Danny Pintauro, ‘Who’s The Boss?’ Star, Reveals HIV-Positive Diagnosis

Danny Pintauro, best known for starring on Who’s The Boss? as a child actor, recently opened up about his HIV-positive diagnosis.

Danny Pintauro HIV-Positive

Pintauro sat down for an interview with Oprah Winfrey for an episode of Where Are They Now? in which he detailed how crystal meth use and sexual experimentation led to his contraction of HIV more than a decade ago.

“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,” said Pintauro, adding about using crystal meth, “You feel incredibly heightened when it comes to your sexuality, and everything sounds and feels exciting to you. I was experimenting. And believe it or not, I thought that I was being safe in that encounter. I know exactly when it happened.”

After learning that he was HIV-positive, Pintauro worried that he would struggle to find love – and that in his search for it, he’d have to be upfront about his diagnosis.

“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,” said Pintauro. “That moment of, ‘Oh God, I’m now going to have to have that conversation every time I meet someone.’”

“My husband, our first date, we hadn’t even kissed, it was the first thing I told him,” Pintauro said of Wil Tabares, who he wed in 2014. “The first thing he said was, ‘I’m not scared of it at all.’”

Pintauro decided to come out about being HIV positive because he wishes to become an activist, raising awareness about both the dangers of crystal meth and HIV.

“I’m coming at this with good intentions and with big goals,” he said. “My goal is to literally go door to door making a difference somehow with both of these topics for the next year.”

Pintauro, who hasn’t acted much since Who’s the Boss? went off the air in 1992, revealed he was gay in 1997 after the National Enquirer threatened to out him.