Pedro Zamora was an AIDS activist who appeared on MTV’s reality series “The Real World.” As the first openly gay and openly HIV-positive person on a television series, he brought national attention to HIV/AIDS and LGBT issues. Bent Alaska presents his story as part of our celebration of LGBT History Month 2011, with thanks to the Equality Forum.

Pedro Zamora

“As gay young people, we are marginalized. As young people who are HIV-positive and have AIDS, we are totally written off.”

Pedro Zamora (February 29, 1972–November 11, 1994) was an AIDS activist who appeared on MTV’s reality series The Real World. As the first openly gay and openly HIV-positive person on a television series, he brought national attention to HIV/AIDS and LGBT issues.

Zamora was born into poverty in Havana, Cuba, the youngest of eight. The family lived in a small house with a dirt floor.

When Zamora was 8, he immigrated to Florida with his parents and two of his siblings as part of the Mariel boatlift. The family settled in Hialeah, Florida. Zamora’s mother died when he was 13. He threw himself into schoolwork and extracurricular activities. An honors student and captain of the science club and cross-country team, he became one of the school’s most popular students.

Zamora learned he was HIV-positive after donating blood, and he decided to pursue a career as an AIDS activist. At age 19, be became nationally known focus when a front-page article about him appeared in the Wall Street Journal, with subsequent interviews by Geraldo Rivera, Phil Donahue and Oprah Winfrey. He testified before Congress on July 12, 1993 arguing for more explicit HIV/AIDS educational programs, telling lawmakers, “If you want to reach me as a young man — especially a young gay man of color — then you need to give me information in a language and vocabulary I can understand and relate to.”

In 1994, Zamora joined the cast of MTV’s “The Real World: San Francisco,” having sent in an audition tape after his friend and roommate Alex Escarano convinced him he could reach more people simply by living in The Real World house than through the exhausting cross-country travel. Zamora beat out 25,000 other applicants. Soon after moving into The Real World loft, he fell in love with another HIV-positive AIDS activist, Sean Sasser, whom he had met at the 1993 March on Washington for Lesbian, Gay, and Bi Equal Rights and Liberation. The two men exchanged vows in a commitment ceremony in the loft.

In an interview with Hal Rubenstein in the August/September 1994 issue of POZ Magazine, Zamora was asked about why he decided to join the reality show’s cast:

Hal Rubenstein: What made you want to be on MTV’s The Real World?

Pedro Zamora: I thought it would be a great way to educate people. One of the problems I face as an educator is that I can get up and tell my story about not feeling well or having fun, about getting sick or going out dancing, but people can’t really see it, and I thought being on the series would be a great way to show how a young person actually deals with HIV and AIDS. And I also thought, it’s four or five months in San Francisco, how bad could it be?

HR: Did MTV express any reservations or discomfort about your HIV status or give you any direction before they threw you in the soup?

PZ: No. During the interview process they voiced some concerns, but they were related to me and to my welfare. They told me it was going to be a very stressful situation, and they were worried about the toll it might take on my health. And we discussed that my six roommates should know that they are living with an HIV positive person. But that was about it.

HR: Knowing how much stress can compromise the immune system, why were you willing to risk that?

PZ: I thought about it knowing that just being away from my family would be hard for me. But part of the changes I started feeling when I was diagnosed was my increased willingness to take risks. That may sound kind of odd, but I acquired this desire to experience things I hadn’t before. And it’s been very stressful at points. And during the filming, my T-cells have dropped. And I got PCP.

HR: You have AIDS?

PZ: Yeah. About a year ago, my T-cell count dropped below 200, so, technically, I was defined as having AIDS then; but after the PCP, my T-cell count is next to nothing.

Zamora came into personal conflict with housemate David “Puck” Rainey from the beginning of their stay in the house. Rainey mocked Zamora’s Cuban accent, denigrated his career as an educator, and told offensive gay-related jokes. Zamora’s roommate Judd Winick described Rainey as “obnoxious” and “homophobic.” Zamora, feeling his stress from confrontations with Rainey was contributing to his deteriorating health, announced he would move out. The entire cast voted instead to evict Rainey from the house.

However, his health continued to deteriorate through the remainder of the season. The cast moved out of the loft on June 19, 1994, and the first episodes of The Real World: San Francisco began airing a week later, continuing to air through November 1994. Meantime, MTV created a trust for Zamora to pay for his medical costs, because Zamora had no health insurance.  On November 11, 1994, the day after the final episode of The Real World: San Francisco aired, Zamora died surrounded by family and friends.  His partner Sean Sasser, however, was barely allowed into the room, as  POZ Magazine‘s Anderson Jones recounted in an article about Sasser in 1997:

Sadly, Sean did not have an opportunity to meet Pedro’s family until after Pedro got sick, so sick that he could no longer communicate to them the importance of Sean in his life. On TV, it always appeared that Pedro’s parents were in complete support of their son’s lifestyle and choices. “That wasn’t my experience,” Sean says flatly. “I shouldn’t have had to deal with a lot of the stuff that I dealt with in Miami. If Pedro and I were legally married, his family would have understood and respected my right to be there. And, of course, that was an abomination. It was just very hypocritical and unnecessary and I didn’t understand it. It caused even more turmoil around an already desperate and hurtful situation.” He raises his voice. “I was told Pedro did not need to have a lover anymore. And it was very obvious from the start, when he could communicate, that he wanted me there. I have a lot of resentment toward dealing with his family’s homophobia, as well as dealing with him dying.”

It never got any better. After the first couple of confrontations, Sean’s first instinct was to go back to San Francisco. “But whenever I’d go back, I’d go, ‘What am I doing here? I have to go back.'” Sean fought the urge to escape-as the media coverage intensified, he couldn’t walk in Miami without being accosted by bereaved fans — until Pedro’s final day. “Actually, he passed away very early in the morning… he was already gone, you know, the Pedro that I knew,” he says quietly. “Once again, I felt overwhelmed by his family trying to, like, take everything so… oh boy,” he sighs loudly. “And I was allowed to make my way to the bed… to give him a kiss. And I left. That was it.”

After Zamora’s death, he received praise from President Clinton for his leadership in AIDS education and for raising awareness about the disease.  In 1995, a street in Miami was renamed Pedro Zamora Way. Pedro and Me: Friendship, Loss, and What I Learned, an autobiographical graphic novel by Judd Winick, Zamora’s roommate on The Real World: San Francisco, was published in 2000. In 2008, Pedro, a feature film, honored his life.

“A Tribute to Pedro Zamora” was broadcast on MTV, and is available on YouTube. Watch Part 1:

For more about Pedro Zamora, visit his LGBT History Month page or Wikipedia article.

Photo credit: Pedro Zamora. Photo by Ken Probst; used by license through Equality Forum (LGBT History Month).