Welcome to Karen Hunter is awesome. I am Karen Hunter, and when I first booked Marvelline Brown to the show, I did not know where we were going. I knew about her story, about how she contracted contracted HIV AIDS and I thought it would be a

cautionary tale. But oh my goodness, what ended up coming out of this interview was something I did not

imagine. Her book, The Naked Truth, young, beautiful, and HIV positive is a must read for anyone

out there, period. But her story, you have to hear yourself.

Of course, Tony Award-winning actress, Tanya Pinkins, was my co-host during this interview,

and it was just so compelling.

I'm still thinking about it.

So up next is my interview with the great Marvelin Brown.

Let me welcome to the show, Marvelline Brown.

Hi.

Hello.

So, Tanya's here as well.

Your journey, I was happy to talk with you.

Heidi Abra Bent, when I was a journalist at the New York Daily News, I was tapped to write

her book, and she was eight years old at the time, and I flew out to Vegas and spent a week with she and her mom.

And I knew in that moment spending time with her, she might have been older than eight.

She might have been 10 or 12.

But she's small, you know, that the journey is something that was a death sentence when, you know,

in the 80s and 90s, it was a death sentence. So to hear, you know, you have HIV in that

moment, were you thinking that gave you this many years or months of time to live? What were

you thinking when you heard that diagnosis?

Well, I was diagnosed in 2003. My only education in that moment of being told I was HIV positive

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