While millions of Americans hailed Dr. Anthony Fauci as a hero for his handling of the pandemic, his at-times arrogant attitude, deceptive statements, and resistant opposition to former President Donald Trump engendered ample ill will from millions more.

Fauci has been the recipient of an untold number of death threats over the past few years, and he revealed in a recent interview that he continues to live in fear that someone will attempt to murder him at some point, The Hill reported.

At least one person has already gone to prison for attempting to carry out their threats against the former head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, and the long-serving ex-bureaucrat still requires a special protective security detail to feel safe.

Still worried that "somebody's going to kill me"

In a recent interview with USA Today, Dr. Fauci said his life experience has been "surrealistic" since the 2020 pandemic in that he never would have imagined that he'd "be in a situation where millions and millions of people love me for what I've done, saving millions of lives ... and yet have some people who actually want to kill me?"

Asked if he felt "safe" thanks to his security detail, he replied in the affirmative but stated, "I still think deep down that there's a possibility that somebody's going to kill me."

Fauci went on to discuss his countless appearances to testify before Congress over the years and asserted that the death threats he has received were driven at least in part by the accusations of egregious wrongdoing and opposition against him from certain Republican members of the House and Senate.

"One of the several unfortunate aspects of the outbreak was that it occurred at a time of profound divisiveness in our society," he said of the pandemic-fueled partisanship. "You have people who are getting vaccinated or not based on political ideology. They're wearing a mask or not based on political ideology."

Blames rise in threats on Republican opposition in Congress

His remarks to USA Today linking his death threats with his congressional testimony tracks with what he told CNN just a few weeks earlier after the now-private citizen testified during a contentious hearing of the House Oversight Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic.

"It’s a pattern," Fauci said of when members of Congress or the media "gets up and makes a public statement that I’m responsible for the deaths of X number of people because of policies or some crazy idea that I created the virus -- immediately you can, it’s like clockwork -- the death threats go way up."

He specifically referenced the behavior of Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) during that hearing, who had accused him of "crimes against humanity" and suggested he should be prosecuted and imprisoned, and told CNN, "So that’s the reason why I’m still getting death threats."

"When you have performances like that unusual performance by Marjorie Taylor Greene in today’s hearing, those are the kinds of things that drive up the death threats because there are a segment of the population out there that believe that kind of nonsense," Fauci added.

Fauci details the threats he's received

The CNN report noted that during the hearing earlier that day, Dr. Fauci had been asked by Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-MI) to describe some of the threats that he had received over the past few years, including from at least one man who is currently serving time in prison for such threats.

"Everything from harassments from emails, texts, letters of myself, my wife, my three daughters," Fauci told the congresswoman. "There have been credible death threats leading to the arrest of two individuals -- and credible death threats means someone who clearly was on their way to kill me. And it’s required my having protective services essentially all the time."

Later, in his interview with CNN, Fauci reflected on his decades of government service under presidents from both parties and said, "There’s always been differences of opinion, differences of ideology, criticisms, and things like that. But the level of vitriol that we see now -- just in the country in general, but actually played out during this hearing -- was really quite unfortunate because the purpose of hearings are to try and figure out how we can do better so that next time, if and when we are faced with a pandemic, we’d be better prepared."