Four years ago, while hospitalized with Covid-19, St. Petersburg singer Ksenia Aleksandrova was unexpectedly diagnosed with HIV.
Known by her stage name Neksusha, the 23-year-old Aleksandrova has built a devoted online following, with around 90,000 subscribers on YouTube and more than 213,000 monthly listeners on Spotify. Despite the persistent stigma that surrounds HIV, she decided to publicly disclose her diagnosis in an effort to raise awareness about the illness.
“I’m not a drug user, I’m not a sex worker. It just happened, I’ve been in a monogamous relationship for a year and my partner is HIV-negative,” she told journalists at the time.
“I realized I was tired of staying silent. I have a platform and I want to use my story to help other people,” she said. Since then, Neksusha has openly discussed HIV, using her social media to educate her audience in Russia.
Neksusha is one of tens of thousands of people in Russia who live with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.
