'Who's the Boss?' star Danny Pintauro reveals he is HIV-positive

"Who's the Boss?" star Danny Pintauro, who played Jonathan on the 80's sitcom, revealed that he's HIV-positive in an interview with Oprah Winfrey for Oprah: Where Are They Now. He was diagnosed with the infection in March 2003.

He said, “I wanted to tell you this a long time ago, but I wasn’t ready. I’m ready now,” Pintauro, who goes by Daniel now, told Winfrey. “I’m HIV-positive, and I have been for 12 years. It’s just a big deal. It’s not something people are talking about right now, really.”

As Pintauro explained in the interview, he started using crystal meth following a break-up in the early 2000s to expand his sexual boundaries. “You feel incredibly heightened when it comes to your sexuality, and everything sounds and feels exciting to you,” he said. It was during this time period that he contracted HIV.“I was experimenting,” Pintauro told Winfrey. “And believe it or not, I thought that I was being safe in that encounter. I know exactly when it happened.”

“It’s a weird combination of feelings,” he told Winfrey. “There’s this awful feeling of, ‘I’m never going to be able to have a good relationship. No one’s ever going to want me.’ That was there and that was prevalent. That moment of, ‘Oh God, I’m now going to have to have that conversation every time I meet someone.’” And he did: “My husband, our first date, we hadn’t even kissed, it was the first thing I told him,” Pintauro said. “The first thing he said was, ‘I’m not scared of it at all.’” Pintauro and Will Tabares were married in 2014.But as Pintauro explained to Winfrey, the diagnosis was also a “relief.”“You spent so much time terrified that you’re going to get it,” he said. “You have it, and you don’t have to be terrified anymore.”

Pintauro revealed that he was gay in 1997, after a reporter for the National Enquirer threatened to out him in the tabloid.