Out actor-television personality Jai
Rodriguez has joined an HIV campaign that reaches out to black and
Latino gay and bisexual men.
The 38-year-old Rodriguez is best known
as the culture guide on Bravo's Queer Eye for the Straight Guy,
which ran for five seasons from 2003 to 2007.
Rodriguez told People Chica about the
Positively Fearless campaign.
“Positively Fearless is a great new
movement that is really celebrating the bravery of black and Hispanic
homosexual and bisexual men who are embracing their HIV status by
getting themselves checked, getting themselves treated and committing
to staying on that treatment,” Rodriguez
told People Chica. “In the past ten years, HIV infection rates
have gone down in the United States, except for in the Latinx
community of men who identify as gay or bisexual.”
Rodriguez said that he was influenced
by the deaths of an aunt and cousin from HIV complications.
“I could've been a statistic and
granted that when I was coming up,” he said. “I sadly got the
firsthand experience of people passing, so it was a different
experience for me.”
Since Queer Eye, Rodriguez has
appeared on the ABC sitcom Malibu Country, USA Network's
Sharknado 5, and CBS' Wisdom of the Crowd.