Overview
- Anderson said she was diagnosed in the late 1990s and was told by a doctor she had “around 10 years to live,” a prognosis she described as a death sentence.
- She accepted amfAR’s Award of Courage at the Venice gala on Sunday and used her remarks to trace the arc from that prognosis through medical advances to her recovery.
- Anderson said a cure arrived around 2011 and that by 2015 she was “hep C free,” but that early access to treatment cost her nearly all her savings.
- She described enduring shame and guilt from the diagnosis that affected her choices as a parent and that still “haunts” her emotionally.
- Anderson framed the experience as fuel for advocacy and an artistic resurgence, urging testing and reducing stigma while noting a disputed claim about contracting the virus via a shared needle with ex-husband Tommy Lee.