READ | Did Uncle Poodle lie about sending ex to jail? WATCH | Uncle Poodle will so throw food in your face Gay redneck Lee Thompson, the Georgia man who became a pop culture sensation as Uncle Poodle on “Here Comes Honey Boo Boo,” opened up last fall about being gay and bullied. Now he’s letting loose with another revelation: He’s HIV-positive. The matter-of-fact revelation comes in an interview with Fenuxe, where he details how he learned of his status last May.
Dino: Lee, when did you find out about your HIV status? Lee: I was adamant about getting my HIV status checked on a regular basis. On March 16, 2012, I tested negative. Then, in May of 2012 my test results came back positive. I knew it had been my boyfriend who infected me. I later learned he had been HIV positive and was not taking medication and had not bothered to tell me about it. I was advised that I should press charges and, hesitantly, I did. It was the right thing to do. Dino: What happened to your ex? Lee: He is serving a 5-year sentence. I would have been cool with his HIV status if he had been honest. I don’t have an issue with the disease. I would have known how to protect myself. Dino: What is your message to folks having unsafe sex? Lee: They are damn fools! They are playing Russian roulette; they are playing with their lives and that of their sexual partners.The revelation from Thompson caps what has been a very public coming out, first by earning the nickname Uncle Poodle from niece Alana Thompson, the star of the TLC reality show who thinks everyone is a little gay. Then during a lengthy interview last October with the GA Voice, where he proudly embraced his gay redneck label.
“Things are changing. My husband and I live in Milledgeville because we want to be out in the country. I’m gay, but I’m as redneck as I can get, and we want to be somewhere we can fish and jump on a four-wheeler, go hog wallowing. There’s probably 40 or 50 of us — gays, lesbians, bisexuals, transgendered people — around here, they’re all open about it, everybody knows it,” he says.
