“Pose” actor Billy Porter broke necks and the internet when he stepped onto the Oscars red carpet Sunday night in the first-ever tuxedo gown!
But the Tony award-winning stage performer, actor,
“People are going to be really uncomfortable with my black ass in a ball gown, but it’s not anybody’s business but mine.”
While Porter did receive much praise for his velvet custom tuxedo made by Christian Siriano, there was fierce outrage from many who criticized the Oscars for having an African American in a dress host the red carpet. However, the conversation of black masculinity is exactly what Porter hoped to raise.
“I was ready to create the conversation,” Porter told The Associated Press in a phone interview Monday the day after the Oscars. “We have to teach people how to treat us, we have to teach people how to love us, we have to teach people how to respect us, and the only way we do that is to respect ourselves.”
Porter addressed the origin of black masculinity and how toxic it can be.
“It goes all the way back to the earliest of emasculations, which is slavery, so the only way to sort of overcome that is to be the strongest and the most masculine and the most powerful and now, what has become toxic,” Porter said. “And I don’t think it’s just black people. I think it’s men in general. Every ethnicity has their version of it.”
Porter couldn’t care less about negative comments.
“The comments are not my business. What people think about what I’m doing is not my business. I lived that already,” he said. “I’m inside of my authenticity and the whole point is that you have to respect me as much as I respect you. If you don’t like it, go somewhere else. You don’t have to look. It’s not about you. I don’t understand why my putting on a dress causes this much strife in your life.”
Porter’s stylist Sam Ratelle said he began working with the “Pose” breakout star about a year ago.
“He said, ‘I want to be a piece of walking art,’ and we just went from there,” Ratelle said. “It’s been really awesome to work with a bunch of great designers. Randi Rahm was certainly completely open. Issey Miyake was fantastic for the Radio City show (Porter
was study in white). Christian Siriano, the fact that he did this custom gown in one week, was incredible after saying, ‘Absolutely. There’s no question we’ll do this.’ Michael Kors has been the most gracious human. So has Tom Ford.”
Meanwhile, Porter says he is just getting started in terms of pushing along the conversation.
“People are actually listening,” he said. “I hope it opens up a dialogue of healing. I will always continue to do me. If there’s anything I’ve learned in the 49 years that I’ve lived on this planet, is that being authentic is the only version of the story that anybody should be.”
Press play below for more on this story.
