Fact Check: Was Alicia Keys born with HIV? Viral TikTok claim debunked 

Claims of singer Alicia Keys being born with HIV have spread rapidly across TikTok. This comes after some journalists claimed so in a video clip. Despite the video making its rounds online and looking believable, it is far from the truth. The artist is not HIV-positive.

According to the World Health Organization, HIV refers to Human Immunodeficiency Virus. It is a disease that attacks one’s immune system. Currently, there is no cure for the virus, and if the symptoms are not managed alongside one testing positive for the same, it can lead to AIDS, which is Acquired Immuno-Deficiency Syndrome.

TikTok user SURREALMOOKIE took to the video-sharing platform yesterday to upload a minute-long clip of Blackwatch radio show journalists speaking about Alicia Keys.

An unidentified person said in the clip,

“Her [Alicia Keys] mother gave her HIV in birth, she was born with HIV. She has a very serious and common problem that Black people have. She was born during the time of the HIV epidemic. She was in New York, her mother was an HIV drug user… and Usher has herpes. He contracted it from a man.”

An unidentified person also claimed that they heard the rumor of Keys being a heroin addict.

Despite the people in the interview being confident about Alicia Keys having HIV since birth, it is false. The singer had only spoken about how her mother's friend died from AIDS, when she was really young.

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Alicia Keys does not have HIV

Neither the singer nor her team publicly stated that the A Woman’s Worth crooner has the virus. Nor has there been any official medical documentation regarding the same released online.

However, the 43-year-old has spoken about AIDS in the past. In a 2015 interview with People magazine, Keys detailed her experience with dealing with her mother's friend's passing from AIDS. She said,

“My mother’s friend passed from AIDS. I think I was 8 or 9 years old. I was old enough to know that he wasn’t there anymore and to ask for him. My mother, of course, couldn’t really explain to me what it meant.”

The musician was born in 1981, at the time when the HIV/AIDS epidemic was gaining attention in the United States. Speaking about the same, she revealed,

“I have always related my age to the beginning of the awareness of the epidemic. There's been so much ignorance around the topic, especially in the beginning, when people were unaware of how it's contracted."

She continued,

There's this idea that you can't be friends with someone who has AIDS or can't choose to love someone who has AIDS. That's obviously becoming clearer now.”

Hence, it is safe to say that Alicia Keys is not and has never been HIV positive.

The singer has been an ardent supporter of ending HIV/AIDS. In 2003, she cofounded the Keep a Child Alive organization, which aims to help families from Africa and India cope with the devastating effects of the disease. In 2020, she hosted the Black Ball fundraising gala alongside comedian Chris Rock to raise millions of dollars to help the non-profit organization.