Billy Porter Answered All Of Your Burning Questions And He Did Not Hold Back

Billy Porter: I was 49 years old when I shot that. And being a person whose masculinity has been in question since the moment I could comprehend thought…I was never masculine enough to be the object of anybody’s affection in anything ever, so I didn’t know how to engage that way. And it really freaked me out.

Billy Porter: Everybody told me that my queerness was my liability and I would never have mainstream crossover success unless I butched it up. My masculinity was always in question so, I win! I did it anyway, being myself. And I hope that gives inspiration to other people to be themselves as well. That’s the only thing we got.

Billy Porter: I would have to say the Oscars tuxedo dress is my favorite because it is the moment that launched it all. So, that’s my favorite.

Billy Porter: I was 19 years old and I was doing Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat at Montclair State [University], New Jersey and the chorus boys invited me to gay pride. I arrived in front of St. Patricks [Cathedral] on 5th Avenue and 50th Street across from Saks Fifth Avenue. My friend Michael Del Bianco pulled me into the line, threw a t-shirt over my head that said, “Silence equals death” and we started marching down the street in a group, chanting, ‘Act up, fight back, fight AIDS!'”

Billy Porter: Bayard Rustin was one of the architects of the civil rights movement. He was the man who put that March on Washington together. He is the man that taught Martin Luther King Jr. about nonviolent resistance, the nonviolent movement, civil rights movement, and he was put out because he was gay. Black people at the time thought that gay and Black weren’t the same thing and he needed to have a seat, and he did.

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