Gareth Thomas has broken down while discussing his HIV diagnosis.
During an emotional appearance on This Morning, the rugby player opened up on his condition, in a candid chat with Holly Willoughby and Phillip Schofield.
And the 45-year-old became emotional as he fought back against blackmailers who threatened to leak his health news.
‘You get pushed into a corner. People have power over you, and you become vulnerable because you have to keep these people happy,’ he told the hosts. ‘I was basically being asked for a lot of things – a lot of things I physically couldn’t deliver.
‘When people demand something from you all that happens is it goes up and up, until you get to a point where you just think, “Whatever you’ve got to do, do it”.
‘I decided to do it myself.’
When asked if he got the police involved against the blackmailers, he continued: ‘I don’t want to go any further, I don’t want to take further steps even though I’d be entitled to, because this thing is not about me.
‘If I’ve gone through the last couple of years of hell for my life… I can live through this. What I want to do is, I want to move forward.’
The Dancing On Ice star also insisted he wasn’t ‘scared’ by his diagnosis.
Raising his voice, he stressed: ‘HIV is not connected to death, it’s connected to life. I’m not scared.’
Gareth spoke out about his diagnosis for the first time over the weekend, explaining he was hoping to ‘break the stigma’ surrounding the condition.
In a video shared on Twitter, he told his 270.8k followers: ‘I want to share my secret with you. Why? Because it is mine to tell you. Not the evils that make my life hell by threatening to tell you before I do. And because I believe in you and I trust you.
‘I’m living with HIV. Now you have that information, that makes me extremely vulnerable but it does not make me weak.’
The rugby star – who tied the knot with partner Stephen back in 2016 – explained: ‘Even though I have been forced to tell you this, I choose to fight, to educate and break the stigma around this subject.’
— Gareth Thomas (@gareththomas14) September 14, 2019
He also revealed to the Mirror that he thought his life would be over after finding out the diagnosis.
‘I’ll never ever forget the moment I found out. I went for a routine sexual health test at a private clinic in Cardiff,’ he explained.
‘I’d had the tests every now and again and they’d always come back okay. I didn’t feel ill and I thought everything was going to be fine.
‘The woman who did the test took blood as usual, then I went out to my car and waited for about an hour before going back in to get my results.
‘When I went back in, I sat down on a chair next to a doctor’s bench. She told me in a quite matter of fact way I had tested HIV positive.
‘When she said those words I broke down. I was in such a state. I immediately thought I was going to die. ‘I felt like an express train was hitting me at 300mph. I wasn’t expecting it at all. Then I was thinking “how long have I got left?” I was distraught.’
This Morning airs on weekdays, at 10.30am, on ITV.