March 3, 2026 • 54 mins
The AUNTIE is HERE!!! Willkommen, bienvenue, welcome to the one and only, multihyphenate, international sensation, MC extraordinaire, Billy Porter!
Billy Porter is no stranger to shattering glass ceilings, and it took work to get there. A fateful screening of “The Wiz” plus a love for music lead him to find his calling in musical theatre, and a now critically acclaimed career from “Kinky Boots” and “Pose” to making history on London’s West End. It wasn’t always easy– Billy opens up about traumatic childhood experiences, and how those experiences shaped the man he is today.
And he’s still fighting strong! Billy talks making art and living out his dreams despite whatever roadblocks life throws his way– including a near death experience from sepsis last fall.
Also: Billy and Maddie get into keeping it real vs. taking the PR route; when kikiing gets taken out of context; why artists need better labor protections; and surviving the political reality of the past 10 years.
Plus…we see you in the comments asking for longer episodes. We’re excited to announce our brand new Patreon exclusive, “Still Recording”! Get more Maddie from your favorite interviews. Available now at https://www.patreon.com/profile/creators?u=203684958
"Outlaws" is hosted by TS Madison, and is part of the Outspoken Network from iHeartPodcasts, co-produced by Turtle Run Entertainment.
Join our Patreon for exclusive content.: https://patreon.com/outlawswithtsmadison
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Every time I open up my mouth up and goes out.
Don't wait two inches bed yourself.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
Get a job ricking, honey, rick hore.
Speaker 1 (00:16):
He chasing it all. I'm black like that about living.
It's color easy. This is Outlaws, butch is medicine. Honey,
(00:43):
is it more? I'm not telling everybody my business, that's right.
But we from the from the key we bought the
key I was a gay cruise. Oh my god? Is it?
Is it? One? Honey? Is this they recorded?
Speaker 2 (00:55):
Let me tell you something, right, I got a I
got a not a mint, but I got a cough
drop in him because I had some stuff in my
throat earlier.
Speaker 1 (01:06):
I got shooting my cough drop. But we are about
to have a good episode because.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
I have spoken about this in the universe and said
that I want to do these things.
Speaker 1 (01:26):
I want you all to know.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
That there's three billies. It's Billy Lord, Billy d Williams,
and Billy Porter. That's the only three billies I know
in this world.
Speaker 1 (01:41):
Ladies and gentlemen, Welcome into the Outlaws podcast. Honey. I
call Billy Porter the odd Billy beyond. I'm trying to
get better like but I'm not in my house. I
guess it's it's fine. We about we about the we
about to be about to do tea shade funny, all
(02:04):
the things.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
I have been sitting over here in my desk saying,
I want to get because you.
Speaker 1 (02:13):
Know, I call you the aunt. I don't give I
was like the ant, honey, the art. I call you
the aunt. I want to tell.
Speaker 2 (02:22):
You, Billy Porter, I have watched you. I've watched your
life from getting from straight.
Speaker 1 (02:35):
So you were around. Oh yeah, I watched everybody straight
all the way to the art. Okay, I've watched it
from but I was always I was always the art.
You will always be an always been. I was always artie.
I was just trying to make a living.
Speaker 2 (02:51):
No, no, no, see this is way you got to confuse.
There are aunties and you know she's giving up.
Speaker 1 (02:59):
But bitch, you the art. I received that, the art,
I take it. I receive it. I appreciate it. And
after this last fiasco, honey that's been going on, how
you've had You have snatched the internet's edges, bitch, and
(03:19):
you got it there. You gave that Mariah tribute, bitch
and that Whitney Houston elude. Bitch. I was like that
is definitely the art. And you know, I don't give
a fuck.
Speaker 2 (03:31):
I know, and I don't look, Billy, where are you from.
Speaker 1 (03:36):
I'm from Pittsburgh, originally Pittsburgh. I grew up in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
And uh, I grew up in the Pentecostal church, very
similar to you grew up in Pentecostal ring. I grew
up there. Boy, you know, it's all the same.
Speaker 2 (03:52):
And get the hoop in hollering and laying hands and
ship and all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 1 (03:56):
But I've been delivered from that ship and then turning
around and oppressing other groups of people. And yeah, yeah,
you know, we're We're very similar in that I learned
early on. And you know, my book is out. I
talk about it all the time. Unprotected is my memoir,
(04:20):
and I talk about how the violation of the sexual
abuse at the hands of my stepfather from the time
that I was seven to the time that I was
twelve was the best thing that ever happened to me.
(04:44):
And here's why, let me turn this. How do I
mute this? Because I just got a ding. I don't
know how to mute. I don't know how to whatever listen,
And so I say that because I was entrenched inside
(05:06):
of the cult that is religion, let's call it what
it is. And my specific space was the Church of
God in Christ, Oh, the kojing Dear God. I was
kojed and what I discovered from the time I was
(05:28):
twelve when I stopped the abuse right because I was
watching the news. It was nineteen eighty one, the AIDS
crisis had just started. I was sitting at a dinner table.
The news came on. They talked about a gay disease.
I went and looked up what gay or homosexual was
(05:51):
because I had a feeling, and I stopped it. And
then I went into a regressive state where I forgot
about it. And then at sixteen, I was doing shows
at an amusement park called Kennywood Park, and my stepfather
(06:13):
and my mother and my little sister who was seven
came to see me perform, and I remember he went
off with her to go on the little paddle boats
thing and it all came back like literally that moment
that day. And I say this because then I was
(06:42):
the center. I was the faggot, I was going to hell.
I was the center when I sat around and watched
all of these adults do nothing like what's happening right now. Yeah.
I triggered every fucking day by this government. And I'm
triggered every every day, every day, every single fucking day.
(07:04):
Yeah yeah, and nobody did anything about it. And the
blessing and the gift in that is that, at sixteen
years old, I understood I had to extract myself from
that trauma and those people to save myself, and I
(07:26):
did and I've never gone back.
Speaker 2 (07:31):
So you pursued a career in entertainment, when did you
really know that?
Speaker 1 (07:39):
You can? You can say I knew in fifth grade.
I sang in the church, and you know, everybody sings
in church. I'm sang in the church. You know, there
was a bit of a They understood that the way
I sang was special. They got it. But the only
(08:03):
thing they understood in that space when something is special
about you because of the bubble is little preacher man,
uh huh, right, And so they were putting that on me,
and I preached my first and last sermon around the
(08:23):
age of ten or eleven simultaneously, you know, because I
did it, and then I said to my mom, I
was like, no, it's not this. I don't like this
and then and she was great. She was like, I mean,
my mom was the greatest woman who ever walked the
fucking earth. But that in the sixth grade, I went
(08:47):
to Raisinstein Middle School and there were these after school programs.
And I always talk about me being the generation, the
real generation that benefited fifty six, born in sixty nine.
So I'm the generation that benefited from all of those
civil rights, progressive legislations that were in place for the
(09:11):
very short time that they were. I mean when I
say the three leaf binder of after school programs was
about this thing back in front pages, like nobody left school.
Everybody was engaged in some sort of thing, you know,
(09:34):
after school program and one of them was Riisenstein was
the name of the school, Riisenstein Musical Theater. I didn't
know what theater was, but I thought musical. Well, I'm
you know, I'm in the choir, I'm playing the saxophone.
Maybe I can sing in this. And I found out,
(09:55):
going back to when I really knew the bullying answered
that first question because I got off track. The bullying
was every day and it was incessant until the fifth grade.
And then there was a talent show and I signed
up for the talent show and I won, and then
(10:16):
the bullying stopped, and all of a sudden, I was
that dude that could sing leave him alone. So there
was something that made me understand that this had power.
Uh huh, pull my voice. My voice had power. So
when I got to the sixth grade, I knew, let
(10:37):
me get inquired. I was playing the saxophone. So then
I went to this after school program and they said,
we're gonna do a musical and told us what a
musical was, and then the next week, you're gonna come
back and sing a song, and then we're gonna cast you.
And the show was Babes and Arms Rogers at Heart's
(10:57):
Babes and Arms. And interestingly enough, fortuitously enough, that was
my birthday, and when I walked out, my grandmother and
my great aunt were waiting for me to take me
on a birthday adventure. That birthday adventure was me going
(11:19):
downtown with them, having dinner and then going to see
the national tour of The Whiz Ball You Can't Win,
And I sat, that's not in the original version, but yes,
that's from the movie, but yes, and it's also in
(11:44):
a revival. They put it in a revival because it's
a better song. Anyway, I digress because Quincy Jones wrote
that one and Michael Johnson wrote that one. Yeah. So anyway,
I sat there and I was like, oh my god,
(12:04):
this is a musical. Oh and it was black people. Yeah.
And at the end she sings Home, and I couldn't move.
I just couldn't Like. I was like, like my brother,
it took my breath away. And this was Stephanie Mills, right, No,
(12:27):
this was Lily's White. This was the tour. This was
the first national tour, okay, And so it was Lily's White,
who has now become one of my mentors and best friends.
And so I went to school the next day and
I said, I want to I saw this show called
the Whiz. I want to sing this song called Home.
(12:47):
My music teacher came back the next day with not
only the album but the sheet music for me. In
the following week, I went in and I sang Home.
And the role was every role was double cast because
(13:12):
there were like one hundred people there, and the cast
list went up and every single role was double cast
except for me. That was a cute. That was a clue.
It was like, why am I not double cast? Is
this the space? This is my space? So then there
(13:37):
was that we did the show. I had a great time.
I hadn't connected the dots that a you could really
do it for a living and you're like the wiz
was there, but like it didn't you know. And then
I saw dream Girls on television, which is a very
famous story of mine, and that Tony Awards came on
that summer. I was washing dishes and Girls came on,
(14:00):
and there was something about it being on television. Even
though it was theater, it was on television. And they
were doing that final fight scene going into and I'm
telling You, and it was Loretta Devine and it was
shehry Lee Ralph, and it was Debbie Burrell and it
(14:22):
was Ben Harney and ohbah Babatunde and Clevan Derreks and
Jennifer Holliday and she launched into and I'm telling You,
and it was like, oh, she's like like I sang,
And she's on television and they're beautiful and they're in
(14:42):
gowns and they're not in the hood and they're not
in the ghetto, and they're glamorous and they're maybe I
can do this, and that's what flipped it and changed
it from me forever and from then on there was
nothing else. And this is why, and this is why
we always tell people about representation, like how important representation
(15:03):
is because you know, you you you were able to
see even though you know.
Speaker 2 (15:09):
You knew you had talent, but you he's like, well
where does this go? And then you like, I can
do this, this is what I can do. I want
to know about your first break into mainstream.
Speaker 1 (15:31):
You know, I went to Carnegie Mellon University in the
drama department. And I'm gonna say that again. I went
to Carnegie Mellon in the drama department and studied classical theater,
studied classical theater. You know, there's a lot of there's
(15:55):
this idea that I just came out and I just,
you know, show up and be a faggot, and that's okay,
but people forget I'm actually a trained bitch. That's why
I'm still here. I'm a trained bitch, fully trained. And
(16:18):
then went to graduate school at UCLA in the screenwriting program.
So I graduated from I went to Carnegie Mellon and
in the second semester of my senior year. Because I
had been spending summers in New York, I had gone
(16:42):
through a series of auditions. I went to an open
call for a musical called Miss Sagon that was very
popular at the time, one of the big mega musicals
from the British Invasion. You had le Miss, you had Phantom,
you had Catch, you had Miss Sagone. It was in
that era, and I booked it. And so the second
(17:05):
semester of my senior year, I was given the opportunity
to have an internship essentially, I paid internship to go
to New York and be in the original cast of
Miss Sagon. So that was my big sort of first break.
I was in the ensemble. I was twenty one years old.
(17:28):
I did it for a year and my first string
of shows it was that, And then I went into
another show called five Guys Name Moe, which also had
come from London. Came Backintash the producer, and I understudied
(17:49):
three people in that show. And then I was cast
in the Broadway revival of Greece, playing playing the teen
Angel in Greece, and I was given carte blanche to
rearrange the song and I did it. You know, I
did this sort of gospel of you know, R and
B soul arrangement and which is I am wont to do?
(18:15):
But that was with Rosie O'donnald and the yet unknown
Megan Malali And it was me and a bunch of
you know, a bunch of really really really talented people.
And simultaneously I was working on getting a record contract.
And so between nineteen ninety when I got there and
(18:38):
ninety four, I was doing Broadway and trying to do
mainstream R and B. At the same time. I got
a record contract on A and M Records, and my
first album came out in ninety seven, Billy Porter, untitled
It's an R and B Album. And that's when you're
(18:59):
referring to me being straight, yeah, because you know, and
I was never hiding it just it just you just
didn't have to tell, you know, I just wasn't, you know,
And that was what you did. And it was nineties
R and B. And if you go back, I have
(19:20):
two music videos. You can go and look at them online.
I've seen them. They're very straight. I'm actor. If you
didn't know, you wouldn't know, right. I could act straight.
I can act straight. You know. My first show me
(19:40):
the remake of Glenn Jones's showed me you know, the woman,
and that I was my best friend Benita from college,
you know. And so it was it was at an
interesting time because I I I sacrificed my authenticity because
(20:04):
I thought that that was what would bring me the
success that I wanted. That's what I was told that.
Speaker 2 (20:16):
Yeah, I think I think that that's what most of
us square people are told, like you have to dilute
yourself in order to be successful, especially from that Yeah, especially.
Speaker 1 (20:29):
From that time.
Speaker 2 (20:31):
You're like, girl, well you know you want to be
spit you we saw rich and famous people on TV.
Speaker 1 (20:37):
I want to be rich and famous. So if I
got to say I saw a dick at night after
twelve before six, I'll do that and then I'll just
do my I'll do my job. My job is here
and that's what I do. So I understand it. And
what I think people get that kind of shit confused
with like d L or download. It's like, no, I
(20:58):
gotta work, I gotta eat. I gotta eat, and you're
telling me that, you know, I gotta keep that ship
quiet or you ain't gonna feed me. And this is
the way I want to eat.
Speaker 2 (21:09):
Yes, but let's fast forward now to how you have
become and you are.
Speaker 1 (21:16):
That's why I said the like, we see you, bitch,
we see you.
Speaker 2 (21:20):
We see you on the coffee, we see you know,
we see you, we see you in the places, we
see you making a standard you like. And I want
to say I understood all the conversation around. The answer
is no and whatever that means, whatever that means, thank you, Yes,
(21:41):
yes and whatever that means. So that meant no, we
ain't fucking with y'all. No, we're not gonna lay down.
Speaker 1 (21:50):
No, because what I what I received from that is
I already done been through this. Yeah, we did this already.
We did this already. I'm fifty six years old. We
did this already. Y'all can kiss my ass. It's a
pink part, Yeah, a pink park in Macy's window during
(22:10):
the Thanksgiving Day parade. Y'all can kiss my ass. It's like,
I'm not doing this. We're not doing this no more.
We're not saying to be repeating this, We're not sing
to be going through this. I already have been through this. Ship.
The answer is no. I understood that. I know you do.
I follow you I love you. I love love you too.
I love I've been waiting for this call, by the way,
(22:34):
I've been waiting to do this because I knew I
knew that we would we could sit up and key,
especially about just the things like that I wanted to
I'm I'm doing seriously, but I want to go back
a little bit.
Speaker 2 (22:47):
Just that bitch, when you got a damn you both
for a terrorized that warming about buck car.
Speaker 1 (22:53):
I'm like, I'm like, tee now that you put a
goddamn in there to make sure because bitch, I want
to be as confident because you was. How's that? Okay?
All right, let me explain. Let me explain. There's a
whole backstory, right, huh. I don't know if you know this, Okay,
(23:18):
But I had sepsis in August, Yes I did. I
did know that, Yes, And sitting in the hospital for
a month and then recovery for the following up till now.
I'm still recovering. Yes, I've had a lot of time
(23:38):
to self reflect. I smashed a glass ceiling that was
never supposed to be smashed, right. I transcended with kinky boots, poles,
fashion and all of the things that I've been blessed
with I've transcended something and and I've become I've vibrated
(24:04):
in this a list space and during the strikes, and
you know, the very and I ascended because of my
truthfulness and my authenticity. So as we know, in this
business that goes up and down, the very the very
thing that lifts us up is the very thing that
(24:31):
they used to turn on us and drag us down. Yes,
so it's you know, this is not a woe is me,
this is not a victim anything. These are just the facts.
So during the strikes, I was very quiet because I
(24:55):
was so enraged, and I understood that sometimes rage isn't useful.
So I was trying to like just be present, listen
and figure out if I ever needed to speak on it. Right,
(25:15):
And I'm the person who I you know, I'm like,
don't ask me questions. You don't want the answers to
right And as my publicist, which we had a conversation later,
you're supposed to vet the questions, right cause you know
who I am. Right, So if I'm not supposed to
be talking about something, your ass needs to be in
(25:36):
there making sure that I'm not being asked the question
I'm not gonna limit myself when I'm in a moment,
I'm not and you know that. So and this what
you know, what was interesting was that I had Black
Mona Lisa had come out, my most recent album. I
(25:58):
was in London. I was I want to interview for
the Guardian and it was supposed to be twenty minutes.
And this journalist is lovely journalists. We just started talking.
An hour and a half later we finished, and we
had talked about everything, and I felt so good because
(26:20):
sometimes I feel like I'm relegated to this clown space,
you know, because I dare to wear a dress on
the red carpet, and so it's often that people just
kind of push me into like oh, he's just a clown, right.
(26:42):
There's always intention behind everything I do. Everything you see
me do is planned and intentional. And so when I
finished this Guardian interview, the sixty plus year old Scottish
you know, a man, you know press guy from my label,
(27:02):
was in tears and he said, and I was like,
what's the matter. He's like, I just have never met
anybody like you. I've never worked with anybody like you.
The way you can articulate trauma and articulate love, and
(27:22):
how the two can come together is very, very very powerful.
There aren't a lot of people that can just tell
the truth the way you do. You tell it with care,
you tell it with love, you tell it you know consciously.
(27:43):
So two months later, this article comes out and I'm
in pe Town and I'm by myself because I'm in
the middle of a divorce now, so I just took
some time and I'm walking down the street and all
of a sudden, people are like running out of cafe's
screaming from the street. You're a fucking hero, Billy Porter.
(28:05):
You're a hero. Thank you. And I'm like, oh god,
what happened. You're like, You're like, what you did? What happened?
What not? So I go on my phone and the
(28:26):
headline is Billy Porter says fuck bar biker Billy calls
Anna Wintour a bit and I'm like, did this did
this journalist bitch throw me under the bus? And so
I go to the article and she said everything verbatim
(28:52):
that I had spoken about. So let me dissect that
for you. She asked me about the strike, She asked
me why I told her. I didn't you know? She said, well,
what are you fighting for? What are y'all fighting for?
And I said, I'm so glad I get to like
talk about this in full. And I said to her, well,
(29:14):
there are freelance. Artists are artists. As artists, we're free lance,
and that means that every time a job ends, we
got to get a new one. And there are five
tiers of how we get paid. The first tier is
hand to mouth, the second tier is check to check,
(29:38):
the third tier is I'm doing all right, The fourth
tier is set for life, and the fifth tier is
fuck you money. Now you know, point zero zero zero
zero one percent of you know us make the fucking money.
(29:58):
But the tier that we're fighting four is the set
for life. And that comes with the residual package that
has been in place for network television and film and
TV for decades. And the last negotiation we had, the
streaming services were introduced, and the studio said, oh, we
(30:21):
don't really know what this is, so let's revisit this
the next time. Fast forward for eight years whatever it was,
they're making hand over fist and bragging about it, and
we're not getting our compensation in the way that we should.
So that's what we're fighting for. And I said, so
(30:43):
somebody like a Bob Iger who called up his god
on his billion dollar plane with his billion dollar buddies
to that billion dollar conference, called a camera crew to
(31:05):
tell the world who already thinks that we as artists
are whiners and complainers, and told the world that our
demand for his living wage is unrealistic when he's making
seventy eight thousand dollars a day and I'm getting and
(31:27):
we're getting six cent checks. I'm talking in extremes. I
was talking in extremes. Yes, but some of those girls
from Orange is the New Black, we're getting six cent checks. Yeah, yeah,
while while he's making seventy eight thousand dollars a day
and we're getting six cent checks. Fuck that and fuck him.
(31:53):
There's context to the reason why I said that. I
wasn't talking about him specifically. He just happened to be
the person that did what he did in that space
and time about all of them. Yeah, I'm talking about
all of it. I'm talking about the predatory culture of
(32:14):
billionaires of these companies. I'm talking about the whole thing,
you know. So that came out right and it was
like no context once again, because we're gonna circle back
to Nicki Minaj, but no context, just accolled. And then
we were also talking about and for the last time,
(32:36):
we were talking about the Harry Styles Vogue cover and
my response to that and which was which for me
was just I was being flippant and sassy. I didn't care.
I have my own covers. I was the first gay
man on the cover of Essence. I was the first
(32:57):
man on the cover of a lore. I go, there
was no but I said, oh, he's white and straight.
Of course he got it like with no, and they
turned that into a headline an attack on this poor boy.
For years, I was like, it's not about that. It's
(33:20):
about the erasure of our culture systemically. It's about that.
It's not about him. He just happens to be the
person that's in the space right now. But what I
said was what people don't know is that I sat
on the dais with Anna Wintour months before at the
(33:45):
Condonast summit, and at the end of talking for like
forty five minutes, she said to me, so, how can
we do better? I was I was so taken off
guard because it's not a question that I ever thought,
(34:06):
you know, what I mean, Like, I just and I
didn't say what I should have said, which is, use
the power of being the leader in the fashion industry
and support the people, not just me, the people who
are the leaders of this degendering of fashion moment. That's
(34:27):
what I should have said. Yeah, right, I don't know
what I said. But when the when the So I
was telling the journalist about this, and I said, is
she asked me a question and I just blanked and
she said, what does she say? And I was like
that bitch said blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.
So y'all know that the queer vernacular uses bitch as
(34:52):
a term of endearment, right, and you motherfuckers pulled a
SoundBite out and said that I actually called her a bitch.
This is what I'm talking about. It's like, there's no context.
So getting back to NICKI madage, Right, I took a
(35:17):
step back.
Speaker 3 (35:20):
I if I'm being honest, Right, there's that unspoken and
I'm sure you've experienced this too.
Speaker 1 (35:35):
This unspoken like you sail you in trouble now, but
nobody's gonna actually say it. But all of a sudden,
the work has dried up and there ain't no work
any you know, like, hmmm, what's happening? Right? So I
(36:01):
took some time and I was like, I'm gonna be
like Janet, I'm gonna take some time off, let people
miss me, and then come back with the vengeance. I
need time anyway. It's been five years of just non stock.
Let me take some time. I'm cool with that. I'll
be quiet. I will tone it down right. So you
(36:26):
fast forward to all of a sudden, you know, I'm
in Cabaret last year in London, playing the MC, making
my West End debut, first black MC, first black Sally
(36:46):
Balls in the sixty year history of this show that's
about Nazi Germany. We were there too, so we're making history.
I'm having a ball and it feels like resistance because
it's about I go to the Nazis every night telling
this story. I'm in the middle of my purpose. Yeah,
my art is my resistance. Right. I get a urinary infection.
(37:10):
The medicine in the UK is trash. They don't you know.
Four rounds of antibiotics and ten to twelve weeks later
it's a kidney infection with kidney stones. Fast forward to
you know they get They finally give me medicine. It
seems to go away. I direct to play in London.
I come home, I go into I go on vacation,
(37:32):
I go into rehearsals for for Cabaret on Broadway. I
go into the show and everything seems fine. And a
month in, the kidney stone pain comes back. It's a
Friday of my fourth week. I'm supposed to do three months.
Maricha Ballace and I are closing the show. By Tuesday,
(37:52):
I checked myself into the hospital because I'm in so
much pain, and by and I woke up on Saturday morning.
I'm sorry. I checked myself in on Tuesday night, and
I woke up on Saturday night. They went in to
(38:13):
do a routine check. They saw that the kidney stone
was trapped in my urethra. Oh, and they went in
to do a routine put a stint in, redirect the urine,
blast me with real antibiotics, not UK antibiotics, not that
(38:33):
weak shit. Then go in through my penis and blow
up the kidney stones. When they got in there, there
was so much puss and bile and infection behind the stone.
It bubbled up and I went eurosceptic in minutes I
(38:55):
was on the echmo machine. I was dead for three days.
I am a miracle. I'm a walking miracle. And when
(39:20):
I woke up, they told me my leg had gone
into compartment syndrome, which is when the muscles closed in
on themselves and cut off the oxygen. So they had
to cut me open on either side of my leg
while I was in a corner, and from my knee
to my hip and leave it open for two days
so they could save my leg. I am so grateful
(39:51):
to be here. It is such a gift. And as
I sat in my hospital bed reflecting, there were a
couple of things I heard. The first thing I heard
was work smarter, not harder. The second thing I heard
was be obedient and answer the call. And the third
(40:16):
thing I heard was don't you ever stop telling the
truth again? Eye unconsciously silenced myself for fear that I
(40:42):
wouldn't be on the A list anymore. For fear and
I'm talking about my own ego now, for fear that
I would have to ride coach again. Let's fucking tell
the truth. For fear that I wouldn't be able to
have the luxuries, the bullshit luxuries, you know, I mean,
(41:10):
I've experienced what the what the billionaires experience. You know,
I get driven to the tar, I get driven to
the plane on the tar back it's fabulous. Yeah, yeah,
you know what I mean. It's like and I didn't realize.
And that's just one example, but like I didn't realize. Uh,
(41:32):
my ego, my ego. So let me re structure, let
me go back to my truth. Let me go back
to the truth. So my first time back, and I
know this is a long way around to get to
Oh no, listen, I'm I'm here. This is a long
(41:55):
way around to get the Nicki Minaj. But I've been
watching everything that's going on right now, and anytime the
wind blows politically in these spaces, we and our community
are always affected, no matter where we are socioeconomically, no
matter what we're doing. We had COVID, we had two strikes.
(42:20):
I had a divorce where that man got everything I
ever worked for. My mother died two years ago this month,
and then sepsis. So when I got on that carpet,
(42:40):
I knew that all I could do was tell the truth.
I was not expecting the Nicki Minaj's question, and what
I will say about that really amazing journalist is that
she's amazing because she did her homework and she understood
(43:01):
that I don't respond to dumb questions. I don't respond
to clickbait. I don't respond to the Internet. I don't respond.
I do not now, nor will I ever adjudicate my
life in sound bites on social media. My adjudicate my
life for humanity and sound bites on social media's I'm
(43:21):
too old for that. I just don't. It's just just
not my thing. So the first thing she asked me,
and I don't know if you've heard this, but I
posted it on my page because I needed everybody to
know once again, there's always contexts when I go off,
there's always context behind it, Okay. And so she said
(43:43):
to me, do you think it was for the Grammys
the Black Music Coalition on Brand honoring Brandy Farrell and
Kirk Franklin. So she said, can you very smartly, she said,
can you do you think you can separate the music
(44:05):
from the activism? And I said, for me, no, And
I spoke about it for at least a minute, maybe
a minute and a half. I pontificated, I waxed poetic,
I did all the things about why I can't right,
And then this bitch went in for the kill because
(44:28):
she knew and she said, well, you know, speaking of
so and so and such and such, Nicki Minaj has
been tricked and she couldn't get it out first. And
I was triggered. Yes, I was triggered, and I just
you know, and that's the truth. That's the truth, all
(44:51):
of these people who are capitulating to whatever this is.
I was watching our Vice President Harris on Stephen Colbert
and she said, I predicted all of this, but what
I couldn't have predicted is the capitulation. So I have
(45:14):
nothing left for that. And that's where it came from.
It's like, I'm not a sound bite guy. I didn't
do that to have a sound bite. I didn't do
that to go viral. That was real. That was a
real response to what is going on on this planet.
And if you listen to it, it started with her
(45:35):
and expanded to the whole thing. In thirty seconds. I
spoke to everything that's going on in this planet in
about thirty seconds. The answer is no. The answer is no, no.
Whatever that means. Our ancestors already died for this. Yeah,
(45:55):
they already did They already did. Yeah, And that's the
issue right now, what are we ready? What are we
willing to sacrifice? Because they sacrifice their lives and we
have too many comforts. Now. Well, I think that I'm
so glad that you spoke to that, because I think
(46:15):
that the wake up call is truly coming. It's already here.
Speaker 2 (46:22):
But the wake up call is we only heard about
what our ancestors went through. We've only read about it.
We've only seen movies about it. We haven't experienced. It's
so experiencing it.
Speaker 1 (46:34):
Will make you appreciate where you were, the things that
they fought for. You know that we didn't have to.
We didn't have to. Like I only heard my grandfather say, well,
they couldn't drink from a water fountain, right, or they
had to come in through the backside, or you know
what I'm saying.
Speaker 2 (46:50):
I know what I've experienced, you know from you know,
but you know the things that I've heard.
Speaker 1 (46:56):
Them tell us. It's just like, because my grandfather died like.
Speaker 2 (46:58):
Eighty eight eighty, he lived you know, yeah, I mean
not the eighties, but he died at eighty eight eighties.
Speaker 1 (47:06):
He lived through that. To see these things happen to
see the Tartans change and we're yeah, and we're square one. Yeah,
I'm just supposed to be silent about it. Yeah yeah.
And it's like I'm looking at the playbook of the
way that you get a marginalized group. You make an
(47:27):
enemy number one, you make everybody hate that. You come,
you pool everybody together, they hate that. And while everybody's
hating that, you're working silently behind the scenes to strip
everything from all those other people that don't look like
the head niggas in charge. And then you know, everybody's
still focused on that group or whatever.
Speaker 2 (47:46):
Because it makes my stomach boil when I hear people say, well,
I disagree with this stuff, with Trump, with this, but
that right there, I can understand.
Speaker 1 (47:56):
No, no, you can't none of that shit. You can understand.
You can't see No, you can't see a loophole and
none of that shit. You can't give it. No, fuck
that and fuck all of them. Fuck yeah, yeah, you
can't give any leadway to any of that shit. Nope.
Speaker 2 (48:18):
Now it is dangerous. It is it's dangerous because what
they're telling you is, well, yeah, none of those people
are really human, and it's okay if we eradicate that
that set because if we do that, then things will
get better.
Speaker 1 (48:37):
And it's always moving the gold posts, moving it, yeah,
moving it all the time. And when I sit on
this show, and yeah, I talk shit and joke and
say all kind of craziness or whatever, because it's first
I have fun, of course, But when I'm talking about
you have to have joy. We still have to have
joy when I'm talking about shit, Like, you can't tell
(48:59):
me that the first thing that you come in office
to and you and you you are concerned about gender
and and stuff like this, Like none of those people
are concerned about women, honey, those people that fucking that
fucking man ain't up there concerned about no goddamn genders.
He's not. No, it's too feed into the to the fears,
(49:20):
into the and and and to the to the hate
and to the things.
Speaker 2 (49:24):
That will get people riled up to be like yeah, yeah,
I can. I can get with that, like grifting mm hmm.
Speaker 1 (49:31):
And here's and here's one of the things, you know,
because I write, and I write myself out of you know,
I try to write myself out and I'm getting ready
to join substack because I feel like you've heard a substack, right,
No tell me. Substack is a new uh social media
platform that I call the maturing of social media. And
(49:53):
you can like write long form it's not sound bites.
You can do podcasts, you can do newsletters, you can
you know, post videos like it's a it's where Don
Lemon is now? Oh yeah, okay, okay. Don Lemon went
from CNN to suss Joy read went from MSNBC to
(50:15):
Subject And it's not toxic and corrupted yet. And so
I really feel that I can, right, and so I
can really get on there and you know, do my
James Baldwin essay, my James Baught when like essay stuff,
how bless true. It's everybody, it's everybody. It's it's everybody.
There's a lot of different people on there. It's a
(50:37):
lot of different races, genders, like everybody is on there,
and it's still small enough to not, like I said,
be toxic. But one of the things that keeps coming
up from me spiritually and emotionally and historically is this
(50:58):
the new knowledge that so much of our democracy is
built on tradition and somebody's moral fortitude. So the peaceful
(51:19):
transfer of power is not a rule it's not a law.
The peaceful of transfer of power is not a law.
So all somebody has to do is say no. Why
wasn't Roe v. Wade codified for fifty years? I didn't
even know what that fucking word meant. What are y'all doing?
Speaker 2 (51:43):
Right?
Speaker 1 (51:44):
What are y'all doing? If it only took ten years
for that man and his cronies to simply just say no,
all they did is say no for ten years, and
(52:04):
we are this, then what was the ship in the
first place? Right? What was it in the first place? Right?
Because it's that easy to dismantle, then what the fuck
was it in the yah? Because it's definitely that's all
it is. Like, No, I'm not doing that. That's all
they're doing. That's what they're doing. No, I'm not doing that,
that's all they're doing. Yeah, I don't answer a subpoena.
(52:27):
They throw my ass under the jail. Yes, Why is
that motherfucker not in jail? Yes? Already? You know, And
I was I was reading them something about Susan Race.
I was reading something about Susan Rice the other day
because you know, he's called on her to be fired
from the board of Netflix, and you know, she's talking about. Oh,
(52:49):
you know, when we get back in power, they will
be you know, prosecuted, they'll be this, they'll be this,
they'll be this. No, you had the chance to do
that before and you didn't, and you did the reason
why we're here. Yes, so should I believe you should?
I believe you should. I believe you? Sweething now right now? Yeah,
(53:12):
that's what's happening. If this was happening from a Democrat,
Obama would have been under.
Speaker 2 (53:17):
They would have fried Obama like some chicken.
Speaker 1 (53:22):
Wait, are y'all still there? Because we are not done yet.
Head over to our brand new Outlaws Patreon for Outlaws
Still Recording. Think of it as the after party for
the Maddy Mob. I see y'all in the comments saying
you wish our episodes were longer.
Speaker 2 (53:39):
Well, I do too, and your wish is my command.
You know, I love my guests. I could talk to
them for hours, and trust me, we do so every week.
Tune in to Outlaws Still Recording to get extra fifteen
minutes with us. Now, where do you hear some of
the stuff that we get into when the mic is
still hot? Go to w W d W dot Patreon
(54:01):
dot com. Forward Slash Outlaws with TS Madison, That's www
dot Patreon dot com, Forward Slash Outlaws with Ts Madison,
Don't meet Me their bitch beat us There. Outlaws is
a production of the Outspoken Network from iHeart Podcasts and
Turtle Run Entertainment, co created by Tyler Rabinowitz and Olivia Peace.
(54:24):
I'm your host, Ts Madison. We are executive produced by
Tyler Rabinowitz and Ts Madison. Our supervising producer is Jessica
Krinchicch and our producers are Joeypat and Carmen Baron.
Speaker 1 (54:37):
Our video editor is Tyler Rabinowitz, and our sound editor
is just Crimechicch. Our associate producer is Trent high Tower.
Special things to our producer's assistant Daniel Rabinowiz. Our theme
song is composed by Wazi Murray. Our show art is
by Pablo Martine. Not catch you next Week, Honey,
Every time I open up my mouth up and goes out.
Don't wait two inches bed yourself.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
Get a job ricking, honey, rick hore.
Speaker 1 (00:16):
He chasing it all. I'm black like that about living.
It's color easy. This is Outlaws, butch is medicine. Honey,
(00:43):
is it more? I'm not telling everybody my business, that's right.
But we from the from the key we bought the
key I was a gay cruise. Oh my god? Is it?
Is it? One? Honey? Is this they recorded?
Speaker 2 (00:55):
Let me tell you something, right, I got a I
got a not a mint, but I got a cough
drop in him because I had some stuff in my
throat earlier.
Speaker 1 (01:06):
I got shooting my cough drop. But we are about
to have a good episode because.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
I have spoken about this in the universe and said
that I want to do these things.
Speaker 1 (01:26):
I want you all to know.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
That there's three billies. It's Billy Lord, Billy d Williams,
and Billy Porter. That's the only three billies I know
in this world.
Speaker 1 (01:41):
Ladies and gentlemen, Welcome into the Outlaws podcast. Honey. I
call Billy Porter the odd Billy beyond. I'm trying to
get better like but I'm not in my house. I
guess it's it's fine. We about we about the we
about to be about to do tea shade funny, all
(02:04):
the things.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
I have been sitting over here in my desk saying,
I want to get because you.
Speaker 1 (02:13):
Know, I call you the aunt. I don't give I
was like the ant, honey, the art. I call you
the aunt. I want to tell.
Speaker 2 (02:22):
You, Billy Porter, I have watched you. I've watched your
life from getting from straight.
Speaker 1 (02:35):
So you were around. Oh yeah, I watched everybody straight
all the way to the art. Okay, I've watched it
from but I was always I was always the art.
You will always be an always been. I was always artie.
I was just trying to make a living.
Speaker 2 (02:51):
No, no, no, see this is way you got to confuse.
There are aunties and you know she's giving up.
Speaker 1 (02:59):
But bitch, you the art. I received that, the art,
I take it. I receive it. I appreciate it. And
after this last fiasco, honey that's been going on, how
you've had You have snatched the internet's edges, bitch, and
(03:19):
you got it there. You gave that Mariah tribute, bitch
and that Whitney Houston elude. Bitch. I was like that
is definitely the art. And you know, I don't give
a fuck.
Speaker 2 (03:31):
I know, and I don't look, Billy, where are you from.
Speaker 1 (03:36):
I'm from Pittsburgh, originally Pittsburgh. I grew up in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
And uh, I grew up in the Pentecostal church, very
similar to you grew up in Pentecostal ring. I grew
up there. Boy, you know, it's all the same.
Speaker 2 (03:52):
And get the hoop in hollering and laying hands and
ship and all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 1 (03:56):
But I've been delivered from that ship and then turning
around and oppressing other groups of people. And yeah, yeah,
you know, we're We're very similar in that I learned
early on. And you know, my book is out. I
talk about it all the time. Unprotected is my memoir,
(04:20):
and I talk about how the violation of the sexual
abuse at the hands of my stepfather from the time
that I was seven to the time that I was
twelve was the best thing that ever happened to me.
(04:44):
And here's why, let me turn this. How do I
mute this? Because I just got a ding. I don't
know how to mute. I don't know how to whatever listen,
And so I say that because I was entrenched inside
(05:06):
of the cult that is religion, let's call it what
it is. And my specific space was the Church of
God in Christ, Oh, the kojing Dear God. I was
kojed and what I discovered from the time I was
(05:28):
twelve when I stopped the abuse right because I was
watching the news. It was nineteen eighty one, the AIDS
crisis had just started. I was sitting at a dinner table.
The news came on. They talked about a gay disease.
I went and looked up what gay or homosexual was
(05:51):
because I had a feeling, and I stopped it. And
then I went into a regressive state where I forgot
about it. And then at sixteen, I was doing shows
at an amusement park called Kennywood Park, and my stepfather
(06:13):
and my mother and my little sister who was seven
came to see me perform, and I remember he went
off with her to go on the little paddle boats
thing and it all came back like literally that moment
that day. And I say this because then I was
(06:42):
the center. I was the faggot, I was going to hell.
I was the center when I sat around and watched
all of these adults do nothing like what's happening right now. Yeah.
I triggered every fucking day by this government. And I'm
triggered every every day, every day, every single fucking day.
(07:04):
Yeah yeah, and nobody did anything about it. And the
blessing and the gift in that is that, at sixteen
years old, I understood I had to extract myself from
that trauma and those people to save myself, and I
(07:26):
did and I've never gone back.
Speaker 2 (07:31):
So you pursued a career in entertainment, when did you
really know that?
Speaker 1 (07:39):
You can? You can say I knew in fifth grade.
I sang in the church, and you know, everybody sings
in church. I'm sang in the church. You know, there
was a bit of a They understood that the way
I sang was special. They got it. But the only
(08:03):
thing they understood in that space when something is special
about you because of the bubble is little preacher man,
uh huh, right, And so they were putting that on me,
and I preached my first and last sermon around the
(08:23):
age of ten or eleven simultaneously, you know, because I
did it, and then I said to my mom, I
was like, no, it's not this. I don't like this
and then and she was great. She was like, I mean,
my mom was the greatest woman who ever walked the
fucking earth. But that in the sixth grade, I went
(08:47):
to Raisinstein Middle School and there were these after school programs.
And I always talk about me being the generation, the
real generation that benefited fifty six, born in sixty nine.
So I'm the generation that benefited from all of those
civil rights, progressive legislations that were in place for the
(09:11):
very short time that they were. I mean when I
say the three leaf binder of after school programs was
about this thing back in front pages, like nobody left school.
Everybody was engaged in some sort of thing, you know,
(09:34):
after school program and one of them was Riisenstein was
the name of the school, Riisenstein Musical Theater. I didn't
know what theater was, but I thought musical. Well, I'm
you know, I'm in the choir, I'm playing the saxophone.
Maybe I can sing in this. And I found out,
(09:55):
going back to when I really knew the bullying answered
that first question because I got off track. The bullying
was every day and it was incessant until the fifth grade.
And then there was a talent show and I signed
up for the talent show and I won, and then
(10:16):
the bullying stopped, and all of a sudden, I was
that dude that could sing leave him alone. So there
was something that made me understand that this had power.
Uh huh, pull my voice. My voice had power. So
when I got to the sixth grade, I knew, let
(10:37):
me get inquired. I was playing the saxophone. So then
I went to this after school program and they said,
we're gonna do a musical and told us what a
musical was, and then the next week, you're gonna come
back and sing a song, and then we're gonna cast you.
And the show was Babes and Arms Rogers at Heart's
(10:57):
Babes and Arms. And interestingly enough, fortuitously enough, that was
my birthday, and when I walked out, my grandmother and
my great aunt were waiting for me to take me
on a birthday adventure. That birthday adventure was me going
(11:19):
downtown with them, having dinner and then going to see
the national tour of The Whiz Ball You Can't Win,
And I sat, that's not in the original version, but yes,
that's from the movie, but yes, and it's also in
(11:44):
a revival. They put it in a revival because it's
a better song. Anyway, I digress because Quincy Jones wrote
that one and Michael Johnson wrote that one. Yeah. So anyway,
I sat there and I was like, oh my god,
(12:04):
this is a musical. Oh and it was black people. Yeah.
And at the end she sings Home, and I couldn't move.
I just couldn't Like. I was like, like my brother,
it took my breath away. And this was Stephanie Mills, right, No,
(12:27):
this was Lily's White. This was the tour. This was
the first national tour, okay, And so it was Lily's White,
who has now become one of my mentors and best friends.
And so I went to school the next day and
I said, I want to I saw this show called
the Whiz. I want to sing this song called Home.
(12:47):
My music teacher came back the next day with not
only the album but the sheet music for me. In
the following week, I went in and I sang Home.
And the role was every role was double cast because
(13:12):
there were like one hundred people there, and the cast
list went up and every single role was double cast
except for me. That was a cute. That was a clue.
It was like, why am I not double cast? Is
this the space? This is my space? So then there
(13:37):
was that we did the show. I had a great time.
I hadn't connected the dots that a you could really
do it for a living and you're like the wiz
was there, but like it didn't you know. And then
I saw dream Girls on television, which is a very
famous story of mine, and that Tony Awards came on
that summer. I was washing dishes and Girls came on,
(14:00):
and there was something about it being on television. Even
though it was theater, it was on television. And they
were doing that final fight scene going into and I'm
telling You, and it was Loretta Devine and it was
shehry Lee Ralph, and it was Debbie Burrell and it
(14:22):
was Ben Harney and ohbah Babatunde and Clevan Derreks and
Jennifer Holliday and she launched into and I'm telling You,
and it was like, oh, she's like like I sang,
And she's on television and they're beautiful and they're in
(14:42):
gowns and they're not in the hood and they're not
in the ghetto, and they're glamorous and they're maybe I
can do this, and that's what flipped it and changed
it from me forever and from then on there was
nothing else. And this is why, and this is why
we always tell people about representation, like how important representation
(15:03):
is because you know, you you you were able to
see even though you know.
Speaker 2 (15:09):
You knew you had talent, but you he's like, well
where does this go? And then you like, I can
do this, this is what I can do. I want
to know about your first break into mainstream.
Speaker 1 (15:31):
You know, I went to Carnegie Mellon University in the
drama department. And I'm gonna say that again. I went
to Carnegie Mellon in the drama department and studied classical theater,
studied classical theater. You know, there's a lot of there's
(15:55):
this idea that I just came out and I just,
you know, show up and be a faggot, and that's okay,
but people forget I'm actually a trained bitch. That's why
I'm still here. I'm a trained bitch, fully trained. And
(16:18):
then went to graduate school at UCLA in the screenwriting program.
So I graduated from I went to Carnegie Mellon and
in the second semester of my senior year. Because I
had been spending summers in New York, I had gone
(16:42):
through a series of auditions. I went to an open
call for a musical called Miss Sagon that was very
popular at the time, one of the big mega musicals
from the British Invasion. You had le Miss, you had Phantom,
you had Catch, you had Miss Sagone. It was in
that era, and I booked it. And so the second
(17:05):
semester of my senior year, I was given the opportunity
to have an internship essentially, I paid internship to go
to New York and be in the original cast of
Miss Sagon. So that was my big sort of first break.
I was in the ensemble. I was twenty one years old.
(17:28):
I did it for a year and my first string
of shows it was that, And then I went into
another show called five Guys Name Moe, which also had
come from London. Came Backintash the producer, and I understudied
(17:49):
three people in that show. And then I was cast
in the Broadway revival of Greece, playing playing the teen
Angel in Greece, and I was given carte blanche to
rearrange the song and I did it. You know, I
did this sort of gospel of you know, R and
B soul arrangement and which is I am wont to do?
(18:15):
But that was with Rosie O'donnald and the yet unknown
Megan Malali And it was me and a bunch of
you know, a bunch of really really really talented people.
And simultaneously I was working on getting a record contract.
And so between nineteen ninety when I got there and
(18:38):
ninety four, I was doing Broadway and trying to do
mainstream R and B. At the same time. I got
a record contract on A and M Records, and my
first album came out in ninety seven, Billy Porter, untitled
It's an R and B Album. And that's when you're
(18:59):
referring to me being straight, yeah, because you know, and
I was never hiding it just it just you just
didn't have to tell, you know, I just wasn't, you know,
And that was what you did. And it was nineties
R and B. And if you go back, I have
(19:20):
two music videos. You can go and look at them online.
I've seen them. They're very straight. I'm actor. If you
didn't know, you wouldn't know, right. I could act straight.
I can act straight. You know. My first show me
(19:40):
the remake of Glenn Jones's showed me you know, the woman,
and that I was my best friend Benita from college,
you know. And so it was it was at an
interesting time because I I I sacrificed my authenticity because
(20:04):
I thought that that was what would bring me the
success that I wanted. That's what I was told that.
Speaker 2 (20:16):
Yeah, I think I think that that's what most of
us square people are told, like you have to dilute
yourself in order to be successful, especially from that Yeah, especially.
Speaker 1 (20:29):
From that time.
Speaker 2 (20:31):
You're like, girl, well you know you want to be
spit you we saw rich and famous people on TV.
Speaker 1 (20:37):
I want to be rich and famous. So if I
got to say I saw a dick at night after
twelve before six, I'll do that and then I'll just
do my I'll do my job. My job is here
and that's what I do. So I understand it. And
what I think people get that kind of shit confused
with like d L or download. It's like, no, I
(20:58):
gotta work, I gotta eat. I gotta eat, and you're
telling me that, you know, I gotta keep that ship
quiet or you ain't gonna feed me. And this is
the way I want to eat.
Speaker 2 (21:09):
Yes, but let's fast forward now to how you have
become and you are.
Speaker 1 (21:16):
That's why I said the like, we see you, bitch,
we see you.
Speaker 2 (21:20):
We see you on the coffee, we see you know,
we see you, we see you in the places, we
see you making a standard you like. And I want
to say I understood all the conversation around. The answer
is no and whatever that means, whatever that means, thank you, Yes,
(21:41):
yes and whatever that means. So that meant no, we
ain't fucking with y'all. No, we're not gonna lay down.
Speaker 1 (21:50):
No, because what I what I received from that is
I already done been through this. Yeah, we did this already.
We did this already. I'm fifty six years old. We
did this already. Y'all can kiss my ass. It's a
pink part, Yeah, a pink park in Macy's window during
(22:10):
the Thanksgiving Day parade. Y'all can kiss my ass. It's like,
I'm not doing this. We're not doing this no more.
We're not saying to be repeating this, We're not sing
to be going through this. I already have been through this. Ship.
The answer is no. I understood that. I know you do.
I follow you I love you. I love love you too.
I love I've been waiting for this call, by the way,
(22:34):
I've been waiting to do this because I knew I
knew that we would we could sit up and key,
especially about just the things like that I wanted to
I'm I'm doing seriously, but I want to go back
a little bit.
Speaker 2 (22:47):
Just that bitch, when you got a damn you both
for a terrorized that warming about buck car.
Speaker 1 (22:53):
I'm like, I'm like, tee now that you put a
goddamn in there to make sure because bitch, I want
to be as confident because you was. How's that? Okay?
All right, let me explain. Let me explain. There's a
whole backstory, right, huh. I don't know if you know this, Okay,
(23:18):
But I had sepsis in August, Yes I did. I
did know that, Yes, And sitting in the hospital for
a month and then recovery for the following up till now.
I'm still recovering. Yes, I've had a lot of time
(23:38):
to self reflect. I smashed a glass ceiling that was
never supposed to be smashed, right. I transcended with kinky boots, poles,
fashion and all of the things that I've been blessed
with I've transcended something and and I've become I've vibrated
(24:04):
in this a list space and during the strikes, and
you know, the very and I ascended because of my
truthfulness and my authenticity. So as we know, in this
business that goes up and down, the very the very
thing that lifts us up is the very thing that
(24:31):
they used to turn on us and drag us down. Yes,
so it's you know, this is not a woe is me,
this is not a victim anything. These are just the facts.
So during the strikes, I was very quiet because I
(24:55):
was so enraged, and I understood that sometimes rage isn't useful.
So I was trying to like just be present, listen
and figure out if I ever needed to speak on it. Right,
(25:15):
And I'm the person who I you know, I'm like,
don't ask me questions. You don't want the answers to
right And as my publicist, which we had a conversation later,
you're supposed to vet the questions, right cause you know
who I am. Right, So if I'm not supposed to
be talking about something, your ass needs to be in
(25:36):
there making sure that I'm not being asked the question
I'm not gonna limit myself when I'm in a moment,
I'm not and you know that. So and this what
you know, what was interesting was that I had Black
Mona Lisa had come out, my most recent album. I
(25:58):
was in London. I was I want to interview for
the Guardian and it was supposed to be twenty minutes.
And this journalist is lovely journalists. We just started talking.
An hour and a half later we finished, and we
had talked about everything, and I felt so good because
(26:20):
sometimes I feel like I'm relegated to this clown space,
you know, because I dare to wear a dress on
the red carpet, and so it's often that people just
kind of push me into like oh, he's just a clown, right.
(26:42):
There's always intention behind everything I do. Everything you see
me do is planned and intentional. And so when I
finished this Guardian interview, the sixty plus year old Scottish
you know, a man, you know press guy from my label,
(27:02):
was in tears and he said, and I was like,
what's the matter. He's like, I just have never met
anybody like you. I've never worked with anybody like you.
The way you can articulate trauma and articulate love, and
(27:22):
how the two can come together is very, very very powerful.
There aren't a lot of people that can just tell
the truth the way you do. You tell it with care,
you tell it with love, you tell it you know consciously.
(27:43):
So two months later, this article comes out and I'm
in pe Town and I'm by myself because I'm in
the middle of a divorce now, so I just took
some time and I'm walking down the street and all
of a sudden, people are like running out of cafe's
screaming from the street. You're a fucking hero, Billy Porter.
(28:05):
You're a hero. Thank you. And I'm like, oh god,
what happened. You're like, You're like, what you did? What happened?
What not? So I go on my phone and the
(28:26):
headline is Billy Porter says fuck bar biker Billy calls
Anna Wintour a bit and I'm like, did this did
this journalist bitch throw me under the bus? And so
I go to the article and she said everything verbatim
(28:52):
that I had spoken about. So let me dissect that
for you. She asked me about the strike, She asked
me why I told her. I didn't you know? She said, well,
what are you fighting for? What are y'all fighting for?
And I said, I'm so glad I get to like
talk about this in full. And I said to her, well,
(29:14):
there are freelance. Artists are artists. As artists, we're free lance,
and that means that every time a job ends, we
got to get a new one. And there are five
tiers of how we get paid. The first tier is
hand to mouth, the second tier is check to check,
(29:38):
the third tier is I'm doing all right, The fourth
tier is set for life, and the fifth tier is
fuck you money. Now you know, point zero zero zero
zero one percent of you know us make the fucking money.
(29:58):
But the tier that we're fighting four is the set
for life. And that comes with the residual package that
has been in place for network television and film and
TV for decades. And the last negotiation we had, the
streaming services were introduced, and the studio said, oh, we
(30:21):
don't really know what this is, so let's revisit this
the next time. Fast forward for eight years whatever it was,
they're making hand over fist and bragging about it, and
we're not getting our compensation in the way that we should.
So that's what we're fighting for. And I said, so
(30:43):
somebody like a Bob Iger who called up his god
on his billion dollar plane with his billion dollar buddies
to that billion dollar conference, called a camera crew to
(31:05):
tell the world who already thinks that we as artists
are whiners and complainers, and told the world that our
demand for his living wage is unrealistic when he's making
seventy eight thousand dollars a day and I'm getting and
(31:27):
we're getting six cent checks. I'm talking in extremes. I
was talking in extremes. Yes, but some of those girls
from Orange is the New Black, we're getting six cent checks. Yeah, yeah,
while while he's making seventy eight thousand dollars a day
and we're getting six cent checks. Fuck that and fuck him.
(31:53):
There's context to the reason why I said that. I
wasn't talking about him specifically. He just happened to be
the person that did what he did in that space
and time about all of them. Yeah, I'm talking about
all of it. I'm talking about the predatory culture of
(32:14):
billionaires of these companies. I'm talking about the whole thing,
you know. So that came out right and it was
like no context once again, because we're gonna circle back
to Nicki Minaj, but no context, just accolled. And then
we were also talking about and for the last time,
(32:36):
we were talking about the Harry Styles Vogue cover and
my response to that and which was which for me
was just I was being flippant and sassy. I didn't care.
I have my own covers. I was the first gay
man on the cover of Essence. I was the first
(32:57):
man on the cover of a lore. I go, there
was no but I said, oh, he's white and straight.
Of course he got it like with no, and they
turned that into a headline an attack on this poor boy.
For years, I was like, it's not about that. It's
(33:20):
about the erasure of our culture systemically. It's about that.
It's not about him. He just happens to be the
person that's in the space right now. But what I
said was what people don't know is that I sat
on the dais with Anna Wintour months before at the
(33:45):
Condonast summit, and at the end of talking for like
forty five minutes, she said to me, so, how can
we do better? I was I was so taken off
guard because it's not a question that I ever thought,
(34:06):
you know, what I mean, Like, I just and I
didn't say what I should have said, which is, use
the power of being the leader in the fashion industry
and support the people, not just me, the people who
are the leaders of this degendering of fashion moment. That's
(34:27):
what I should have said. Yeah, right, I don't know
what I said. But when the when the So I
was telling the journalist about this, and I said, is
she asked me a question and I just blanked and
she said, what does she say? And I was like
that bitch said blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.
So y'all know that the queer vernacular uses bitch as
(34:52):
a term of endearment, right, and you motherfuckers pulled a
SoundBite out and said that I actually called her a bitch.
This is what I'm talking about. It's like, there's no context.
So getting back to NICKI madage, Right, I took a
(35:17):
step back.
Speaker 3 (35:20):
I if I'm being honest, Right, there's that unspoken and
I'm sure you've experienced this too.
Speaker 1 (35:35):
This unspoken like you sail you in trouble now, but
nobody's gonna actually say it. But all of a sudden,
the work has dried up and there ain't no work
any you know, like, hmmm, what's happening? Right? So I
(36:01):
took some time and I was like, I'm gonna be
like Janet, I'm gonna take some time off, let people
miss me, and then come back with the vengeance. I
need time anyway. It's been five years of just non stock.
Let me take some time. I'm cool with that. I'll
be quiet. I will tone it down right. So you
(36:26):
fast forward to all of a sudden, you know, I'm
in Cabaret last year in London, playing the MC, making
my West End debut, first black MC, first black Sally
(36:46):
Balls in the sixty year history of this show that's
about Nazi Germany. We were there too, so we're making history.
I'm having a ball and it feels like resistance because
it's about I go to the Nazis every night telling
this story. I'm in the middle of my purpose. Yeah,
my art is my resistance. Right. I get a urinary infection.
(37:10):
The medicine in the UK is trash. They don't you know.
Four rounds of antibiotics and ten to twelve weeks later
it's a kidney infection with kidney stones. Fast forward to
you know they get They finally give me medicine. It
seems to go away. I direct to play in London.
I come home, I go into I go on vacation,
(37:32):
I go into rehearsals for for Cabaret on Broadway. I
go into the show and everything seems fine. And a
month in, the kidney stone pain comes back. It's a
Friday of my fourth week. I'm supposed to do three months.
Maricha Ballace and I are closing the show. By Tuesday,
(37:52):
I checked myself into the hospital because I'm in so
much pain, and by and I woke up on Saturday morning.
I'm sorry. I checked myself in on Tuesday night, and
I woke up on Saturday night. They went in to
(38:13):
do a routine check. They saw that the kidney stone
was trapped in my urethra. Oh, and they went in
to do a routine put a stint in, redirect the urine,
blast me with real antibiotics, not UK antibiotics, not that
(38:33):
weak shit. Then go in through my penis and blow
up the kidney stones. When they got in there, there
was so much puss and bile and infection behind the stone.
It bubbled up and I went eurosceptic in minutes I
(38:55):
was on the echmo machine. I was dead for three days.
I am a miracle. I'm a walking miracle. And when
(39:20):
I woke up, they told me my leg had gone
into compartment syndrome, which is when the muscles closed in
on themselves and cut off the oxygen. So they had
to cut me open on either side of my leg
while I was in a corner, and from my knee
to my hip and leave it open for two days
so they could save my leg. I am so grateful
(39:51):
to be here. It is such a gift. And as
I sat in my hospital bed reflecting, there were a
couple of things I heard. The first thing I heard
was work smarter, not harder. The second thing I heard
was be obedient and answer the call. And the third
(40:16):
thing I heard was don't you ever stop telling the
truth again? Eye unconsciously silenced myself for fear that I
(40:42):
wouldn't be on the A list anymore. For fear and
I'm talking about my own ego now, for fear that
I would have to ride coach again. Let's fucking tell
the truth. For fear that I wouldn't be able to
have the luxuries, the bullshit luxuries, you know, I mean,
(41:10):
I've experienced what the what the billionaires experience. You know,
I get driven to the tar, I get driven to
the plane on the tar back it's fabulous. Yeah, yeah,
you know what I mean. It's like and I didn't realize.
And that's just one example, but like I didn't realize. Uh,
(41:32):
my ego, my ego. So let me re structure, let
me go back to my truth. Let me go back
to the truth. So my first time back, and I
know this is a long way around to get to
Oh no, listen, I'm I'm here. This is a long
(41:55):
way around to get the Nicki Minaj. But I've been
watching everything that's going on right now, and anytime the
wind blows politically in these spaces, we and our community
are always affected, no matter where we are socioeconomically, no
matter what we're doing. We had COVID, we had two strikes.
(42:20):
I had a divorce where that man got everything I
ever worked for. My mother died two years ago this month,
and then sepsis. So when I got on that carpet,
(42:40):
I knew that all I could do was tell the truth.
I was not expecting the Nicki Minaj's question, and what
I will say about that really amazing journalist is that
she's amazing because she did her homework and she understood
(43:01):
that I don't respond to dumb questions. I don't respond
to clickbait. I don't respond to the Internet. I don't respond.
I do not now, nor will I ever adjudicate my
life in sound bites on social media. My adjudicate my
life for humanity and sound bites on social media's I'm
(43:21):
too old for that. I just don't. It's just just
not my thing. So the first thing she asked me,
and I don't know if you've heard this, but I
posted it on my page because I needed everybody to
know once again, there's always contexts when I go off,
there's always context behind it, Okay. And so she said
(43:43):
to me, do you think it was for the Grammys
the Black Music Coalition on Brand honoring Brandy Farrell and
Kirk Franklin. So she said, can you very smartly, she said,
can you do you think you can separate the music
(44:05):
from the activism? And I said, for me, no, And
I spoke about it for at least a minute, maybe
a minute and a half. I pontificated, I waxed poetic,
I did all the things about why I can't right,
And then this bitch went in for the kill because
(44:28):
she knew and she said, well, you know, speaking of
so and so and such and such, Nicki Minaj has
been tricked and she couldn't get it out first. And
I was triggered. Yes, I was triggered, and I just
you know, and that's the truth. That's the truth, all
(44:51):
of these people who are capitulating to whatever this is.
I was watching our Vice President Harris on Stephen Colbert
and she said, I predicted all of this, but what
I couldn't have predicted is the capitulation. So I have
(45:14):
nothing left for that. And that's where it came from.
It's like, I'm not a sound bite guy. I didn't
do that to have a sound bite. I didn't do
that to go viral. That was real. That was a
real response to what is going on on this planet.
And if you listen to it, it started with her
(45:35):
and expanded to the whole thing. In thirty seconds. I
spoke to everything that's going on in this planet in
about thirty seconds. The answer is no. The answer is no, no.
Whatever that means. Our ancestors already died for this. Yeah,
(45:55):
they already did They already did. Yeah, And that's the
issue right now, what are we ready? What are we
willing to sacrifice? Because they sacrifice their lives and we
have too many comforts. Now. Well, I think that I'm
so glad that you spoke to that, because I think
(46:15):
that the wake up call is truly coming. It's already here.
Speaker 2 (46:22):
But the wake up call is we only heard about
what our ancestors went through. We've only read about it.
We've only seen movies about it. We haven't experienced. It's
so experiencing it.
Speaker 1 (46:34):
Will make you appreciate where you were, the things that
they fought for. You know that we didn't have to.
We didn't have to. Like I only heard my grandfather say, well,
they couldn't drink from a water fountain, right, or they
had to come in through the backside, or you know
what I'm saying.
Speaker 2 (46:50):
I know what I've experienced, you know from you know,
but you know the things that I've heard.
Speaker 1 (46:56):
Them tell us. It's just like, because my grandfather died like.
Speaker 2 (46:58):
Eighty eight eighty, he lived you know, yeah, I mean
not the eighties, but he died at eighty eight eighties.
Speaker 1 (47:06):
He lived through that. To see these things happen to
see the Tartans change and we're yeah, and we're square one. Yeah,
I'm just supposed to be silent about it. Yeah yeah.
And it's like I'm looking at the playbook of the
way that you get a marginalized group. You make an
(47:27):
enemy number one, you make everybody hate that. You come,
you pool everybody together, they hate that. And while everybody's
hating that, you're working silently behind the scenes to strip
everything from all those other people that don't look like
the head niggas in charge. And then you know, everybody's
still focused on that group or whatever.
Speaker 2 (47:46):
Because it makes my stomach boil when I hear people say, well,
I disagree with this stuff, with Trump, with this, but
that right there, I can understand.
Speaker 1 (47:56):
No, no, you can't none of that shit. You can understand.
You can't see No, you can't see a loophole and
none of that shit. You can't give it. No, fuck
that and fuck all of them. Fuck yeah, yeah, you
can't give any leadway to any of that shit. Nope.
Speaker 2 (48:18):
Now it is dangerous. It is it's dangerous because what
they're telling you is, well, yeah, none of those people
are really human, and it's okay if we eradicate that
that set because if we do that, then things will
get better.
Speaker 1 (48:37):
And it's always moving the gold posts, moving it, yeah,
moving it all the time. And when I sit on
this show, and yeah, I talk shit and joke and
say all kind of craziness or whatever, because it's first
I have fun, of course, But when I'm talking about
you have to have joy. We still have to have
joy when I'm talking about shit, Like, you can't tell
(48:59):
me that the first thing that you come in office
to and you and you you are concerned about gender
and and stuff like this, Like none of those people
are concerned about women, honey, those people that fucking that
fucking man ain't up there concerned about no goddamn genders.
He's not. No, it's too feed into the to the fears,
(49:20):
into the and and and to the to the hate
and to the things.
Speaker 2 (49:24):
That will get people riled up to be like yeah, yeah,
I can. I can get with that, like grifting mm hmm.
Speaker 1 (49:31):
And here's and here's one of the things, you know,
because I write, and I write myself out of you know,
I try to write myself out and I'm getting ready
to join substack because I feel like you've heard a substack, right,
No tell me. Substack is a new uh social media
platform that I call the maturing of social media. And
(49:53):
you can like write long form it's not sound bites.
You can do podcasts, you can do newsletters, you can
you know, post videos like it's a it's where Don
Lemon is now? Oh yeah, okay, okay. Don Lemon went
from CNN to suss Joy read went from MSNBC to
(50:15):
Subject And it's not toxic and corrupted yet. And so
I really feel that I can, right, and so I
can really get on there and you know, do my
James Baldwin essay, my James Baught when like essay stuff,
how bless true. It's everybody, it's everybody. It's it's everybody.
There's a lot of different people on there. It's a
(50:37):
lot of different races, genders, like everybody is on there,
and it's still small enough to not, like I said,
be toxic. But one of the things that keeps coming
up from me spiritually and emotionally and historically is this
(50:58):
the new knowledge that so much of our democracy is
built on tradition and somebody's moral fortitude. So the peaceful
(51:19):
transfer of power is not a rule it's not a law.
The peaceful of transfer of power is not a law.
So all somebody has to do is say no. Why
wasn't Roe v. Wade codified for fifty years? I didn't
even know what that fucking word meant. What are y'all doing?
Speaker 2 (51:43):
Right?
Speaker 1 (51:44):
What are y'all doing? If it only took ten years
for that man and his cronies to simply just say no,
all they did is say no for ten years, and
(52:04):
we are this, then what was the ship in the
first place? Right? What was it in the first place? Right?
Because it's that easy to dismantle, then what the fuck
was it in the yah? Because it's definitely that's all
it is. Like, No, I'm not doing that. That's all
they're doing. That's what they're doing. No, I'm not doing that,
that's all they're doing. Yeah, I don't answer a subpoena.
(52:27):
They throw my ass under the jail. Yes, Why is
that motherfucker not in jail? Yes? Already? You know, And
I was I was reading them something about Susan Race.
I was reading something about Susan Rice the other day
because you know, he's called on her to be fired
from the board of Netflix, and you know, she's talking about. Oh,
(52:49):
you know, when we get back in power, they will
be you know, prosecuted, they'll be this, they'll be this,
they'll be this. No, you had the chance to do
that before and you didn't, and you did the reason
why we're here. Yes, so should I believe you should?
I believe you should. I believe you? Sweething now right now? Yeah,
(53:12):
that's what's happening. If this was happening from a Democrat,
Obama would have been under.
Speaker 2 (53:17):
They would have fried Obama like some chicken.
Speaker 1 (53:22):
Wait, are y'all still there? Because we are not done yet.
Head over to our brand new Outlaws Patreon for Outlaws
Still Recording. Think of it as the after party for
the Maddy Mob. I see y'all in the comments saying
you wish our episodes were longer.
Speaker 2 (53:39):
Well, I do too, and your wish is my command.
You know, I love my guests. I could talk to
them for hours, and trust me, we do so every week.
Tune in to Outlaws Still Recording to get extra fifteen
minutes with us. Now, where do you hear some of
the stuff that we get into when the mic is
still hot? Go to w W d W dot Patreon
(54:01):
dot com. Forward Slash Outlaws with TS Madison, That's www
dot Patreon dot com, Forward Slash Outlaws with Ts Madison,
Don't meet Me their bitch beat us There. Outlaws is
a production of the Outspoken Network from iHeart Podcasts and
Turtle Run Entertainment, co created by Tyler Rabinowitz and Olivia Peace.
(54:24):
I'm your host, Ts Madison. We are executive produced by
Tyler Rabinowitz and Ts Madison. Our supervising producer is Jessica
Krinchicch and our producers are Joeypat and Carmen Baron.
Speaker 1 (54:37):
Our video editor is Tyler Rabinowitz, and our sound editor
is just Crimechicch. Our associate producer is Trent high Tower.
Special things to our producer's assistant Daniel Rabinowiz. Our theme
song is composed by Wazi Murray. Our show art is
by Pablo Martine. Not catch you next Week, Honey,
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Kingdom of Fraud
It’s the unlikeliest of criminal partnerships: a devout polygamist from an insular Utah sect joining forces with a shadowy Armenian tycoon from LA. The result - a billion dollar fraud conspiracy. In Kingdom of Fraud, investigative reporter Michele McPhee traces the origins of the extraordinary alliance between Jacob Kingston and Levon Termendzhyan. Together, the two men trigger the largest tax investigation in American history and weave around themselves a web of dirty cops, influential political relationships and transnational money laundering. All this is set against the backdrop of Jacob Kingston’s clan – The Order. A powerful and secretive polygamist organization in Salt Lake City. To whom Jacob is desperate to prove his worth. Kingdom of Fraud is produced by Novel for iHeart Podcasts. For more from Novel, visit https://novel.audio/. You can listen to new episodes of Kingdom of Fraud completely ad-free and 1 week early with an iHeart True Crime+ subscription, available exclusively on Apple Podcasts. Open your Apple Podcasts app, search for “iHeart True Crime+, and subscribe today!