A biography for Billy Porterhasn’t been written yet.
“I wouldn't be caught dead in red.”
“I'm trying to embrace social media because it gives artists a little more power than we've had in the past.”
“I've always been passionate about fashion.”
“When you grow up in the church, the only translation in that insular world that people understand is preaching. You're supposed to be a minister. So I was going down that path, and then I saw the Tonys.”
“I always said if I played a drag queen, I'd want to create a template with the realness they talk about in 'Paris Is Burning.'”
“We need to understand that whatever we do, we're all human beings first.”
“When I had a record deal in the '90s, that was my dream - to make an album like Barbra Streisand's Broadway album - and they laughed me out of the room. Broadway wasn't cool. But artists like Michael Buble and Josh Groban have brought the classic genre back to the forefront, so I'm trying to find my way inside that market.”
“Just by the nature of making the choice to be true to who I am, I'm political. Sometimes that's all you need to do: Show up and be black, gay and Christian in America and actually say it out loud. And refuse to let anything or anybody take that away from you.”
“I had something nobody else could do - I sang in a way that separated me - and, when you're trying to get noticed, you play your trump card.”
“There's this misconception that I've been turning down roles. It's just not true. The reality is, there was nothing for me to do, nobody was calling, the phone wasn't ringing.”
“There was a time in the '90s where, as an African-American man, you had to be a misogynistic R&B star or a rapper, and I didn't fit into either one of those. I was advised by my label to remain closeted at that time.”
“I took 'Grease' to play my trump card, my voice, and get attention that would lead to auditions for serious work like 'Angels in America.' But I backed myself into a corner with 'Grease,' and it took me 17 years to get out.”
“I don't in any way disparage any time I've had in the trenches because it really has made me the artist I am today.”
“Just because you're working does not mean you're making money. That's two very different things in show business.”
“Seeing Jennifer Holliday from 'Dreamgirls' perform on the Tony Awards telecast and later discovering Barbra Streisand by listening to her albums at the Carnegie Library in Pittsburgh really changed everything for me.”
“I just feel like we as a human race tend to fear that which we don't understand. It's cause for a lot of bad things and bad behavior to exist on the planet. Artists have a way of touching people and changing minds in a way that sometimes other mediums don't.”
“If you gauge how you're doing on whether somebody is responding vocally or not, you're up a creek. You can't do that; you kind of have to be inside of your work and play the scene. And tell the story every day. Tell the story. Tell the story. Regardless of how people are responding, I'm going to tell the story.”
“All you need to do is turn on the news, and in five minutes, you're depressed with the state of the world. Choosing joy is a completely active choice. It doesn't just happen. You can't just say, 'I want to be happy.' You have to take action.”