DEBATE: Newspapers Are Outing Hollywood “Bad Boy” For Being HIV Positive – But Who’s In The Wrong?

From: Cocktails and Cock Talk

“Charlie Sheen has AIDS”… Read a number of online gossip blogs. It seems that rumour has been sifting around tinsel town for over a year when a porn star claims that he put her life at risk. But naturally, any secret that makes it past the inner circle isn’t going to stay secret for too long…

Radar Online certainly started causing a bit of stir when they published article last week, claiming that one (unnamed) Hollywood bad boy is continuing his reckless lifestyle and nights of debauchery, despite finding out he was HIV+. Allegedly, the actor became emotional when telling friends in Oct 2014, and was “devastated” to find out. Obvs, the genius’ of the world wide web are linking this back to the number of women claiming that they were at risk after boning Charlie Sheen.

The Sun even published this hard-worked infograph, so you could guess who it was, without them actually publishing his name:

They then fueled this fire further by publishing the story on their front page. Naturally, social media went bat shit crazy – and rightly so. Many people claimed that this kind of tattle gossip was only undoing years of hard work – and again, rightly so. Outing somebody’s status, especially on an international scale like that, only goes on to encourage the stigma that makes HIV even harder to live with. Some would argue harder than the disease itself. Outing someone’s sexuality like this would never be accepted, so why is it for somebody’s status? The answer is, it isn’t. And not one article has really suggested supporting the guy caught in the middle of this scandal.
So, yes, these newspapers should be totally ashamed of themselves. But – they are there to sell newspapers. That’s not by any fraction an excuse to their actions, but as everybody knows, there are people in this world that will sell their soul for a bit of money.
And, quite clearly, considering the source was able to inform Radar Online that the star was emotional to friends. So, who exactly are these “friends”? Because it seems like one of them blabbed something really personal to the media, or to someone else who did. Either way, loose lips sink friendships. And this is what poses an interesting perspective; yes, the trashy gossip rag was in the wrong to run the story. But what about the person masquerading as the actor’s friend? Y’all need to watch who you got in that clique.
So, the newspapers are disgraceful and the source is scum. But is the actor really a victim in the whole situation? The truth is, we don’t really know. Nobody knows if he slept with a string of women knowing his status and unprotected while he was at high risk, or whether those incidents occurred when he didn’t know. And if he didn’t know – why didn’t he know? It’s his responsibility to get checked regularly if he has a promiscuous sex life. So if he was putting people at risk, did he deserved to be called out? Regardless, what many people don’t empathize with, is that fear is a powerful emotion that can make you behave in a way you wouldn’t normally do. Or perhaps he did get checked regularly, but he didn’t find out he was positive until that three month window passed?
So many questions. So many people wrong in this heap of a mess. My head hurts.