Tony Montana \nVAN NUYS, CA - He may have tested positive for HIV, but veteran adult film star Tony Montana seems not about to let it pin him in a corner.
"(E)verybody has to realize one thing: this is something that you live with in this business, that there might be a slim chance of catching it," the 39-year-old says in an interview with Gene Ross. "Most people in this industry think if I take my test, I'm not going to catch it. If I do my thing, I'm not going to catch it. That's not true.
With his current girl friend, Laurie Holmes, at his side, Montana told Ross Tuesday that what troubles him more than his own condition is the fallout his identified work partners face even before their test results come back one way or the other. He says one of the worst things to do when HIV is involved is to jump the gun until the tests are back and nailed down shut.
"It [the second test] was positive, fine," he told Ross, alluding to rumours which hit the Internet about Montana's HIV before a test result was confirmed last week. "What if it had been negative? They jumped the gun before the second set of tests came in. One test came fucked up. They said let's re-test the whole thing. But before the second one came in, they want HIV positive, 100% sure. If it was negative, there would be people right now writing left and right to apologize."
As it was, the Adult Industry Medical HealthCare Foundation has had to apologize to Seymore Butts, Ron Jeremy, and Guy DiSilva, who had been on AIM's temporary work quarantine list "due to the fact that we were not given accurate information", says AIM spokeswoman Sharon Mitchell. Those three and others had been considered second-generation infection risks for having done work with others who'd worked directly with Montana - but Butts had only been behind the camera. He, Jeremy, DeSilva, and eleven other performers have been cleared.
But Sabrina Johnson and Aurora remain on the temporary quarantine, although at this writing Johnson's test result - rushed to Belgium - was expected to come in late Wednesday. And Montana himself seemed to confirm to Ross that Johnson wasn't likely to have become infected because her work involved oral sex.
"Let's be really serious with this before we start giving people heart attacks. You never know how people are. There are some people who go around like nothing can touch me. But when they're not in public, they could be manic-depressive and hurt someone to the point where we regret it. Someone might kill themselves thinking they're going to die. Nobody ever thinks whether this person can handle it."
For Holmes, this is what Yogi Berra would call déjà vu all over again - she went through the same situation with her late husband John Holmes. She remembers Holmes sinking into such despair that he "literally starved himself to death" in the hospital.
"Here, Tony's already been in with AIDS Research," Holmes tells Ross. (Montana has signed on to donate his body to the cause.) "And we can still have sex. It's not the end of his life."
Montana told Ross he had tested for HIV consistently, on a monthly basis, but when he went in Oct. 4 to test, Mitchell called him saying "we have problems". Holmes says there should also be an effort to trace the source of Montana's virus.
"I'm going to be in the public eye a lot more than I used to be," Montana tells Ross. "The moment I disappear a little bit, rumors fly. I want to slap everyone in the…face with this. Because the one thing I hate is when people try to ride somebody…I'll still be here, and, hopefully, it will make a difference on everybody else that comes aboard."
But Holmes sounded a precaution for newcomers to adult film: "New talent has to be aware that just because they get a new test every month, that's not a guarantee. There's a lot of diseases out there. Condom use should be practiced in this day and age."
