I originally thought,’ the videos didn’t get as many views as when I was crying and thinking that this was the end,” he says.
The response to Willmore’s video diaries, as he calls them, have been almost universally positive, outside of the occasional nasty tweet. His family has been incredibly supportive: Willmore says that when he told his brother about his status, the reaction was refreshingly anticlimactic. “Oh, that’s it?” his brother responded. “I thought you had cancer from the way everyone was talking.” Willmore’s father, an E.R. doctor, was one of the first people to help destigmatize HIV for him; after Willmore told him over the phone that he had tested positive, his father calmly talked through the realities of daily treatment and medication. Willmore’s parents even appear frequently in his videos.
What Willmore hoped to achieve by sharing his story with the public was to help put a face on the issue and demystify HIV for others who might be in the same place he was nine months ago. Very few public figures have ever openly discussed their HIV status, and despite the fact that 1.2 million Americans are currently living with the virus, many people may not have someone in their lives to answer any questions they may have. That’s why Willmore’s videos sometimes respond to the misconceptions and prejudice he occasionally experiences, like men on dating apps who tell him that they aren’t interested in dating someone who is HIV positive. He posted a video after a guy on Hinge told him that he was “damaged merchandise,” which he believes reaffirms the false notion that people with HIV are “dirty” and “unlovable.”
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“When you have a platform, it’s important to use it in a way that can do good in the world,” he says. “It’s important to come out. It’s really helpful to a lot of people to see someone — even someone in the public eye — dealing with what they are. People don’t talk about it because it’s so taboo.”
Willmore also knows that he is privileged to be able to discuss his status openly and to have access to medication that helps him lead his life just as it was before. Although global data from the World Health Organization reports that 76% of all people living with HIV in 2022 were taking antiretrovirals to help manage the virus, many still lack access to medication. And while federal law in the U.S. prohibits discrimination against people with HIV, transmission remains criminalized in 35 states.
But what so heartens him about the response to his videos is that, over time, people have forgotten that Willmore has HIV. He now posts about HIV less and less often as he resumes his usual interests: looking fabulous and wearing lots of pink. In a recent post, Willmore channels his inner ice princess while wearing a montage of furry winter coats, kicking a chunky high heel in the air as he poses for the camera. On the occasions where he does discuss living with the virus, he says that his followers — which now exceed more than 1.8 million on TikTok — often respond that they forgot he has HIV. That was the goal all along, he says: that others might see that, for many people, HIV doesn’t have to be a big deal.
When he posted that very first video, Willmore says that he was so worried that having HIV would be the only thing he would be remembered for — not making history as Missouri’s first male homecoming king or the myriad achievements he hopes lie in his future. While he jokes that he wants to be a “trophy husband,” Willmore says his aspiration is to make his mark on the fashion world. He’s so glad that his initial fears were proven wrong and that he still gets to have whatever life he chooses for himself.
“I hope I’m able to look back someday and realize how much I’ve grown,” he says. “I want to be able to tell my past self that it’s all good and that we did it. We were able to get through. I want to look back and say, ‘This did not define you.’”
