GMA Producer Tony Morrison on Going Public About Living with HIV: 'My Diagnosis Doesn't Define Me'
Before he decided to tell the world about his HIV-positive status in an essay for Good Morning America in August, Tony Morrison had only shared the news he had been living with for eight years with a small group of people.
"I can probably count on 10 fingers the total number of people I've told over the last eight year: just close friends and family," he tells PEOPLE. "This is a little controversial, but no one in my family, including my mom, knew until my essay published as well."
The Emmy Award-winning Good Morning America senior producer knew disclosing his experience on the morning show's website would bring a ton of attention, but what Morrison, 32, didn't expect was the outpouring of love he received.
"Everyone has been so supportive. I hear the word 'proud,' and I am so relieved that so many people have reached out in the way that they have," he says. "I think every person I've ever interacted with has reached out. It's been incredibly overwhelming, but that affirms to me that this was the right thing to do."
Morrison first received the news just months after moving to New York City from his small hometown of Winter Garden, Florida. He had recently come out as gay on social media and was still adjusting to a new, out life in the Big Apple. He took an at-home test and describes receiving the positive result as "as awful as you think it would be."
"It was devastating and I didn't really know where to go," he recalls. "No one really told you what to do if you got a positive result. It was just test, test, test, so part of that trauma was also endless Googling for help and where to find healthcare and resources."
Tony Morrison/Instagram
After growing up with movies, television shows and mass media that had always presented HIV as a "death sentence," it took meeting with a doctor to understand that with proper medication and treatment, Morrison could live a long and healthy life "just like everybody else."
"Articulating that now is so easy, but at the time it was really hard for me to grasp," he admits. "It took me eight years to kind of unlearn that whole trauma and then build that confidence that I have now to share my story."
He made the decision to share his experience amid the COVID-19 pandemic, feeling it was "unfair" to tell other people's stories for a living without owning up to his own. Losing people he knew to coronavirus and having two close friends become diagnosed with breast cancer made Morrison feel like he needed to be more open about himself with the people in his life.
"We've lost a whole generation to HIV/AIDS and this whole other generation of people to COVID, and I just thought it was such an unfair thing to live in shame while I had that second chance to live at the same time," he explains.
Tony Morrison/Instagram
The journalist hopes to inspire reporting around HIV that focuses on people's stories as much as it does on data and scientific studies, in an effort to help normalize education and awareness about the disease.
"There are a number of people who have reached out and told me that I am the first person they know who is living with HIV, and that gives me a such gratitude for them to share that with me," he explains. "But it's also like, Wow, how many more stories do we have to share for people to be on board with this conversation and be comfortable with it?"
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Despite knowing the large audience that would find his essay, there was one reader he was most nervous about: his mom. "Telling my mother especially was one of the hardest things to even think of doing," he says. "We've talked since then and she's been so supportive, which I'm still trying to wrap my head around. How she is so supportive? Again, there's that shadow of shame that's still existing a little bit."
While some of the shame and trauma of his initial diagnosis still lingers, Morrison says he would tell himself as a scared 24-year-old that everything will be okay and that he shouldn't blame himself. "I immediately internalized the blame and told myself that I deserved this, but HIV doesn't discriminate; it can happen to anybody," he says. "I still have some ways to go in being able to undo that part, but I would definitely tell myself that it'll be your turn to pave the way for others in the future."
Morrison tells people all the time in his line of work that their story is their superpower and he believes his newfound openness will help tear down the stigmas surrounding HIV.
"I just have a new confidence and boldness to live life to the fullest, and I think that leaning into your own story just does that for you," he concludes. "It's just part of who I am. It's something I'm living with. My diagnosis doesn't define me, and I think that that is the key messaging, that any diagnosis doesn't define who you are."
