8. Sean Sasser, MTV Star and AIDS Activist (1968-2013)
Sean Sasser became an MTV celebrity in the early 1990s on the television show “The Real World: San Francisco.” He and Pedro Zamora helped break cultural barriers in America with a commitment ceremony on TV that became the most compelling story line of the series. They were the first openly gay, openly HIV-positive couple on television.
Zamora died in 1994, and Sasser became an AIDS activist and educator. He lived for more than 25 years with HIV, benefiting from the medical advancements that were made in the mid-’90s in combating the disease.
Sasser died in August 2013, less than two months after being diagnosed with mesothelioma at the age of 44. It’s likely that the HIV virus, which he had held in check for so many years, sparked rapid growth of the mesothelioma cancer. He was living in Washington, D.C., working as a pastry chef before he died. The one-time pastry chef had no known occupational exposure to asbestos, yet was diagnosed with mesothelioma and succumbed to the disease in 2013.