Shownotes
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A fashion industry hair and makeup artist who tested positive for HIV in 1985 and went three decades without medication - his body carrying a rare genetic mutation that science wouldn't fully explain for years.
Summary
Laurence Close grew up in Zambia, where being gay carried a prison sentence. He came to London in 1983, fell for a diplomat twenty years older, and trained as a hair and makeup artist while shuttling to Paris on weekends. When a bag from Yves Saint Laurent Beauté under the boyfriend's bed confirmed the affair, Laurence went to Gower Street for a test. He already knew.
The positive result arrived in 1985, five weeks late because of back-to-back photoshoots abroad. His first thought was not how to live but when to die - timed to look like an accidental overdose, because in his parents' farming community, that would be easier to explain than AIDS. A woman called Eunice, a Nigerian lesbian who had acquired HIV through rape, changed his mind in a waiting room at St Mary's Paddington by complimenting his coat.
For 30 years, Laurence's body did something his doctors couldn't explain. His viral load stayed undetectable and his CD4 count remained abnormally high - without a single day of medication. He carried a CCR5-Delta 32 gene mutation, inherited from one parent, that interfered with the virus's ability to enter his cells. Meanwhile, he built a career doing hair and makeup for Britney Spears, Tyra Banks, Annie Lennox, and Joan Collins, never blending foundation on the back of his hand again. He felt toxic. He chose partners who were, in his words, incredibly fucked up - people he couldn't shortchange by being with them.
When U=U reached him in 2016, the loaded gun he'd carried for three decades was finally empty. He married a Swedish man he'd spoken to for two years without seeing a photograph. This podcast is his public disclosure.
Key Moments
- [01:50] Zambia, boarding school, and sitting too close - growing up where homosexuality carries 14 years in prison, and the constant self-policing of gesture and gaze
- [05:08] London, 1983 - hairdressing school in Hammersmith, nights at Taboo and the Hippodrome, and a diplomat who showed him that gay men could go to the opera
- [10:53] The bag under the bed - discovering the affair in Paris, blaming himself, and deciding to get tested
- [16:21] The result, the calm, the calculation - receiving a positive diagnosis at 25 and planning suicide with the detachment of choosing when to swap summer tyres for winter
- [19:49] The fashion industry's decimation - Stevie Hughes, Dan Carrier, Luba Steubenville, and the weekly disappearances. A friend's father: "I wish you'd told me you had cancer, because then I could feel sorry for you"
- [24:29] Eunice at St Mary's - a woman in the Jeffreys Wing waiting room who complimented his coat and, without knowing it, gave him a reason to keep going
- [27:00] Disclosure in Hyde Park - why Laurence only ever told partners in places where they could leave without it being obvious, and the silence that followed
- [30:47] Feeling toxic - wanting love but building himself into an object of desire that would never let anyone close. "There's only so many times I can do that."
- [37:21] The body that wouldn't break - 5 years, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, and still no progression. The CCR5-Delta 32 gene mutation explained
- [40:55] The south of France and the lie - a partner who faked leukaemia to trap him, the domestic abuse that followed, and the client at the airport who said: "If you don't leave this man, he's going to kill you"
- [46:58] U=U and the end of the wolf - starting medication in 2016 after 31 years, and the moment the loaded gun became an empty chamber
- [51:23] The Swedish man - two years of conversation with no photograph, falling in love with how someone treats you, and marriage after 60
Dedication
Laurence remembers Eunice, whose surname he never learned - the woman in the waiting room at St Mary's who made him decide to keep living.
About Laurence Close
Laurence Close is a hair and makeup artist who has worked in the fashion industry since the early 1980s. His clients have included Britney Spears, Tyra Banks, Annie Lennox, and Joan Collins. He carries a rare CCR5-Delta 32 gene mutation that slowed HIV progression for over three decades. He now lives in Sweden with his husband. This episode is his first public disclosure of his HIV status.
Resources
- Terrence Higgins Trust — Living with HIV long term
- National AIDS Trust
- The Survivors Trust — Domestic abuse support
- Galop — LGBT+ anti-abuse charity
- The 2025–2030 UK HIV Action Plan
If you have been affected by the themes in this episode, support is available at tht.org.uk.
Mentioned in this episode:
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Transcripts
Dan Hall
Welcome to HIV the morning after. I'm Dan Hall. I'm a documentary producer and director. I've spent my entire adult life watching ignorance and prejudice play out around HIV. And frankly, I'm tired of it. And I'm sure many of you are too. This podcast is an attempt to do something about that. By doing what I do best, interviewing people and letting them tell their own stories so I can make these episodes.
::Dan Hall
But I can't make people listen to them or find them on their algorithms. That bends down to you. Please rate, review and share. HIV the morning after.
::Dan Hall
Right then. Let's get started.
::Dan Hall
My guest today is Lawrence Close. Since the early 80s, Lawrence has been at the red hot centre of the fashion world. He was hair and makeup artist for icons including Britney Spears, Tyra Banks, Annie Lennox and Alexis Carrington. Herself, Miss Joan Collins. But while he was backstage at the world's biggest shows, he was carrying a secret that he was living with HIV.
::Dan Hall
But for 30 years, Lawrence's body did something impossible, making him a medical miracle. His story takes in the glamour of the runway, the shadow, as he calls it, of a wolf. And the science that finally allowed him to stop running. Lawrence, welcome to HIV. The morning after.
::Laurence Close
Thank you. It's. Lovely to be here.
::Dan Hall
Well, let's start at the very beginning of your story. Where did you grow up?
::Laurence Close
I grew up in Zambia, in in Africa. And then I went to boarding school in Zimbabwe. And, you know, it's still illegal to this day in Zambia to be gay. So from the outset, when I, when I left Zambia and I moved to the UK, I didn't come from a position of confidence about being gay. I didn't I didn't know what the gay people in, in my home country, you could go to prison for, for being a homosexual.
::Laurence Close
So I think my very foundation and start as a gay man in the country that was more acceptable was from a position of guilt and shame for for my very existence.
::Dan Hall
What is it like being illegal? What does that feel like? And not even being oh, we disapprove of you. Illegal, but prison illegal.
::Laurence Close
I mean, I think it's it's like for lots of people in the closet, you're second guessing yourself all the time. Did I sit down to gay? Do I speak to gay? Did I move to go? Did I sit too close to God? Did I stare too? You know. So you. It's. It's a constant. Checking yourself. Checking what's up?
::Laurence Close
Checking. It's off. And you only ever hear gay people talk about in derogatory terms and derision. And it's never anything positive. That's never a role model. And there's never someone that you look to and you think, okay, that's me. That's that's what I can be. That's who I am. So you really struggle with with who you are.
::Dan Hall
So what are your thoughts then, when you hear people say things like, oh, you know what, Lawrence? That's just the slings and arrows of growing up. We all we all go through difficult things like that. We all have our difficulties.
::Laurence Close
Oh, yeah. Absolutely. We do all have, our difficulties. But straight people on the whole don't really have their very existence and their sexuality and who they're going to sleep with, who they choose to love, questions. And they grow up to, you know, you people have a child and they grow up expecting them to conform to the gender that they were born with.
::Laurence Close
If that isn't the case, you're growing up with a set of rules from day one that aren't for you.
::Dan Hall
in prison. Yep. And that's in: ::Laurence Close
Yeah. It's it's it's insane isn't it? You you you think over here we can get married and have relationships and families and adopt children. And yet there are people in other countries who are going to go to prison just for loving someone.
::Dan Hall
So you left and you came to London. What brought you to London?
::Laurence Close
I originally came where I first originally came and I did. I went to science since the agriculture college. I didn't really know what to do with my life, but we had the farm. And to be honest, I wanted to please my father. So I thought, okay, I'll go to agricultural college, but as soon as, I finished that, I met someone and he was a lot older than me.
::Laurence Close
He was. He was 20 years older than me.
::Dan Hall
What year is this?
::Laurence Close
This is: ::Laurence Close
And, I used to see him and go over on the weekends to Paris. He was really like a mentor to me because I had never been. I'd never been to a gay bar. I'd never been to a gay club. I never met a group of gay people together. I had never been to the opera. I'd never been to museums.
::Laurence Close
I'd never been to the ballet. So he introduced me to all these amazing things. And for the first time ever, he said to me, gosh, you know, you're you're so ashamed of who you are. And yet look around, you look at, architecture and arts and ballet and all this beauty has been created by gay men. So rather than being ashamed of yourself, you should be proud that you're you're part of a very talented and unique group of people.
::Dan Hall
What was London like then? Because. Because 83 is a good year for music. I love my music and 83 was such a good year. You go Uptown Girl from Billy Joel, Comma Chameleon and of course it's the year that thriller comes out, the Michael Jackson album. So it's like culturally, it's a really interesting time.
::Laurence Close
It was so fantastic. And, you know, we were there a whole group of, there used to be a hairdressing, academy called Allen International in Hammersmith and you know, we were all young and creative and, doing each other's hair in different colours and different cuts and different styles and making our own clothes and going to taboo and to sacrosanct and, to the Hippodrome.
::Laurence Close
And, you know, it was just exciting. And for someone who had grown up so repressed to suddenly be away from the criticism and the gaze of my peers, and in the country where things are really grow, it was amazing just to see all this vibrancy and creativity and loads and loads of other young, gay, gay and lesbian men and women.
::Dan Hall
And so you're dating this guy, this diplomat, would you say it's fair to say you're dating him?
::Laurence Close
Yes. I mean, I, I think because, you know, when you have your first experience, I had never slept with a man before. And he was the first person I've ever gone out with. And. Yeah, that first time you fall in love is like nothing else. You're so naive. You're so old, Ed. You're so. Or I was at least so committed.
::Dan Hall
Oh, I've darling, I think I think we all are, I think and I, you know, it's it's everything, isn't there. And, you know, I'm so lucky I found Mr. Right first time.
::Laurence Close
Yeah. And and I really in my head, I had it all planned. He was separating from his wife. And, I was going to do my, course as a hairdresser. And then I was going to go into fashion, and I would and I thought, well, you know, it will be very easy because he's, he's an ambassador, so he's going to be in the capital city, in whichever country he gets posted to.
::Laurence Close
So I'll always be able to get a job and blah, blah, blah.
::Dan Hall
That's my God. You really were picking up patterns. One, you.
::Laurence Close
Know, I, I, I had it I had the whole thing mapped out, to be honest. If I think I had the whole thing mapped out like I was a straight person.
::Laurence Close
I had met the man of my dreams, I was going to be with them. We were going to travel the world together.
::Laurence Close
And then there had been the press was starting about the gay plague and this new disease. And but at that moment, it was because I was only with him, and I was totally sisal. I felt that it was a little bit removed from me. And then my best friend in Paris worked for Eve's salon. Beauty and I went over to see my partner, and he was at work and I thought, oh, I'll just be nice and I'll clean up the apartment outside his things up.
::Laurence Close
And I looked under the bed and there was a bag for you, single beauty. And I knew he was cheating on me. And I think part of me just thought, you fool.
::Dan Hall
Really? You blamed yourself.
::Laurence Close
I was disappointed in me. Yeah, and I didn't say anything. I just kept quiet. I stayed the weekend. I came back to London, and I just. And it was just in the. So by now it was sort of end of 84. Beginning of 85. And I'd been going out with him for a little bit over two years, and I thought, I need to get tested.
::Laurence Close
And it wasn't so easy to do. And then you I managed I remember going to Gower Street, and I knew I was positive before I even had the test. I had no symptoms. There was nothing wrong with me, I just knew.
::Laurence Close
You had to wait two weeks. But then I had two back to back photoshoots that weren't in England, so I had to wait five weeks.
::Dan Hall
So by this point your career had really taken off. Had it?
::Laurence Close
Yeah, things were going really well. I was getting booked for jobs and I was flying all over the world. And then it was great because catalogue season was in Miami and you went in January. And what used to be that day, Versace bought and turned it into his mansion. It used to be a boarding house, and come January, all the European hair and makeup artists and and hairdressers used to go over there and get an agent in Miami.
::Laurence Close
And then we'd do all the British catalogues, you know, Littlewoods grants, etc. it would all come over and make book and hair and makeup because they already knew us from over here. I was lucky, I think in life you, you get given your big chance and you either take it and run with it or you mess it up.
::Laurence Close
Then you try something else. And I was lucky enough to to take it and run with it.
::Dan Hall
And you've taken a test, and your professional life takes you away for five weeks. Were you able to lose yourself in your work, or was it just.
::Laurence Close
e it'd got to the stage since: ::Laurence Close
People would talk about it in the pub. People would talk about it at work. So it it was everywhere was relentless. So you there was no escaping it. So you just had to kind of just suck it up and get on with it. Try and keep your focus on on what you're doing. But then it also killed you with so much paranoia because my, my big thing was always.
::Laurence Close
Am I a danger to other people? And, you know, as a hair and makeup makeup artist, you're trained to have incredibly high standards of cleanliness anyway, but then knowing that you have the possibility of this diagnosis, you start doing things like, you know, it's very common for for makeup artists to blend foundation and colours on the back of the hand.
::Laurence Close
And I'm thinking, why I can't do that? So I've got to make sure I always blend in the palette, and I, I've got to make sure I always squeeze the foundation. I can't put the foundation of with my fingers anymore. I've got to make sure that I put it directly on the brush, and I use a brush, and I must make sure that the tip of the brush doesn't touched by my skin.
::Laurence Close
So you know all these things because you just don't know.
::Dan Hall
This wasn't there, was it? Because people didn't understand how transmission was? It was know this is your own paranoia.
::Laurence Close
It's my own paranoia. And because there was so much misinformation and there was just so much fear around everything, and, you know, people saying, oh, well, they're going to anybody who gets tested is they're going to keep your information and then, you won't be able to travel, you won't be able to get a work permit, you won't be able to get a mortgage, you won't be able to get insurance.
::Laurence Close
So everything was closing in on you.
::Dan Hall
So you come back after five weeks, I imagine. Exhausted, not just from work, but from worry.
::Laurence Close
I get I got my remember I went and got my results and they said, oh, you shouldn't really just go because you should see a counsellor first. But, we don't have one today. And I was like, well, okay, so that means I can just go and I, it can an amazing sort of detachment and calm descended over me.
::Laurence Close
And I was very sort of matter of fact in my head I was like, okay, I'm HIV positive now. You didn't think there was any work. There wasn't even the distinction so much between HIV positive and Aids. It was just everybody just called it Aids. So you had Aids? And then I went home and I thought I wasn't, I wasn't I was 25 and I wasn't out to my parents and they and I was like, well, I can't come out to my parents.
::Laurence Close
And then three months later I die of Aids and I can't die of Aids. And then my parents find that I'm gay because of that. And I just couldn't. I just kept thinking of how I can't do this to them. I can't bring them all the shame. So my thinking was, I have to find the right time to commit suicide.
::Laurence Close
And do I do it now, immediately, or do do I wait and see how I am? Do I carry on trying to have a bit of a life? Because maybe I've got two years, so do it. And then if it's things to change immediately, did they change before anybody can see that something's wrong with me, or it looks physically like my health is changing, I'll arrange to have, an overdose, but try and make it look like an accidental overdose.
::Laurence Close
Because in the small farming community where my parents live, it's going to be so much easier for them and so much less stigma for them to be able to turn around and say, our son died of an accidental drug overdose than it is for them to turn around and say, oh, a son died of Aids.
::Dan Hall
So far away from home in London with this news. In a way, you're still that boy back in Zambia.
::Laurence Close
Yeah. And still not wanting to disappoint my parents and not to be a let down and and and not to bring shame to them because of who and and what I am.
::Dan Hall
And it sounds like this wasn't this wasn't a wailing and gnashing you were doing in your flat. It sounds the sense of you being detached sounds like it was a very sensible conversation with your son.
::Laurence Close
It was almost I couldn't describe I can't I did the whole me finding out. I was always I mean, I did crash later, but much later, when it was almost as though I went home and I was trying to decide when would be the best time to swap the summer tyres for winter tires, because I didn't want to do to too early and I didn't want to do too late.
::Laurence Close
And I didn't involve drama and, and and crying. And it was just, I was just very icy cold and and just okay, now I've got to work out how do I do this and that. That was my focus.
::Dan Hall
And how much of this had you witnessed in your professional life? Had you seen other people getting ill and disappearing?
::Laurence Close
I had oh, I'd seen awful things happen to friend I, the a lovely friend from South Africa, and he came out to his parents. I didn't know he was gay. He came out to them, told this guy, told them that he had HIV. And actually when he told me I had full blown Aids and his father reaction was to him, I wish you'd told me you had cancer because then I could feel sorry for you.
::Laurence Close
Well, you know, you you hear things like that and you think, oh, God, is that the kind of reaction I will get? And then there were so many, you know, so many people in my industry were dying. Beautiful, you know, like Stevie Hughes and Dan Carrier and Luba Steubenville and Ali, all these beautiful, talented hair and makeup artists and photographers and and it was every week and, you know, the fashion industry was decimated and you were always hearing about another person who'd become ill.
::Laurence Close
And and then there were all or often speculation, you know, somebody lost way towards a bit thin or if you didn't hear from them about for a while and, you know, it's it like it was just the most horrible time.
::Dan Hall
And now it's your turn.
::Laurence Close
Yeah. And I wrote in that week I had of, I wrote a letter to, that's how long ago I wrote a letter to my, partner or what's supposed partner in Paris. And I just said to him, listen, I had the test and I came back with a positive result. I suggest that you have a test as well.
::Laurence Close
And that's all I did. And then the rest. I just wrote, like, a normal letter, but I included that. And then, he he called me, and he, she went for the tests and he said, would you come over when I get my results? And I said, yes, of course I will. So I went over to Paris. He got his results and they were positive, and he just fell apart, completely fell apart, and he blamed me.
::Laurence Close
He kept saying to me, Kurt, you've been sleeping this here. Have you've been sleeping at the night setting. I only ever slept with you. I think there is nobody else. And and he just wouldn't believe me and I didn't, I, you know, I never got angry. I never blamed him. I never turned to him and said, no, you did this to me.
::Laurence Close
Because from the way I looked at it, I. So we're both going to die. It doesn't do any good to blame anybody.
::Laurence Close
So. Yes. And then as I was leaving in that we can see he said, I don't think we should see each other anymore.
::Dan Hall
This is after two years together.
::Laurence Close
Yes. Yes, three years. And I just I was just empty. I just I just thought, you know what? I just got too much to deal with. I know I'm not going to be able to lean on you. I've just got to face this on my own.
::Laurence Close
After I got my diagnosis, I was then transferred or my treatment went to the Jeffrey's room at, Saint Mary's in Paddington. And you'd sit in the waiting room there, and it would be nobody really ever spoke. It was. There was always a sort of a little nod and, required to acknowledge, because we all knew why we were there.
::Laurence Close
But there is still that sort of silence about it wasn't a bright, chatty, bubbly place at all in those early days. And then very early on, like I came in and, this one girl, Eunice, I think I managed to she said to me, oh, I love your coach. And I started laughing and I said, well, I've got to try and keep the boys interested somehow.
::Laurence Close
And we started laughing and we started talking. And, she was from Nigeria and she was a lesbian, and she had contracted HIV from being raped. And I remember after, we came with her and she was so lovely and she was so comforting to me. I went home and I thought, oh my God, you are educated, middle class, white male.
::Laurence Close
How many other unearned advantages do you expect life to throw it to? Just get on with it. You've got everything in front of you here and now. Today you're okay, so live or else you're going to spend your time dying.
::Dan Hall
You go back to work and your work just takes off. You got agents and you're travelling all over the world while your career is taking off. Do you think this darting about everywhere, doing everything, was a way to never have to stand still and look people in the eye and and share your status, that you could just keep on the move and never stay in one place too long to be asked any questions.
::Laurence Close
It was I it's a combination of things. It was in the very, very early stages. I was I was still in London and I was just trying to sort of recover from no longer having a part, but having the wind knocked out of me by my diagnosis, deciding whether I was going to kill myself now or later on.
::Laurence Close
And then, you know, you you'd go out, you meet someone, or I did, and you wouldn't sleep with them, and you, you wouldn't even really kiss them. You'd be a little bit distant from them. Then you'd go out a few more times and you still wouldn't sleep with them. And, you know, by the end, they were telling you that they loved you and that you were the best person I ever met.
::Laurence Close
And you're so this and you said that and and so you had to think, okay, well, I, I think I can tell you and I, I made sure never to tell people in a situation where they felt they couldn't leave because I sort of thought, well, if I tell you in my apartment and you want to get up and go, it looks super obvious.
::Laurence Close
Whereas if we're sitting in a park and Hyde Park on the lawn and we had no plans afterwards, it's just a very natural thing to say. Well, thank you for telling me I got I didn't I never wanted to, someone to feel pressurised to act in one way or the other. But you would have someone today who was telling you that they adored you and how amazing you were, and then you would tell them and you'd never hear from them again.
::Laurence Close
And that the hardest thing with that was that you didn't blame them because you thought, well, what would I do with all this hysteria if I was HIV negative? And somebody who I'd never slept with, who I've known only six weeks, told me that they, you know, possibly were going to die of this terrible disease. Of course, you know, I, I totally understood.
::Laurence Close
The sexual parts of, of a relationship should bring you closer together and bond you and and feel closer as a unit. And yet, I used to feel that even if somebody you. Even after I'd told someone if they still wanted to sleep with you or sleep with me, I had this awful. It's a terrible thing to feel grateful because somebody took a chance on sleeping with you.
::Laurence Close
And then on the other hand, you feel or I felt even with protection and everything, including I still felt that I was taking a revolver and spinning the barrel and pointing it at the head and going, click. And that's such a hard thing to then try and base our relationship around that.
::Dan Hall
So despite your incredibly busy flashbulb life around the world, insanely busy life, will you? Lonely?
::Laurence Close
Oh god yes. After those where I'd had several rejections and you know, after telling somebody there was radio silence, you then had the panic of, okay, well, now are they going to tell someone? Do they know someone in the fashion industry who's going to tell a client who's they're not going to work with me? Or is my agent going to drop me?
::Laurence Close
Or so you had that paranoia of that, and then I turned into what I wanted. I wanted to be loved, and I wanted to connect with someone, and I wanted to build feel safe. But I felt toxic, and I, I didn't feel that I could have that. And so what I substituted for was trying to turn myself in to an object of desire.
::Laurence Close
So I was decide I, I wanted to be ripped and tanned and great haircut and beautiful clothes and sunny and humorous and and so that people would want me, but then I wouldn't let them come close because I would be. That's this is all I can get. Because when I tell you I'm going to lose you, and there's only so many times I can do that.
::Laurence Close
And you have I remember once in in given up, it's just, I mean, I manage to have a partner and, we were having an argument. Just not that something inconsequential. No, nothing terribly. But in the middle of the argument, he just stopped and he went, what does it really matter? You're going to be dead soon. Well, and, you know, you would have small little things like that that just blow you out the water.
::Laurence Close
And so you desperately want someone to love you and to look past everything.
::Dan Hall
Although, of course, the one thing you can't run away from is your own body. And you describe yourself as feeling toxic.
::Laurence Close
Yeah, to feel dangerous to others is such a mind. Fuck it. It really is because it affects everything. You. You so long for this connection and you feel unworthy. I mean, I would, I would I had some terrible relationships with people because and I know looking back, I chose them because. So typical scenario and this would be a typical person for me to, to to date.
::Laurence Close
They would be incredibly fucked up, incredibly fucked up. And I would look at them and think, but if it if I date you, I'm, I'm not shortchanging you. I'm it's not like you're an amazing, fantastic person who is going to be short changed by dating someone like me. So I think and, and I think I can help you, I think I can make your life better.
::Laurence Close
I think I can do something for you that justifies me being HIV positive. Does that make sense?
::Dan Hall
It does absolutely. See you in a way, don't you? Felt you didn't deserve happiness, but what you could what you could have is gratitude.
::Laurence Close
I got a bit of a reputation for being the very I see person, in that I looked good on the outsides, but I wouldn't let you come close to me. So I learned, I think a lot of people thought I was a tease because of that. And that shirt, it was it was soft from the truth. That isn't really who I was at all.
::Dan Hall
But that must have been exhausting, living such a performative life, because at the same time, you are as you have described it, you have the wolf chasing you. You have no idea at what point your immune system is going to collapse. And you, from what you're telling me, you barely have a support system. So not only do you have no one to snuggle up with and watch the Golden Girls, you also have no world really that is offering you all the support you need.
::Laurence Close
And there were all these services that I could have accessed, but I was so scared of being sound out. What if I go? Then there's somebody who I've done a photoshoot with and and the stupid thing was, the stupid thing is it didn't occur in my head. What? Yeah. If there's somebody there in the same boat as you, so it'll be fine.
::Laurence Close
But you know that when you on that running and scared and ashamed and trying to hide. I don't think you always think the most clearly. It's funny. I was so calm and clear about my suicide and how I would end things and how I would save my family, but when it came to sort of looking after myself and protecting myself, I wasn't I.
::Laurence Close
I wasn't there for me. I mean, I, I think if I could show up for my younger self now look at my younger self and say something to myself, I would have said, you know, take the help and get someone to talk to. You don't have to just try and deal with this by yourself.
::Dan Hall
In your pre-interview notes, you talked about going to Saint Mary's for appointments and seeing people fade. Well that must you must be looking at this thing and thinking, this is my future. And when is that going to be me sitting in that chair?
::Laurence Close
I you would go and you would see people, and then you'd see them the next time, and then they would not be there anymore. And you knew what had happened, and you could see the person that was so frightening. It it just made you petrified. But every time I went, nothing was happening. And I remember the very first time when they did my bloods and they were doing the viral load and the CD4 count and everything.
::Laurence Close
And I think in the early years, I don't think that the viral load, test they did was as sensitive as it is nowadays. So they would say to me, well, we can't actually find any virus in your system. And your CT full count is really high, even for a, for a person without any illness. And so you're been really strong, fit, healthy condition.
::Laurence Close
And then they would go, okay, well, you know, we'll see you in three months. And the night symptom. You know what? I travel so much, I'm always missing important. Can I just come every six months I and then they would like. Okay. But if you get any symptoms, if you start feeling come immediately. So. So then I went every six months and I'd go and I go yeah, there's.
::Laurence Close
And still, still nothing wrong. You still go find your viral load and your CD4 count is still really, really high. And then I was like, well to my come once a year. And they weren't that happy about that. But you know, my career's taking off even more so. They were like, okay. So they then the one time I went in and they said, you know, we we're going to do another tests on you because there is a chance it does happen.
::Laurence Close
You might have got a false positive. So they did a test again on me and they went, no, no, it's it is right. You you you are you are HIV positive, but I just nothing progressed.
::Dan Hall
At this time. Were you thinking, oh, this is what it's like for everyone? Or did they come a point where you started to think, my body isn't behaving like other people's bodies?
::Laurence Close
I didn't know one because I had lost by the stage. I had lost a lot of friends. And I was just like, well, why doesn't anything happen to me? And there is a certain amount of guilt that goes along with that, in that, you know, everybody else is getting sick and dying and I'm still here. And, you know, it starts off it's like five years, ten years, 15 years, 20 years, 25 years, 30 years, 36 years, you know, and and still things aren't changing.
::Laurence Close
And I just, listen, I was very grateful, and, but I ended up with some life that I never imagined for a second that I'd never be able to have. I didn't think I would be and and list to be an old man. It just it wasn't a it wasn't even something that I thought about.
::Laurence Close
And I didn't sort of think, sit and think, oh, pull me. I'm never going to be an old man. I'm going to die. I just thought, well, you know, this is how my life is. I'm going to die early. But I've got this amazing career. I'm travelling around the world. Actually, I've seen and done more than most people ever get to do.
::Laurence Close
So, I'm lucky I'm having a great life.
::Dan Hall
But of course, when you're living that great life, you're not living it with the hindsight that you are now. But, you know, you can look back on your life. And I go, that was great. I wasn't ill, but every single day you woke up, you didn't know if you were going to find a purple lesion. And that happened for decades.
::Dan Hall
And that must be exhausting.
::Laurence Close
It is. And it's, I, you know, that that the one terrible relationship that I ended up having, the person I ended up in the relationship with absolutely honed in and tapped into all my insecurities and,
::Laurence Close
He one of his ways of, of, of making me susceptible to him was he told me that he had, chronic lymphocytic leukaemia and that he was dying, and he wanted me to move to his, house in the south of France. And I thought that I was going to go there and I was going to look after him, and, he was going to die.
::Laurence Close
And then I would come back to England, and we almost bonded over the fact that I was HIV positive and that, you know, I understood, you know, the, the, the thoughts around your own death and, and how it must be in their thing. And then when I got to the south of France, it was just typical narcissistic trap of isolating me, cutting me off from all my friends.
::Laurence Close
And then I found out that he didn't have leukaemia at all. It was a lie. And when you're in such an abusive relationship, you again, I didn't want to tell people what was happening to me because I was ashamed that I'd gotten into the situation. I didn't know how to get out of it. I didn't know.
::Laurence Close
And and because. Are you able to ride and train horses? So it was so easy to go to the doctor and go, oh, you know, I fell off a horse because it fit it. It started with what I did. So I could always logically explain the violent side of things, away. And then I came back. I came back to London to do a job, and, the client who picked me up at the airport took one look at me and she went.
::Laurence Close
What is going on?
::Laurence Close
She didn't tell me what to do. She just put her hand on my shoulder and she just said, if you don't leave this man, you know that one day he's going to kill you.
::Laurence Close
They managed to get me a place in a domestic abuse refuge called no, the house. But I had to go back to France first because he still had my dog. And I knew if I just didn't return, then she would do something awful. And, So I went back and I every time I used to take the dog for a walk, and then I made some excuse to send him back to England to to a friend of mine.
::Laurence Close
And then when, when the, when my partner, they went away on business, I took, hand luggage and the French police took it to the airports, and then I just blocked him on everything. And I've never spoke to the man since.
::Dan Hall
How do you feel your journey with HIV intersects with you finding yourself in a dangerously abusive relationship. Are they connected?
::Laurence Close
Yes, I I'd if I wasn't, I think if I, if he hadn't been able to have that in to me about him because he didn't have chronic lymphocytic leukaemia, that was a lie that wasn't true. So he had told me he had chronic inflexibility because he knew that was I would be sympathetic towards him, and that would be a way to get me to do what he wanted.
::Laurence Close
And, you know, the whole thing with, with those people like that is that they want to get you away from your friends, they want to isolate you, and then the person who they really are comes out. Because when, when we were together in England, he was charming and everything that I thought I possibly would ever want to have in a relationship.
::Laurence Close
But it's not. It's a real person. That's not who they are. And after I had, I managed to get away from him. I found other people that he'd done the same thing to and the same story telling them that he had, leukaemia and the only had five years to move. And I had not looked back.
::Laurence Close
And I think, how did I fall for that? And then I see. Yeah, of course, because you it sell straight into your thing of not being worthy. And then oh here's somebody who I can help, who I can, look after, I can do something. I'm not shortchanging them because of me being HIV positive. I'm going to take care of them.
::Laurence Close
And and I'd look after them, as I said, dying. So it all tied into that so neatly. So I was I was a perfect victim.
::Dan Hall
So your language and your language use is consistent and strong. You talk about toxicity. You talk about when you have sex with people, the potential of it being a loaded gun. You talk about the wolf chasing you. When did you start to feel these words slipping away? When did they start to become less relevant to you?
::Laurence Close
I remember in: ::Dan Hall
Hang on, you'd been your body had been pretty stable up to this point without meds.
::Laurence Close
started taking medication in: ::Dan Hall
So this is three and a half decades. Your body has been.
::Laurence Close
Yeah, fine. I'd been absolutely fine. They'd taken my blood and they had been using it for research. And I'd done loads of questionnaires about lifestyle and partners and ethnicity and family background and just loads of things. And there is a genetic mutation on one of the genes that I think comes from the times when people had, the plague and possibly smallpox.
::Laurence Close
And in simple terms, when you get the, the, the, the HIV, the virus enters your system. It that virus then attaches itself onto, one of your normal healthy cells. It invites that cell, it replicates, that explodes, releases lots more that go on to attack of the cells in the person's repeats itself again and again. If you have this CC five, Delta 32, gene mutation, it interferes with the attachment of the virus to your cells so it can't get into your cell.
::Laurence Close
And if you have inherited, if you're heterozygous. So you've inherited a gene mutation from your mother and from your father, then you're pretty impervious to to, HIV. If you inherit one, then you have a much, much, much slower progression of the disease. It takes much, much longer because the virus still can't get into your cells as easily.
::Laurence Close
But in: ::Laurence Close
I could sleep with someone unprotected and I wasn't going to infect them.
::Dan Hall
How did I feel?
::Laurence Close
It's like the biggest weight's being lifted off of your shoulder to no longer,
::Laurence Close
You know, that's self-hatred that you have. It's it's not hatred. Hatred, which seems like that's a bit of anger at that. That feeling about yourself and something poisonous is gone.
::Dan Hall
Because a huge amount of your story, hearing you talk about your parents in Zimbabwe, hearing you talk about colleagues, hearing you talk about lovers, people you're meeting up with, people who you're dating. The consistency throughout almost all of your story is you're constantly worried about other people, and you don't really give much time to be worried about yourself or to indeed put yourself first.
::Laurence Close
Right from the beginning, it's like I'm HIV positive, I'm going to die. And I was a very matter of fact, I can't change that. That is just how it is. And then I thought, but I can not infect someone else because I wouldn't wish this on my worst enemy. So I was always that has always been in the forefront of my mind that I didn't want to infect someone else.
::Dan Hall
And so you've been fundamentally affected by you, equals you in a wonderfully positive way. Where has that brought you now? Where are you now in your life?
::Laurence Close
Oh, I, you know, when I, when I, when I left. No. The house domestic abuse refuge, I, met a Swedish man and for two years we just chatted. I had no intention of ever in relationship. I had lost everything. I was starting again from scratch. I was 50, 69 years old. And I just thought, listen, you don't own house.
::Laurence Close
You've got no money. You're still you can still go back to being a hair make my lesson work. But nobody's going to settle that. That they're, walk into your house. But yeah, it's you're always get like this grander. Don't worry about it. Just get on working and get on with your life. And I chatted to early on for two years without ever seeing a photo of him I had.
::Laurence Close
It wasn't going to be a sexual thing. It wasn't. He was just this lovely man. He was in Sweden. I was in London. I didn't have to meet him. He worked in, he worked in mental health. So he was able to help me with some of my issues. I was having around nightmares about the fun abuse I suffered from my ex and the panic attacks and stuff.
::Laurence Close
and of: ::Laurence Close
You're welcome to stay, I said, but I just have to tell you tonight, if you think you're coming over to start a relationship and sleep with me, you will be bitterly disappointed, because this is not what this is.
::Laurence Close
And he was amazing. He he never once tried to cross a boundary and he was respectful. And we just laughed and we had fun. And I did something that I think we should all do. But this is the first time I've probably ever done it. I fell in love with somebody because of how they treated me, not because of the social status of the job they had or what they looked like.
::Laurence Close
And I've never had such a good relationship. And we've been married three years now, and I moved to Sweden. And if anybody had told me all those things that you wanted, like a stable relationship and someone you love and to belong and to feel safe and to no longer have your shame, if somebody told me that's all going to happen after you're 60, I wouldn't have believed them.
::Laurence Close
Oh.
::Dan Hall
We're coming towards the final portion of the show, and this is where we dedicate a moment to those who didn't get to see the progress that we see today. Who would you like us to remember and why?
::Laurence Close
Oh, I think I mean, there's so many, but I think I think Eunice Hughes, whose last name I never knew because she made me get up and decide to keep living and keep going.
::Dan Hall
You know, if you had to write a postcard to the world, what would it say?
::Laurence Close
First of all, I would say educate yourselves. Because if you're just speaking from a point of regard about things you've heard in the pub and whatever, chances are you that's the correct information. Be kind and and change the language that you use, especially in, in apps and everything. If what you mean is I'd like to date someone who's HIV, HIV negative, right.
::Laurence Close
That doesn't. Right. I need someone who's clean because that's not what you're saying. You're saying people who are HIV positive are dirty.
::Dan Hall
Yeah, we need to stop that shit.
::Laurence Close
Yeah. It's not the person who is HIV positive and tells you their status that is the danger to you. It's that person you think is so gorgeous and you fancy a new fad. A few too many drinks with and you want to go home with. Who doesn't know this? That's. That's where the danger lies.
::Dan Hall
Why did you agree to do this podcast? Because I understand from our conversation that this is your public outing, in a way, sharing your status. Why have you decided to do it?
::Laurence Close
I just realised I'm not ashamed anymore.
::Laurence Close
u deserved it or to just it's: ::Laurence Close
It's just another disease.
::Dan Hall
And now finally to absolutely round the point home. What is you because you mean.
::Laurence Close
You equals if you have an undetectable viral load and you're on retroviral medications, you cannot transmit HIV to another person so that you are safe to have sex with that person.
::Dan Hall
Absolutely. Lawrence close, thank you so much for guesting with me here on HIV the morning after.
::Laurence Close
Thanks, Dan has been lovely. So.
::Dan Hall
If you were moved or informed by what you heard today, please help spread the word. Subscribe to HIV the morning after and leave a rating and a review. It makes a huge difference in helping others to find it. Your support helps to amplify these experiences. If you'd like to get in touch, you can email me at HIV the morning after at gmail.com.
::Dan Hall
And remember, if you encounter HIV stigma and a bar, call it out. If you encounter it at work, call it out. If you encounter it online, call it out. Because if you don't, you're part of the problem.
::Dan Hall
The theme tune is by Paul Leonidou at Unstoppablemonsters.com, and many thanks to Moray Laing for his continued support. And thank you for listening. Join me next time for another important conversation on HIV the morning after I've been Dan Hall.
