The moment Danny Roberts arrived at the Belfort Mansion forThe Real World: New Orleansin 2000, his life was forever changed — but so were the lives of many, many viewers.
As a newly out gay Southerner dating a man in the military, his impact far exceeded his naivete and continues to this day.
“My coming-out story is the genesis of a lot of other people’s in that generation’s coming-out story, but I think so much of that is timing,” Roberts, 44, tells PEOPLE via Zoom from his quiet cabin in Vermont for this week’s issue. “Matthew Shepard was murdered [for being gay] a year before this season filmed and it kicked off a whole new energy in the LGBT movement. And then I landed right in the middle of that.”
Now, 22 years later, as he steps back into a house with Julie Stoffer, Kelley (Limp) Wolf, Melissa (Howard) Beck, Jamie Murray, Matt Smith and David “Tokyo” Broom forThe Real World Homecoming: New Orleans— premiering Wednesday on Paramount+ — he’s “in a good place,” but also recognizes the journey it took to get there.
Daymon Gardner/Paramount+
“I had very, very serious reservations about doing this again,” Roberts says. “It’s a lot to dig all this back out. Because it’s not just digging out a chapter of our lives, it’s digging out a chapter of pop culture and our nation’s story in a lot of ways. I think the reason this season is so sentimental to so many people, is because then it happened at kind of the end of an era before we moved into a very digital, post terrorist age.”
“There was real risk and real ramifications,” Roberts says. “I don’t come across in any sort of threatening way to mainstream America. I could just be the stereotypical guy next door in Anywhere, USA. And that, I think, helped a lot of people connect to this story that otherwise maybe wouldn’t have. It made it real for a lot of people.”
By the time the season ended, Roberts was one of the hottest faces on television — magazine covers, a guest role onDawson’s Creekand even a photo shoot with Beyoncé followed. And he became a face for LGBTQ+ rights.
“This child was not ready for it,” Roberts says of the pressure. “I was so young and lacked so much just basic confidence.”
Meanwhile, he and Dill continued to date in secret. “We were forced into this underground life while he remained in the military, and we got stuck in this codependent, toxic relationship that carried on for many years,” Roberts says. (Dill left the military in 2003; he and Roberts split in 2006.)
“I can look back from a healthy mindset now and realize I was greatly traumatized from that period,” Roberts reflects. “I still carried the trauma of growing up in a really repressed environment where it was not safe to be out. It was a heavy juxtaposition: I was expected to be and wanted to be this strong voice, but I was suffocating inside.”
Around 2011, Roberts was having a regular health checkup when he learned he was HIV positive.
“I grew up very afraid of HIV — I was basically a hypochondriac — and it came out of nowhere,” he says. The reality of his situation meant “grieving a more innocent, healthy version of myself that’s now gone; embracing the knowledge that you’re now a slave to health care system; and letting go of the deep shame related to it.”
Today, Roberts' viral load is undetectable thanks to the antiretroviral treatment Biktarvy.
“I’m very, very thankful that we live in an era of science that we do now, or I wouldn’t be sitting here talking to you,” he says. “So I just thank God every day we live in the era we do.”
Another reason Roberts is thankful? His 6-year-old daughter Naiya, whom he shares with his ex-husband.
Becoming a father “has been the most transformative event of my life,” he says. “It was a catalyst for me to get to the root of finding strong mental health and get my physical health back.”
Roberts says Naiya “is really into costumes and dressing up,” which has brought out elements of his personality that had been long dormant.
When the pandemic hit, Roberts, who works as a tech recruiter, left his apartment in Manhattan and headed to his “getaway cabin” in Vermont. “And I found myself a dairy farmer right down the road,” he adds with a smile, referring to his boyfriend Austin. “So he makes it home too.”
It was with all this hard-won joy and perspective that Roberts reunited with his ex-roommates in November to filmThe Real World Homecoming: New Orleansafter years of not speaking.
“I had very specific goals,” he says. “We’d touched on the impact of fear and inbred hatred, but this was an opportunity to revisit that topic because it’s still very relevant in what’s happening today.
“I think a lot of people are sentimental about this season of the show,” he adds. “This is a nice bookend to the story.”
The Real World: New Orleansis now available to stream on Paramount+. New episodesThe Real World Homecoming: New Orleansdrop Wednesdays on Paramount+.
source: people.com
