Billy Porter: ‘Unlike some of my white, straight counterparts, it matters when I win an award’
Billy Porter on pop stardom, paving the way, and paying the price of inauthenticity. (Getty)
Billy Porter’s presence is unmistakable.
I am in a swanky west London hotel, searching for a room in which he is waiting for me, but before I find him, I hear him, his characteristically histrionic voice booming through the walls and filling the corridor.
It’s early August, the day after Donald Trump falsely claimed that Kamala Harris “turned” Black, having previously referred to her Indian heritage. Porter is speaking to another journalist and he is, rightfully, angry.
Being a gay, Black, HIV positive star of a certain age (54, to be precise), Porter is frequently called on as a celebrity spokesperson for the marginalised and misunderstood. Yet he is first and foremost an entertainer, and a formidable, multi-hyphenate one at that.
As his previous interview ends, he walks out of the room and indolently towards the lift for a quick break, coffee in hand. He shoots me a swift hello, and is then immediately accosted by a middle-aged American couple staying at the hotel: “Oh my God, are you Billy Porter? Can we get a photo?”
“Sure,” he obliges, and I wonder where they know him from. His historic, Emmy award-winning role in Ryan Murphy’s Pose? His Tony and Grammy award-winning turn in Kinky Boots? He is an industry trifecta, famously one award away from EGOT status (he just needs an Oscar to join the elite group). The list of projects they may recognise him in is impressively long.
Yet today, we’re meeting to talk music. Specifically, his 2023 album Black Mona Lisa, a bold amalgamation of pop meets R&B meets house meets soul. A follow-up EP, Black Mona Lisa Vol 2: The Cookout Sessions arrived last week (6 September).
“My popstar persona is now Black Mona Lisa, you know. I’m sort of reframing the narrative,” he says when we do sit down, his voice a distinctive husk. “It’s been really interesting to try to figure out how to break in – can a pop star be birthed in their 50s? Yes. It’s me.”
Evidently there are pitfalls to having such expansive talents. “There’s so much confusion because really, people have gotten onto the Billy Porter train at different stops.” With acting and music his two main passions, he sees his Black Mona Lisa stage name as a sort of Donald Glover is Childish Gambino concept.
“I’m talking about it because audiences need to understand where I’m at,” he says, enunciating every syllable, “so that they can understand the fullness and totality of my art and come along with me.”
A vast number of his fans today will know him as ballroom MC Pray Tell in Pose, Murphy’s historic series about New York’s underground queer scene during the height of ‘80s AIDS crisis. It’s a role he will likely have trouble ever escaping, as Pray Tell’s ability to command a room is so reminiscent of Porter’s own demeanour. But by the time Pose first aired in 2018, he had been working in showbusiness for almost 30 years; after attending a selection of drama colleges in the late ’80s, he began storming Broadway stages in 1991.
“I’m reading things where it’s like…” He dons a mocking whine. “‘Oh I didn’t know Pray Tell could sing.’ Like, no, I’m a singer. I’m a recording artist. That’s the gift.” In fact, he first began singing in church as a child, when he was just “Five. Five-years-old,” he finishes for me. “This ain’t new; I ain’t new to this. I’m true to this.” He lets out a jubilant cackle.
Porter has released five albums, but only Black Mona Lisa is mainstream pop. In a way, it feels like a debut, particularly as he’s now vying to be known under a stage name. I tell him this, but stress I know it’s not actually his debut, it’s “…my fifth.” He completes the sentence again, this time with a raised eyebrow letting me know that I am being very politely told off.
His actual debut, the equal parts sappy and funky Untitled, landed in 1997. He had come out as gay 12 years earlier but still, his record label at the time wanted to mould him as they saw fit – incorporating his queerness into his music was not part of the vision. “The Black R&B world was very homophobic at the time and there wasn’t a place for me. That was clear very quickly,” he remembers.
The Untitled album cover shows a then 28-year-old Porter in a black tee, black jeans, black leather jacket, and black sunglasses, looking very much the part of a Cool Dad. It couldn’t be further from the internet-breaking red carpet couture he is known for now, though today, he is surprisingly understated in black skinny jeans, grey cardigan, navy blazer and gold-rimmed glasses.
He didn’t particularly want to make an R&B album. “I was in a place where I didn’t know anything else, you know? There was a bit of manipulation from the label and the heads [about] what I should do and what I shouldn’t be doing,” he explains. “There was a vision for me that didn’t really have anything to do with me.”
While some artists are keen to distance themselves from their past projects the second their next hits the shelves, Porter remains proud of what he made. “It doesn’t have anything to do with me now,” he states, but sometimes he likes to compare that album cover with Black Mona Lisa’s and remark on the difference. “That’s the journey of my authenticity. Now you get authentic Billy. That takes time.”
Porter is certainly not one to make himself small. When he speaks, he does so as if from a theatre stage, pumping meaning into every word and ensuring he is heard. Yet this is born from necessity: aged five and brought up in a religious household, his parents took him to a psychologist as they feared he was a “sissy”. Relentless bullying at school followed. He learnt he had to be self-aggrandising; no one was going to blow his trumpet for him.
The aftermath of Untitled was the turning point. The record was a commercial failure, and his record deal “imploded” in 1999. “I gave away myself, not knowing that I was doing that. By the end of the process I was a shell of myself,” he says. “I woke up one day and I thought: I failed as someone else. I will never do that again, no matter what.”
Clearly it worked. He has succeeded greatly since. Aside from Pose and Kinky Boots, he has led films including last year’s gay divorce drama Our Song alongside Luke Evans, played a starring role in Murphy’s American Horror Story: Apocalypse, and made his directorial debut for 2022’s trans rom com film Anything’s Possible.
As far as he’s concerned, anything is possible. Though he’s focused on Black Mona Lisa right now, that EGOT question is floating about somewhere at the back of his mind. “Here’s the deal.” Dramatic pause. “It’s a double edged sword. I’m not an artist to be famous. I’m not an artist to win awards. I’m an artist because blessedly I was chosen to be one, and art has the power to heal, and I’m grateful to have been called to this ministry,” he says, tugging on his church roots.
At the same time, he doesn’t have time for modesty: he wants an Oscar. “Who doesn’t want to win an award? I’m not one of those people who’s like, ‘Oh, wow, I don’t care.’ Yeah! I care!”
If he were to become an EGOT, he’d be the first Black, gay man to do so, much like he became the first Black, gay man to win a lead actor Emmy with Pose. He implores people not to lament it taking so long for the Emmy milestone to be achieved: “Yeah, it could be better. Yeah, it could’ve happened sooner. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It didn’t. It’s happening now. Praise the lord, it’s happening now“. On the flip side, he values deeply the significance of his success in a broader sense.
“Particularly for a Black, queer man, unlike some of my white, straight counterparts, it actually does matter when I win an award. Doors that are bolted shut actually do open, it does change the landscape,” he says. As with many of the lines Porter delivers, it sounds grandiose, but it’s absolutely true.
And as for actually winning an Oscar? He could do that via his music, his directing, his writing or, of course, his acting – he’s currently working on a biopic of gay civil rights activist James Baldwin, which he’ll star in. He’s “focused on the work” right now, not what may come of it.
This reminds me of “Broke A Sweat”, the opening track from Black Mona Lisa. On the disco-tinged chorus, Porter declares that he hasn’t “even started yet”. As someone who has spent three decades putting in the werk, it feels like an odd declaration. How much more can one star achieve? The answer: “There are no limits.”
“I think one of the most difficult parts about show business, in general – we live in a very ageist society. We’ve lost the understanding that with age comes wisdom. I’m 54-years-old. I’m healthier than I’ve ever been. I don’t feel like what that’s supposed to mean,” he says.
“I haven’t really even scratched the surface of the expansion of what my dreams are, and the kind of impact and legacy that I would like to have on the world.”
And with that, it’s time to wrap up. “Lovely to meet youuuuu,” he belts out, and I am certain that whoever is in the corridor outside can hear him too.
Black Mona Lisa and Black Mona Lisa, Vol.2: The Cookout Sessions are streaming now.
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