#Billy Porter Opens Outfest with Impassioned Speech: ‘F*** SCOTUS!’
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“Billy Porter Opens Outfest with Impassioned Speech: ‘F*** SCOTUS!'”
“F*** SCOTUS!” Porter proudly declared during his acceptance speech for the festival’s highest honor, the 2022 Outfest Annual Achievement Award. The impassioned speech comes following the Supreme Court’s recent decision to overturn Roe v. Wade and amid fears the court will revisit other rulings—such as those legalizing same-sex marriage and consensual sex between same-sex couples. “We worked too hard for our progress and we ain’t going back,” Porter continued, calling out Republicans who have only recently come forward against former President Trump regarding the Capitol insurrection on January 6, 2021.
“None of you Republicans who are coming forward in these hearings right now are heroes. You agreed with everything he [Trump] did until January 6, until his cult followers came for y’all. You are not heroes. F-ck y’all too.”
“Our 24-hour news cycle has forgotten to illuminate that the reason the pushback [from the right] is so severe in this moment is because the change has already happened. We’re already here. Look at me, look at this movie, look at y’all!” Porter continued, referencing Anything’s Possible, his directorial debut unveiled at this year’s Outfest. “A celebration of trans joy centered on a Black empowered transgender high school senior who has the cutest Arab Muslim boyfriend and has the audacity to demand respect for her humanity.”
“There was a void and it was time that that void be filled” Porter Reflects on Rough Rise to Stardom
Though Billy Porter quickly became a household name after his breakout on Pose in 2018, his path to stardom was a particularly rough one. He recounted the years leading up to his big break in an emotional speech before his soapbox moment.
“I quickly realized that [neither] the industry nor the world was ready for all this Black boy joy. I can count on one hand the number of auditions I had in the almost three years that I lived here,” he recalled of his time living in Los Angeles. “My pigeonhole was quite severe. If the description of the character didn’t begin with ‘flamboyantly…’ I was not considered. And then after the audition I would consistently hear feedback that I was too flamboyant and the role would be given to a straight actor.”
Porter went on to describe the loneliness of a pre-internet era and being shut out of the growing market for queer narratives. “There was no internet. There was no social media telling me that I have my own voice. As a matter of fact, the message I received from the world was exactly the opposite: ‘Shut up, you Black f****t, nobody wants to hear from you. Nobody cares.’ And even as the stories in the market were expanding and queer narratives were beginning to emerge, they were always pretty much from the white male perspective… There was a void and it was time that void be fulled. And I challenged myself to dare to fill it.”
Though the next few years were rough for Porter—in 2007, he was diagnosed HIV positive, Type 2 diabetic, and was filing for bankruptcy—he chose to persevere and continue to fill that void. Porter went on to win a Tony in 2013 for his role in Kinky Boots, a Grammy in 2014 for the show’s cast album, and an Emmy for his role in FX’s Pose in 2018.
“So the Tony came, the Grammy came, the Emmy came. And now this, here, at the opening of my directorial debut, anything is truly possible.”
Starring newcomers Eva Reign and Abubakr Ali, Anything’s Possible debuts on Prime Video on July 22.
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