SlaterFacebook.jpgA year after Steven Slater became an overnight sensation, the former JetBlue flight attendant gives HuffPost Gay Voices his take on the events that made him famous.

The wide-ranging interview covers a lot of ground, but I’d like to highlight his comments about the disclosure by the media of his HIV-positive status:

To this day I am still healing from some of the more difficult things that were published. There’s still fallout from a lot of that. It’s still not uncommon for me to meet people and have them know things about me -- like my HIV status -- before I have an opportunity to pre-disclose that ... I also thought that response of disgust that the general public had to the New York Daily News publishing my HIV status was very telling. That backfired very strongly on [the paper] ... It was after the Daily News piece with the HIV, and it was after Matt Lauer said to me, “Oh, so you’re an alcoholic and HIV positive?” on live TV, that was when I really hit my low.
To his credit, Slater seems to have taken all of the hoopla in stride, as much as anyone could under the circumstances.

He’s currently writing a memoir about his flying career and what it’s been like to be in the media spotlight.

As I said at the time, it was a shame that the media jumped the gun in revealing he was living with HIV. I wish him all the best.