First Dates contestant claims Channel 4 tried to force him to disclose HIV+ status

Channel 4 have come under fire after a man has come forward to claim that the channel tried to force him to disclose his HIV+ status before meeting his date on the hit show ‘First Dates’.

Alex Causton-Ronaldson appeared on the show back in April and has spoken out against the programme, alleging that Channel 4 only backed off when he pointed out what they were doing is illegal.

Speaking to Buzzfeed, Alex explained that he is HIV+ but on antiretroviral medication, which has put the virus at an “undetectable” level – meaning that it is impossible for him to pass on the disease, even if he has unprotected sex.

Twenty Twenty Television Productions found Alex a match in August 2015, at which point a psychotherapist called him for what they dubbed “a confidential chat”, with Alex telling the professional that he is taking Raltegravir and Truvada – antiretrovirals.

However, two days later the production team contacted him after the therapist passed on the details of their chat. They claimed that their legal team was insisting he disclosed his status to the man he has been matched with before the date occurred.

Alex was “in shock” and pointed out that this was an incredibly presumptuous thing to make him do and it perpetuated the dangerous myth surrounding both gay men and HIV by assuming that he would first of all be interested in his blind date and secondly that he’d have unprotected sex with him.

Still, Alex claims that the producer continued to pressure him, sharing: “Suddenly all my fears about being HIV-positive and being rejected that I hadn’t experienced became realised.

“And this wasn’t by a person, this was by a national broadcaster. The thing that kept shocking me was [thinking], ‘This is Channel 4, they tout themselves as the progressive channel, as the pioneering channel’.”

It was only when Alex told the producers that they were breaking the law by forcing him to disclose his status that they backed down, as HIV is covered by the Equality Act 2010, meaning that it is discriminatory to force someone to disclose their HIV status against their will.

A Channel 4 spokesman told Buzzfeed News: “The welfare and privacy of all our contributors is of paramount importance.

“Anyone who has disclosed their HIV status on the programme has done so through personal choice and not at the request of the production team.”

As it happens, Alex and his blind date did not hit it off when they met on the show.