Billy Porter: A Story of Queer Self-Love and Art Healing Trauma
Billy Porter was born on September 21st, 1969 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania as William Ellis Porter II. He is a queer icon and one of several Black and queer pioneers of genderqueer fashion, queer music, movies and theatre. In his own words – from an interview by the Hollywood Reporter – he “came out of the womb a big old queen.”, and these words are foreshadowing enough to prove his future-significance in furthering the representation of the BIPOC queer community in Western media.
Porter started his fascination and love for the Theatre when he was 11 and taken by his grandmother to see The Whiz on a national tour. By this time in middle-school he had been introduced to the musical theatre, but seeing productions with positive representations of Black singers and actors of the same musical backgrounds as him, brought it all together, culminating in his love for the stage and the performing arts.
Especially in 1994 when he saw the original cast of Angels in America, it was like everything clicked into place. For Porter to see Belize (an openly Black Gay man) not be reduced to traumatic stereotypes, but to be a whole human being in his own right, to be respected as an imperfect character with his struggles being taken seriously was proof enough that Porter wanted to be part of that movement of being able to represent himself and his community in the art he performs.
While he is known for his Tony award-winning performance as the drag-queen Lola in the 2013 Broadway Musical Kinky Boots that catapulted him into further fame (which was also the first role where Porter could comfortably wear a dress on-stage and absolutely slay in it) – in 2005 he wrote and performed a one-person autobiographical show: Ghetto Superstar (The Man That I Am), which touched on his personal life and struggles with childhood sexual abuse by his step-father from 7-12 years of age, as well as his homophobic family and community and his eventual escape into Broadway musicals as a successful career-path.
After this role, as if fate wanted to tie a neat bow onto his aspirations and give him a gentle push to be more authentically himself – he was casted as Belize in September 2010 for the Signature Theatre Company’s 20th Anniversary of Tony Kushner’s Angels in America.
Billy is also a talented musician who has released three solo albums, with the fourth (and most recent) being a tribute to Richard Rodgers and seven singles – each one being more of a fantastic ear-worm than the last, as well as several features in other artists’ works.
A small fact not known by many is that Porter gave voice to the ensemble and other characters’ voices in the beloved animated musical historical drama film Anastasia (1997).
In 2018 he took on the role of Pray Tell, in the FX Drama series Pose, where he played the role of an emcee in New York, a fashion designer and a mentor to the members of the community – which isn’t very far from his real life, as he has always been an inspiration to several queer marginalized people. This role earned him an Emmy for ‘An Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series’ as well as a nomination for a Golden Globe Award, which was a major milestone as he was the first openly Black Gay man to gain these accolades through his work.
In May of 2021, he broke his 14-year silence in an interview to Lacey Rose of The Hollywood Reporter on his diagnosis of being HIV-positive ever since 2007, which was also the year he had to file for bankruptcy and was diagnosed with Type-2 Diabetes. Finding out that he has a disease that was life-threatening not just because of his own immune-system but because anti-queer society was so cruel to the LGBTQ+ community during the AIDS crisis, he feared the discrimination he experienced first-hand as he came out to the world at 16-years-old in the middle of that tumultuous crisis. He revealed that Pray Tell, was a cathartic surrogate for him to truly tell the world about what he was struggling with and that this role wasn’t the first one where he was able to sort out his past-trauma through his acting roles.
Porter spoke of how his trauma affected his ability to feel joy in the moment and to truly be himself. He revealed that he has been on-and-off in therapy ever since he was 25. As a 51-year-old, the freeing self-acceptance he experienced after finally telling his mother of his diagnosis and her response and love in him regardless of who he is and what he has, made him pursue further therapy to fully address his past trauma with the support and love of his husband, Adam Smith.
Cis-heteronormativity has always had an unfair monopoly on romantic films and media – despite all of those hurdles he directed and released the coming-of-age Romantic Comedy Anything’s Possible (2022) starring Eva Reign and Abubakr Ali, which is a love story with the main lead being a trans girl and her nervous suitor who wants to win her heart. This film is also a homage that gives back to his community in Pittsburgh as most of the adult-cast are people from his past musicals, his middle-school teachers and those who believed in him.
Billy Porter is an artist that has always persevered as a wonderful example of creating, nurturing, forgiving and giving back to his community. His unrelenting passion in confronting a society which is not often kind, by fighting back and being an openly Black Gay man has touched the hearts of several queer and non-queer folks alike, and much like how he was motivated to make a change seeing his predecessors, he is now the same inspiration for his successors in the industry.
