With the best medical care - which Charlie can certainly afford - AIDS is a chronic yet manageable condition today. People do not look sick or act sick until they’ve gone into the last stages of the disease (what we used to call ‘full blown AIDS’ and no longer even use that term today!)

If you are HIV+ you do have to lay off the booze, drugs, etc. But mostly you don’t want them anyway because they hit you harder than ever and your body cannot eliminate them due to the antivirals you’re taking (there’s an interaction between them that’s not pleasant too!)

So unless Charlie boy is still partying like it’s 1999, he could well live out a normal lifespan in decent health with the right medical care and medications that are readily available today.

Someone ask why guys who take it anally get HIV more often - reason is simple. The infected male partner dumps a load of semen into the rectum/ lower colon where the lining tissue is three or four cells thick. The viral particles have a virtual highway into the bloodstream there. One or two exposures probably won’t infect someone, but 10 or 12 will.

The guy who’s “on top” (active not passive role) is less likely to get it because the skin of his penis is thicker than the lining of the colon or rectum and it is harder for the viral particles to penetrate and get into the blood stream. Harder but not impossible. There are plenty of men who have never been with another man who have gotten HIV from women they were with. Most guys know what it means to “screw until they’re raw” - well today that’s not a good idea. Damaging the skin of the penis thru abrasions or inflicting microscopic cuts from too vigorous a pounding during intercourse can literally sand the skin of the penis down to where virus can easily penetrate what’s left of it. Also, men who are circumcised have much thinner skin on the glans (head) of the penis because it’s covered with their foreskin all the time. So they can contract HIV much more easily thru their penis than can circumcised men.

BOTTOM LINE is that this “male celeb” should be taking his meds, staying off all recreational drugs, no booze, and eating a balanced diet, etc. He could survive to well into his 70’s or beyond and be fairly healthy doing so. HOWEVER, If he’s partying still, using meth, coke, etc., and drinking like he used to - the drugs cannot save him. You have to clean up your act to let the meds do their thing - otherwise they cannot overcome the drugs and booze and the negative effects they have on your body - especially if you’re aging and trying to fight off Human Immunodeficiency Virus.