Ryan Murphy has always feared he's on "borrowed time"

He explained: "When I was growing up, when I came of age sexually, it was 1981.

"It was right when AIDS began, so I went through, as a gay man, the entire AIDS crisis in the '80s and into the 90s - from '81 until '96, when the cocktail came about. And every day of my life, I thought, OK, well, this is it. I'm not going to make it."

Ryan still remembers attending "many, many funerals" during his younger years, and he's always had a sense of fear in the back of his mind.

The award-winning screenwriter told the 'Just B' podcast: "A lot of this, I put into this television show I did called 'Glee'. That's a running theme on that show.

"So I always felt that I was on borrowed time. Like, I always felt that there was an expiration stamp on my a**, and I've been to many shrinks to talk about it. And it's almost like I still have that fear that it's all going to be taken away the next day.

"So it's very ingrained with my work ethic, where I'm like, I get an opportunity to create."

Ryan - who is married to photographer David Miller - also admitted to being motivated by his early failures.

He said: "I had many, many, many years of no's until I got a yes.

"And once I got that yes, I just kept going back for the yes. And if they're going to keep saying yes, I'm going to keep doing it."