Grabbing life by the Balls

Terry Longden

Celebrity hairdresser, Gaydio Presenter and nephew of Sharon Osbourne, Terry Longden talks to Jeni Quirke about living with HIV

Terry found fame on The Salon in 2003 and has since appeared on X Factor and hosted his own show on Gaydio, but for years he was hiding a secret - a secret that meant he had be living with HIV since 2001. At the beginning of this year his cousin Kelly Osbourne announced live on stage that a family was being affected by HIV and shortly after Terry came out to the world. Since then he has never looked back…

 

So you have been living with HIV for nearly seven years now. How often do you think about it?

Every single day. When you first get diagnosed you forget about it and then it hits you like a sledge hammer, it really does, and then you sort of live with it. With me anyway I thought ‘What the fuck, I’ve got it now’. I’m very pragmatic like that. I believe it is what it is. I started to think about it every single day but in a closeted way because I wasn’t out. I was very paranoid and very wary. I also became brilliant at deflection… every time a subject would come round I would be able to deflect it so seamlessly and easily it was unbelievable. I think it actually brought to me what it must be like to be closeted and gay, because I’ve never ever had a problem with coming out but now I completely understand that situation because it’s the same sort of dilemma.

When did you reveal your HIV status to your friends and family?

It was in the public domain at the beginning of this year but my mum knew from the very beginning. My brother didn’t know until this year and he took it quite hard, because like most heterosexual young people he thought I had AIDS and was going to carc it within about two weeks. It’s really odd as well because I don’t fit into the victim slot... we’ve got so many different boxes and shades for people with HIV. We’re not all in the same boat. I don’t put myself in the same boat as them poor buggers in Africa that haven’t got any drugs and can’t get any drugs. I don’t feel in the same position as people that were affected in the eighties. I’m one of the lucky ones because I was literally diagnosed as soon as I was exposed and that was just a fluke because I had a rash on my willy basically. It’s quite ironic because it ended up that I had an allergy to the condoms I was using. I can’t really express this enough to everybody ‘go and get tested, whether your straight or gay – if you’ve ever had unprotected sex go and get tested because early diagnosis will save your life, it saved my life!’

How different do you think your life would be now if you never went for that test?

Very different because it completely changed my attitude towards things. It made me grab life by the balls. Like everybody else who has never really had much contact with people with HIV or known anything about it – you automatically think you’ve got AIDS and will be dead within about five years… it was a real big wake up call.

What’s been the hardest thing for you since being diagnosed?

Relationships. That’s the main thing because it’s always that trauma of disclosing to a potential long-term relationship partner and I’ve never dated anyone who has been positive either so they don’t really understand.

How have you taken to the drugs and are there many side effects?

I only started my drugs last year. I had nothing before that because what happens is that when you’re diagnosed they don’t put you on drugs straight away - what they do is test your T-cells and CD4 count to see what your immune system is like. There are so many different anti-viral drugs out there on the market, it’s like a big bag of M&Ms. You’ve got your old one’s from years and years ago then you’ve got all these new ones. I said ‘Right then, I’ll tell you what I don’t want – I don’t want Lipidystrophy’. I really don’t like that look. I don’t mind anything else. They said ‘well there are these two drugs you can have Sustiva and Truvada (which are the one’s I’m on) but not many people take to them…’ So I was looking at all the side effects where you can’t sleep at night, you hallucinate and all this… and I didn’t need to drink because I was high as a kite every night as soon as I took them. It’s only two tablets a night and there are some people that take 12 tablets all through the day so I am very lucky.

You are a very positive, healthy and active person. Do you make an extra effort to stay healthy?

I’m coming up to 45 now and I’m the healthiest I’ve ever been in all my life. Yes I do make an extra effort to stay healthy and it’s not because I think that I’m going to die if I don’t, it’s because I’m getting older and that I used to suffer with a real bad back terribly up to about six or seven years ago.

What would you say to people who are too scared to go for a HIV test?

I would say ‘What have you got to lose really?’ I must admit the worst thing is waiting for the results but I think now they do day tests. I think if you find out you’re positive straight away then brilliant because you’ll live to a ripe old age like you would anyway, and if you’re not HIV even better! It’s a win, win situation.

What advice would you give to readers who have recently been diagnosed?

It’s not the end of the world; it really isn’t! You aren’t going to get rid of it, it ain’t going to change, and it is what it is! Be positive about it. If you think negative thoughts you’ll end up going down hill straight away.