Fact Check

Family Matters HIV Actor Rumor

E-mail accuses actor from a black sitcom of deliberately spreading HIV to his sexual partners.

Published Nov. 29, 2006

Claim:

Claim:   E-mail accuses actor from a "black sitcom" of deliberately spreading HIV to his sexual partners.


Status:   Undetermined.

Example:   [Collected via e-mail, 2006]




A young lady got in touch with me last week and related this disturbing story to me and she also emailed me numerous photos of her and "the subject" of this blind item.

A few years ago, she cared for her brother before he died of AIDS. About eight months ago, she started dating an actor who appeared on a popular black sitcom that has since been cancelled. Her family was impressed with him because he was a celebrity. One day, at work she had a bad headache.

That evening, she went out to dinner with the actor. After dinner, they rented a movie and returned to his house. After the movie, before they became intimate, she insisted on protection, he balked, she grabbed her coat, he relented, she stayed, and they proceeded to have sex. Afterwards, she went into his bathroom, her head was still throbbing and she opened his medicine cabinet, looking for aspirin, instead she found AIDS medications (the same her brother took before his death).

She angrily confronted the actor; he tried to deny it until she threw the vials in his face. He finally confessed saying, he probably got infected at one of the downlow parties he attends, he also told her that
he has had the virus for three years and he admitted to having unprotected sex with women and men on a constant basis. She was enraged, not only did he have the virus, he just admitted to spreading it intentionally and he confessed to bi-sexuality.

She screamed, 'no wonder you didn't want to wear a condom,' he said, 'Hey, someone gave it to me.' She slapped him and stormed out the door! She got tested and was negative. She wanted to put this incident behind her but she found out, the actor was dating a black female actress.

Through mutual friends, she was able to get word to the actress before the actress became intimate with him. Despite calling the "Health Department" on him, it is rumored the actor is dating an up and coming
black female in the entertainment industry on the East Coast.

The young lady who related this story says "A headache may have saved my life-because over time, I may have become comfortable & trusting and let my guard down by having unprotected sex with him. "This same headache may have also saved the actress's life."

Hints ... Although there have been numerous black sitcoms on the air, we can do a process of elimination on a few of the shows. The shows the actor did "NOT" appear on: Good Times, The Jefferson's, What's Happening, The Cosby Show. And the show was carried on a "major" network. Also, we hinted in a prior blind item about this actor regarding downlow activities, Paris visited message boards that copied and pasted that particular blind item and most of the participants guessed his identity.

Darius McCrary who played Eddie Winslow from Family Matters



Origins:   We

don't know anything about the piece reproduced above, which claimed that an unnamed actor from a "popular black sitcom" was deliberately spreading HIV to his sexual partners, other than that it apparently started out as an on-line "blind" gossip article to which other people added clues in an effort to guess the identity of the unnamed actor. One particular guess has stuck, and the name of that actor (Darius McCrary from the sitcom Family Matters) has now been appended to the article.

We do not know whether the story related in the text of the article is an accurate description of real-life events (involving Darius McCrary or anyone else). AOL Black Voices Columnist Jawn Murray contacted Darius McCrary, reporting that the actor said the e-mail was not true and that he thought he knew (but would not disclose) who had started it:



McCrary has a good idea of who started the false chain mail about him.

"I don't want to give the person too much energy who did it, but it's definitely a bunch of bull. It's totally not true," McCrary told me via cell phone from Los Angeles. The actor couldn't imagine how someone could be cruel enough to fabricate such an e-mail and doesn’t believe he's ever done anything to warrant such backlash. "Only thing I am guilty of is loving ladies! And maybe loving them too good," offered the Walnut, Calif. native.

McCrary did tell me that the exasperated ex wasn't his ex-wife, a Las Vegas showgirl named Juliette whom he wed last December and was married to for five weeks. The 'Something to Sing About' star said he and Juliette have a great relationship despite being divorced.


Last updated:   5 December 2006





  Sources Sources:

    Murray, Jawn.   "Rumor Control."

    The BV Buzz.   27 November 2006.


David Mikkelson founded the site now known as snopes.com back in 1994.

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