Gay singer/songwriter John Grant unwittingly slept with a man infected with HIV at the height of his drug addiction, revealing he played "Russian roulette" with his life.
The former The Czars frontman endured a long battle with drink and drugs before finally kicking his addictions in 2004.
Grant has now opened up about the hellish few years that inspired his 2010 solo album Queen of Denmark, which was recorded in collaboration with rock band Midlake.
And the rocker admits he lost control once he became addicted to cocaine.
He tells Britain's Q magazine, "As soon as I had cocaine I wanted to have nasty, unprotected sex with a weirdo in an alley while smoking crack. Cocaine made me want to do anything and everything - go as far down as possible and never come back.
"I was sickeningly morose and sentimental - talking about the death of your mother with people you just met who don't care about you and just want to f**k you without a condom. I slept with someone on occasion who had full-blown AIDS and lied to me about it. And I just didn't get it... Russian roulette."