Rev. Steve Pieters, a longtime HIV/AIDS activist and one of the longest-living people with HIV in the United States, has died. He was 71, according to the Los Angeles Blade.
Pieters’ spokesperson Harlan Boll told Deadline that Pieters passed away last Saturday in Los Angeles after being hospitalized for an infection two weeks earlier. In a Facebook post, Brad Bessey, the Director of Communications & Talent Relations at the non-profit Project Angel Food, added that Pieters died after battling gastrointestinal cancer that had metastasized.
In April 1984, Pieters was diagnosed with AIDS/Kaposi’s Sarcoma and stage four lymphoma. Although one health professional told him that he wouldn’t live until 1985, he did just that. Pieters became “patient No. 1” on the first antiviral drug trial for HIV that very year, taking the drug Suramin, which caused both of his cancers to go into complete remission. Suramin was later discontinued as an AIDS treatment because of toxic side effects.
Pieters is well-remembered for his 1985 interview with televangelist Tammy Faye Baker, which is regarded as one of the first sympathetic depictions of a gay man with AIDS. The moment was recreated in the 2021 film The Eyes of Tammy Faye, with Pieters played by Randy Havens and Baker played by Jessica Chastain.
“It was a very scary time and there was still a lot of fear about AIDS and about being around a person with AIDS,” Pieters told People Magazine in 2021. “And I thought the opportunity to reach an audience that I would never otherwise reach was too valuable to pass by.”
Chastain remembered Pieters in a June 10 Instagram post. “Rest in Peace sweet angel Steve,” Chastain wrote. “You made a difference in the lives of so many and you will be missed.”
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The interview turned Pieters into a national figure in the AIDS epidemic. In 1993, he was one of 12 invited guests at a White House Prayer Breakfast hosted by former President Bill Clinton and Vice President Al Gore ahead of World AIDS Day, in which Clinton memorably mentioned Pieters in his speech.
Pieters remained an active figure in AIDS advocacy throughout his life. Over the years, he served on the Board of Directors of the AIDS Project Los Angeles and as Field Director for the AIDS Ministry of Metropolitan Community Churches, his religious denomination. He went on to work with the first Los Angeles AIDS Task Force and the AIDS Interfaith Council of Southern California. In 2019, documents of Pieters’ activism were added to the Smithsonian Museum of American History.
Funeral service and memorial details have not yet been announced. Donations in Pieter’s honor can be made to AIDS Project Los Angeles, City of Hope, the Gay Men’s Chorus of Los Angeles, and Project Angel Food.
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