Pedro Zamora's Real World Costar Judd Winick Honors Him 30 Years After His Death

Real World: San Francisco alum Judd Winick paid tribute to costar Pedro Zamora three decades after his death.

The cartoonist, who starred on the MTV reality show’s third season, remembered Zamora on Instagram on Monday, Nov. 11. Zamora died on Nov. 11, 1994, at age 22 due to complications from AIDS — five years after he contracted HIV through unprotected sex.

Winick’s moving social media post, which featured several photos of the late star and a video clip of him speaking to Stanford University students, remembered Zamora as an inspirational AIDS activist who fought to educate people on HIV and AIDS at a time when gay men living with the virus were misunderstood and feared.

“Pedro Zamora died 30 years ago today. I’ve been thinking about this post for awhile, and I had hoped/assumed it would be a little more ‘celebratory,’” he wrote in the caption. “Despite losing him, I was assuming that we were entering a time of greater hope. But instead, we’re entering, or continue, to live in an era very much like the times when we lost Pedro. And I guess, maybe now more than ever, we should remember him.”

“He was living in a time and living a life that under a cloud of despair,” Winick continued. “At 17, he was diagnosed with HIV. AIDS in the 90’s with nearly no medical solutions to prolong your life, you lived under the cloud of a death sentence. And with that, Pedro, who wasn’t much more than a boy, chose to fight. He’d wake up every single day, put his boots on, and go fight. Battle to educate young people. To push back on those who wanted to see him and people like him just disappear. To stand up every day and say, ‘NO.’"

Zamora, who died hours after The Real World: San Francisco’s finale aired, broke barriers during his short life. His commitment ceremony to partner Sean Sasser was included in the series, marking the first-ever same-sex ceremony on TV. Sasser, who had been HIV-positive for 25 years, died in 2012 at the age of 44 from mesothelioma, a rare form of cancer that often occurs in the lungs.

While Zamora was an activist years before starring on The Real World, his appearances on the popular reality show catapulted him to a new level of recognition that allowed him to reach a much larger audience.

“In his short life, Pedro educated and enlightened our Nation,” former President Bill Clinton said in a statement in November 1994. “He taught all of us that AIDS is a disease with a human face and one that affects every American, indeed every citizen, of the world. And he taught people living with AIDS how to fight for their rights and live with dignity.”

In his social media post on Monday, Nov. 11, Winnick went on to compare the tumultuous ‘90s for the LGBTQ+ community to the 2024 U.S. presidential election, describing the ‘90s as “familiar to now.”

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“It feels like we have now been put under a cloud of despair,” Winick added. “So. I want us to remember Pedro Zamora. I want us to get up. Put on our boots. And fight. We owe it to him and everyone else who fought so hard to get us to where we are now. We’re not going back. Pedro, we love you. And we won’t let you down. #PedroZamora.”