Billy Porter Continues To Criticise Vogue For Featuring Harry Styles In A Dress

Posted on 15/08/2023 by Boris Clair

Billy Porter is doubling down on his distaste for Harry Styles’ historic Vogue cover.

In an interview with The Telegraph, Billy claimed that Harry had been chosen to be the first man to land a solo cover for Vogue because he’s “white and straight”. Harry appeared in the publication’s December 2020 issue in a lacy Gucci gown and a Wales Bonner kilted skirt, among other boundary-smashing looks.

“Non-binary blah blah blah blah. No. It doesn’t feel good to me,” said the Pose actor and singer, whose red carpet looks have made him a gender-fluid fashion icon.

“You’re using my community — or your people are using my community — to elevate you. You haven’t had to sacrifice anything.”

For the record, Harry has never labeled his sexuality in interviews or on social media, though he has only been in public relationships with women.

Billy’s harshest criticisms, however, were directed at “the gatekeepers” that permitted Harry to appear on the cover of Vogue, rather than the pop star himself. That group, he explained, includes the magazine’s longtime editor-in-chief, Anna Wintour.

The Emmy winner said he met with Anna for an interview six months before Harry’s Vogue cover was unveiled. During the Q&A, which took place in front of staff at Vogue’s publisher Condé Nast, Billy claims Anna asked for his input on how to approach the rise of gender-fluid fashion.

Anna Wintour (left) and Billy Porter in 2019.

“That bitch said to me at the end, ‘How can we do better?’ And I was so taken off guard that I didn’t say what I should have said,” he recalled. In hindsight, he now wishes he would’ve urged the journalist to “use your power as Vogue to uplift the voices of the leaders of this de-gendering of fashion movement”.

Representatives for Vogue did not immediately respond to HuffPost’s request for comment.

Billy ― who is currently promoting a new album, Black Mona Lisa ― previously called out Harry and Vogue in a 2021 interview with The Sunday Times.

“I created the conversation [about gender-fluid fashion] and yet Vogue still put Harry Styles, a straight white man, in a dress on their cover for the first time,” he said at the time.

“He doesn’t care, he’s just doing it because it’s the thing to do. This is politics for me. This is my life. I had to fight my entire life to get to the place where I could wear a dress to the Oscars and not be gunned now.”

Just weeks later, Billy clarified his remarks while appearing on The Late Show.

“Harry Styles, I apologise to you for having your name in my mouth,” he said. “It’s not about you. The conversation is not about you.”

Billy Porter Says He’s Being Forced To Sell His House Amid Hollywood Strikes

Posted on 09/08/2023 by Boris Clair

Billy Porter has revealed he is already feeling the effects of Hollywood being at a standstill amid the writers’ and actors’ strikes.

The Emmy and Tony-winning actor and singer told the Evening Standard last weekend that he’s feeling the pressure to downsize without any substantial income coming in for the foreseeable future.

“I have to sell my house,” he told the publication. “Because we’re on strike. And I don’t know when we’re gonna go back [to work].

“The life of an artist, until you make fuck-you money — which I haven’t made yet — is still check-to-check.”

Though Billy had anticipated working on both a new movie and a television series that had been slated to start in September, he said: “None of that is happening.”

“So to the person who said ‘we’re going to starve them out until they have to sell their apartments,’ you’ve already starved me out,” he added, referring to a much-circulated quote attributed to an unnamed Hollywood studio executive.

Prior to the Hollywood strikes, Billy Porter said he planned to take part in a new film and TV series this September.

Actors have been on strike since 14 July. The Screen Actors Guild — American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) is seeking higher residuals from streaming platforms and stricter safeguards against the use of artificial intelligence, among other updates, from the studios as part of a new contract, but negotiations have stalled.

The Writers Guild of America (WGA), which represents Hollywood screenwriters, has been on strike since May 2. (HuffPost’s unionised employees in the US are represented by the Writers Guild of America, East).

Billy ― a 2019 Emmy winner for his portrayal of Pray Tell on Pose ― was speaking to the Evening Standard to promote his new album, Black Mona Lisa, and was careful not to address specifics of his film and TV work in the interview, according to the stipulations of the strike.

Still, he blasted Disney CEO Bob Iger’s headline-making claims that actors and writers are being “very disruptive” while making demands that are “not realistic”.

“To hear Bob Iger say that our demands for a living wage are unrealistic? While he makes $78,000 a day? I don’t have any words for it, but: fuck you,” Billy said, who is newly single.

“That’s not useful, so I’ve kept my mouth shut. I haven’t engaged because I’m so enraged. I’m glad I’ve been over here. But when I go back I will join the picket lines.”

Luke Evans Says He ‘Wept’ After Reading Script For His First-Ever Gay Role

Posted on 17/06/2023 by Boris Clair

Luke Evans’ latest movie role is the first to reflect his queer authentic self.

The Welsh actor stars opposite Billy Porter in Our Son, which premiered at the 2023 Tribeca Film Festival.

Our Son follows Nicky and Gabriel (played by Luke and Billy, respectively), a married couple who are engaged in a bitter custody dispute over their eight-year-old son, as they inch toward divorce.

Though Luke’s résumé includes starring roles in Disney’s live-action remake of Beauty And The Beast and other blockbusters, the actor had not portrayed a gay role in a major film until now.

“I’ve been ready to take that step for ages. I just haven’t found the right story [until now],” he told People. “Divorce is as right for a gay couple as marriage, and I hadn’t really seen that, and when I read it, every time I’ve read the script, I wept.”

Billy Porter (left) and Luke Evans star in the new drama "Our Son," which debuted at the 2023 Tribeca Film Festival. — Billy Porter (left) and Luke Evans star in the new drama “Our Son,” which debuted at the 2023 Tribeca Film Festival.

He went on to note: “So I just thought, ‘Maybe this is a good time, and this is a good role to pick up and do.’”

These days, Luke is in a relationship with boyfriend Fran Tomas, a graphic designer from Spain. The couple made their red carpet debut at a UNICEF event in December.

Still, the actor has endured criticism in recent years amid claims he’d been reluctant to make a statement about sexuality as his Hollywood career was on the rise.

“My career was public, I was photographed, and all that stuff,” he told Attitude magazine in 2020.

“My personal life just became the last thing that I had. Also, what was strange was that when people did find out that I was gay, there was a lot of articles and stuff written saying that I was hiding it, and I wasn’t.”

Luke Evans (left) and boyfriend Fran Tomas.

Raised a Jehovah’s Witness, Luke left his home and religion at age 16 in order to pursue an acting career.

In his chat with Attitude, he said that decision made speculation he’d deliberately stayed closeted more hurtful: “I just wanted to get online and I wanted to pick up the phone and say, ‘Do you realise I left home at 16 because I was gay?’ I went into the world as a kid, because I had to.”

As for Our Son, Luke described working on the film as “traumatic at times, painful at times, very real, very visceral and very relatable”.

“You don’t have to be gay to enjoy this or understand this story,” he explained to People. “Families break up all the time, but this is the story of hope, and how they get through it, and how a new chapter is started, but a different kind of chapter.”

Billy Porter Apologises To Harry Styles After Vogue Dress Comments: ‘It’s Not About You’

Posted on 06/11/2021 by Boris Clair

Jeff Kravitz via Getty Images

Billy Porter at the Academy Awards in 2019

The Pose star went on to suggest that he “personally changed the game” for men choosing to embrace skirts and dresses as part of their wardrobe.

However, it seems he’s now had something of a change of heart.

Apologising to the former One Direction star during an interview on Stephen Colbert’s US talk show, Billy said: “Harry Styles, I apologise to you for having your name in my mouth.

“It’s not about you. The conversation is not about you. The conversation is actually deeper than that. It is about the systems of oppression and erasure of people of colour who contribute to the culture.”

He added: “I’m sorry, Harry. I didn’t mean no harm. I’m a gay man. We like Harry Styles, he’s cute!”

Alongside his photo-shoot, Harry told Vogue last year that he thought “clothes are there to experiment with”, with the majority of his fans and peers applauding the cover.

There was a distinct lack of enthusiasm for the cover from certain right-wing critics, though.

This included US conservative pundit Candace Owens, whose comment that she wanted to “bring back manly men” inspired a cheeky response from Harry himself.

Billy Porter Opens Up About Living With HIV For Past 14 Years

Posted on 19/05/2021 by Boris Clair

Billy Porter has spoken for the first time about living with HIV for the past 14 years.

In a piece for The Hollywood Reporter, the Pose actor opened up about receiving the diagnosis in 2007, saying he has been “living it and being in the shame of it for long enough”.

“There’s no more stigma – let’s be done with that. It’s time,” he said.

“The shame of that time compounded with the shame that had already (accumulated) in my life silenced me, and I have lived with that shame in silence for 14 years.”

Billy said he told few people about his diagnosis, not even his mother, adding that he wasn’t certain if he could “have a life and a career” if “the wrong people knew”.

“It would just be another way for people to discriminate against me in an already discriminatory profession,” he said. “So I tried to think about it as little as I could. I tried to block it out.”

He said the Covid crisis made him confront his trauma, and he eventually “ripped the band-aid off” and told his mother on the day of filming the final episode of Pose.

However, Billy used his character in Pose – ballroom emcee Pray Tell – as a proxy, saying: “I was able to say everything that I wanted to say through a surrogate.

“As a Black person, particularly a Black man on this planet, you have to be perfect or you will get killed. But look at me. Yes, I am the statistic, but I’ve transcended it.”

Billy also explained that his viral load is undetectable thanks to “amazing” developments in HIV medication, which also means that he cannot transmit the virus.

“This is what HIV-positive looks like now. I’m going to die from something else before I die from that.

“My T-cell levels are twice yours because of this medication.”

He added: “I’m doing this for me. I have too much shit to do, and I don’t have any fear about it anymore.

“I don’t care what anyone has to say. You’re either with me or simply move out of the way.”

Billy at last week's Brit — Billy at last week’s Brit Awards

Billy is one of the main stars of hit US drama Pose, which depicts New York’s ballroom scene of the 1980s and ’90s against the backdrop of the HIV and AIDS crisis.

The show broke fresh ground for queer representation upon its 2018 premiere by featuring television’s largest-ever cast of transgender actors in series regular roles, as well as the largest LGBTQ cast for a scripted series.

In 2019, Billy also became the first gay Black man to win an Emmy for lead actor in a drama for his portrayal of Pray Tell.

Earlier this year, it was announced that the third series of Pose would be the show’s last, and consist of seven episodes.

Read Billy’s full piece over at The Hollywood Reporter, or in the current issue of the magazine, on sale now.

Oscars 2020 Red Carpet: Billy Porter Pulls Out All The Stops Again, A Year On From His Tuxedo Dress Moment

Posted on 09/02/2020 by Boris Clair

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