Speaking at the New Yorker Festival in
New York City, out actor Billy Porter said that being gay sidelined
his music career in the 1980s.
Porter is best known for playing Pray
Tell on the FX drama Pose.
He told Saturday's audience that
despite an early deal with A&M Records, his sexuality hurt his
pop music career, Deadline reported.
The music industry was “hugely,
violently homophobic,” he
said. “It was just never about the music. It was about trying
to fix myself so other people would feel comfortable around me.”
Porter said that for 13 years he was
homeless and had no health insurance. In 2011, he landed the part of
Belize in the Broadway revival of Angels in America. Two years
later, he won a Tony playing Lola in Kinky Boots.
Porter added that his role on Pose
was “the calling” in his life.