WATCH: Emotional Gareth Thomas on This Morning as he vows to fight HIV stigma

"I have an amazing family and an amazing group of friends and the people I chose not tell, it was because I chose to protect them," the 45-year-old explained hosts Holly Willoughby and Phillip Schofield after initially only choosing to tell certain people.

"I felt that if I told them, then they are going to be afraid of what's going to happen to me so I didn't want to add to anybody's worries and add to anybody's issues.

And I didn't want people to treat me differently. Because that's the thing, I'm not ill and I wasn't ill. But when people suddenly find out, they look at you different or treat you different."

Gareth, who hasn't disclosed the date of his HIV diagnosis, then made a heartbreaking confession: "I didn't want my brother to potentially, who didn't have the knowledge of it, to be afraid of me cuddling my niece or wanting to hold people."

He added: "I just thought because they didn't know [about HIV], they're going to be afraid of that.

"I didn't want to scare everybody and wanted to protect everybody."

This Morning viewers then took to social media to comment on how 'brave' Gareth is and dubbed him a 'legend'.