HIV/AIDS activist Hydeia Broadbent, known for her inspirational talks as a young child, dies at 39
LAS VEGAS– Hydeia Broadbent, the HIV/AIDS activist who rose to national fame as a young child in the 1990s for her inspiring conversations to reduce the stigma surrounding the virus she was born with, has died. She was 39.
Broadbent’s father announced on Facebook that she had died “after living with AIDS since birth” but gave no further details. The Clark County coroner’s office said Broadbent died Tuesday in Las Vegas.
“Despite facing countless challenges throughout her life,” wrote Loren Broadbent, “Hydeia remained determined to spread hope and positivity through HIV/AIDS education.”
Broadbent became a fierce advocate for people living with the disease at a time when medications to help manage HIV were not widely available and the virus was considered a death sentence. HIV, or human immunodeficiency virus, attacks the body’s immune system and is the virus that causes AIDS.
Broadbent was adopted as a baby in Las Vegas by her parents Loren and Patricia Broadbent, but her health was not known until she became seriously ill at the age of 3. By the age of 5, Hydeia Broadbent had developed full-blown AIDS.
Her mother began giving talks to local groups about the challenges of raising a child with AIDS, and little Hydeia listened and absorbed everything she heard.
Soon the girl spoke to the crowd.
She became a national symbol of HIV/AIDS advocacy at the age of seven, when she joined Magic Johnson in a 1992 Nickelodeon television special, where the basketball legend spoke about his own HIV diagnosis. The teary-eyed girl pleaded that she just wanted “people to know that we’re just normal people.”
In a post on X, formerly known as Twitter, Johnson said he was devastated by the news of her death and remembered Broadbent as an activist and hero who “changed the world with her courage.”
“By speaking out at such a young age, she helped so many people, young and old, because she was not afraid to share her story and showed everyone that people with HIV and AIDS were normal people and needed to be treated with respect,” Johnson wrote. “Cookie and I are praying for the Broadbent family and all who knew and loved Hydeia.”
But a 1996 appearance on The Oprah Winfrey Show, when she was 11, spurred her path to activism.
In that tearful interview, Broadbent, who wore a silver nose ring and long earrings that swayed as she spoke, tried to smile through tears as she described the hardest part of living with AIDS: losing friends she loved to the disease . But she told the talk show host that she didn’t spend her days feeling sorry for herself.
“If you stay in bed and feel sorry for yourself, and you don’t get up among the birds and you just sit there and say, ‘I’m dying,’ why don’t you get up and try to make a difference? Broadbent said. “If you could say, ‘Today is another day. I could stand up, I could make something positive. ”
Broadbent continued on the talk show circuit as a child, meeting the president and first lady, speaking at the 1996 Republican National Convention and appearing in a segment on ABC’s “20/20.”
Broadbent’s outspoken advocacy continued into adulthood. She spoke at events across the country, including a 2014 community forum in Los Angeles and a 2015 panel in Selma, Alabama, highlighting AIDS as a civil rights issue.
Over the years, she also worked with the AIDS Healthcare Foundation on awareness campaigns, including the organization’s “God Loves Me” billboard campaign, which featured people living with HIV.
In a statement, AHF remembered Broadbent as a “lifelong AIDS activist.”
“Broadbent continued her fierce and outspoken advocacy throughout her childhood and adulthood,” the organization said.