Speaker 1: Hey, guys, welcome to I've never said this before with me,
Speaker 1: Tommy di Dario. Today's guest is someone who I am
Speaker 1: so grateful to call a dear friend. He is iconic.
Speaker 1: He is a legend. He is the moment of all moments.
Speaker 1: He is Billy Porter. Billy is as incredible of a
Speaker 1: human being as he is an artist. He is an Emmy,
Speaker 1: Tony and Grammy Award winning actor, singer, director, composer, and playwright.
Speaker 1: And if you were doing your calculations, then yes, he
Speaker 1: is one letter short of being one of the very
Speaker 1: very few artists to reach the elite status of being
Speaker 1: an Egot winner. He just needs that over Oscar Baby,
Speaker 1: and I have no doubt that is coming down the
Speaker 1: line now. Billy has an incredible body of work, But
Speaker 1: oh man, my favorite role it's gotta be his portrayal
Speaker 1: of Prey Tell in the FX breakthrough series Pose. It's
Speaker 1: a drama spotlighting the legends, the icons, and the ferocious
Speaker 1: house mothers of New York's underground bulk, which is a
Speaker 1: movement that first gain notice in the late nineteen eighties.
Speaker 1: His performance it will leave you breathless. It is just brilliant.
Speaker 1: I also quite often listen to him on the soundtrack
Speaker 1: to the smash hit Broadway musical Kinky Boots, for which
Speaker 1: he won the Tony among many other accolades. For his
Speaker 1: portrayal of I Lola. I love When that comes on
Speaker 1: at the gym, I jam out, Yes I do. In
Speaker 1: twenty twenty one, he penned his first literary project called Unprotected.
Speaker 1: It's a very powerful memoir about race and sexuality, art
Speaker 1: and healing. But today today is all about his exploding
Speaker 1: pop star career.
Speaker 2: Yes it is.
Speaker 1: His album The Black Mona Lisa is due out this fall,
Speaker 1: and Billy has quite a lot to say. He has
Speaker 1: been achieving some of his wildest dreams right now, at
Speaker 1: this very very moment of his life. And that is
Speaker 1: one of the things that I love most about Billy.
Speaker 1: He shows you that it's never too late for you
Speaker 1: to have your own second act in life. So let's
Speaker 1: see if today we can get Billy to say something
Speaker 1: that he's never said before.
Speaker 2: Billy Porter, how are you, my friend?
Speaker 3: I'm good? How are you?
Speaker 2: I am so good?
Speaker 1: The last time I saw you, I brought you on
Speaker 1: to the Rachel Ray Shiow For everyone listening, I've been
Speaker 1: a correspondent on the show for five years, and we
Speaker 1: drank red wine, and I feel like we both got
Speaker 1: a little tipsy because we don't usually drink red wine.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we got a little bit tipsy.
Speaker 1: Got a little tipsy on National Time. That's right, that's right. Well,
Speaker 1: it's good, that's right. We had a good time. It's
Speaker 1: so good to see you. I feel like I'm meeting
Speaker 1: you again for the first time because I am talking
Speaker 1: now to the international pop star known as Billy Porter.
Speaker 1: This is your return to music this year, and here
Speaker 1: you are.
Speaker 3: Yes, I am. It's been.
Speaker 4: A really wonderful journey. My first R and B album, Mainstream,
Speaker 4: came out nineteen ninety seven. It was called untitled on
Speaker 4: an A and M record, wonderful album. I'm very proud
Speaker 4: of it, and the business was very homophobic at the time,
Speaker 4: and so they didn't really know what to do with me.
Speaker 3: There wasn't really a place for me, you know.
Speaker 4: They were really trying to shove me into the traditional
Speaker 4: R and B crooner slot, which I can do, but
Speaker 4: it doesn't really have anything to do with me really
Speaker 4: like my real art. So it's been wonderful to go
Speaker 4: away from that and expand on so many different creative
Speaker 4: levels and then be able to come back to this
Speaker 4: space on.
Speaker 3: My own terms.
Speaker 1: Well, and I know this was a very personal tour
Speaker 1: for you. Like you mentioned, it took a long time
Speaker 1: for you to be able to arrive to this point
Speaker 1: in your life and be who you are. Is that
Speaker 1: something that you felt throughout the duration of the tour
Speaker 1: you were on?
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know the Black Mona Lisa Tour Volume one
Speaker 3: I went.
Speaker 4: I did twenty five cities in five weeks back in May,
Speaker 4: and it was my first time really officially doing that,
Speaker 4: like a pop music tour on a tour bus, you know,
Speaker 4: like I had a pop music tour book, you know,
Speaker 4: like it was a real thing, and I was able
Speaker 4: to show up and sing my own material as myself.
Speaker 4: You know, I've been able, I've been blessed to have
Speaker 4: amazing success inside of film and television and theater, and
Speaker 4: I'm known for playing other people. You know, what was
Speaker 4: special about this is that I am showing up as myself,
Speaker 4: my true authentic self being on the stage is myself.
Speaker 4: The music that I've written, you know, sag absolutely everything
Speaker 4: that I want to say to the world was magical.
Speaker 3: It was special. It was is mind blowing.
Speaker 4: Earth shattering. I mean, I don't really have words for it,
Speaker 4: you know. And it felt right, you know. There was
Speaker 4: no stress around it, around my part of it, around
Speaker 4: the work part of it.
Speaker 3: It was really special.
Speaker 1: And this is going to be your fifth studio album,
Speaker 1: is that correct?
Speaker 3: Mm hmm.
Speaker 1: So in some ways, does it feel like one of
Speaker 1: your first being that you just said, You know, you
Speaker 1: were trying to be forced into this box that you
Speaker 1: could do, but now you get to be in a
Speaker 1: box of who you really are. So does it feel
Speaker 1: like a different experience.
Speaker 3: It is a different experience, you know. My first so,
Speaker 3: my first album, the R and B album, I didn't
Speaker 3: have any say. Then.
Speaker 4: The second album was at the Corner of Broadway and Soul,
Speaker 4: my live album from Joe's Pub.
Speaker 3: That was me like experimenting finding my voice.
Speaker 4: I wrote some stuff on that album, a lot of
Speaker 4: the things, you know, and it was sort of me
Speaker 4: establishing my brand at the time, you know, at the
Speaker 4: corner of Broadway and Soul.
Speaker 3: I was bit by the Broadway bug. And I'm a
Speaker 3: gospel singer, a gospel soul singer, you know, so like
Speaker 3: those two things together.
Speaker 4: Then my third album was Billy's Back on Broadway is
Speaker 4: Billy's Back on Broadway, which is traditional, well, my version
Speaker 4: of a classic Broadway album, like you know, the old
Speaker 4: school Brober streisand Broadway albums with like an orchestra and
Speaker 4: everything my own arrangements, so like the Broadway and soul flavor, yeah,
Speaker 4: in a classic traditional sort of orchestral orchestration kind of way.
Speaker 4: Then my fourth was The Soul of Richard Rogers, which
Speaker 4: I called my.
Speaker 3: You know me trying to be my have my Quincy
Speaker 3: Jones moment. I produced all of it.
Speaker 4: I'm on it a little bit, but I also have
Speaker 4: guests on it, and it's all the Richard Rogers cannon interpreted,
Speaker 4: interpreted through the black music lens.
Speaker 3: So all the arrangements are R and B soul, hip hop, rap, gospel, jazz.
Speaker 3: Those are the arrangements.
Speaker 4: And my guests are people like and d I Ree
Speaker 4: and Lettu See and Deborah Cox and Cynthia Rivo and
Speaker 4: uh Leslieanham Junior and Patina Miller and you know, so
Speaker 4: to stepping into a.
Speaker 3: Leadership role to try and.
Speaker 4: Show that side of the business that these voices that
Speaker 4: we have, these modern voices that we have in this
Speaker 4: musical theater space have existed the whole time. We've been
Speaker 4: able to in the theater dip in to these voices
Speaker 4: mine gospel singing, R and B singing, pop singing, soul singing.
Speaker 3: You know those.
Speaker 4: The theater has had a very interesting relationship with cose
Speaker 4: styles of singing and up until recently, and you know,
Speaker 4: like I said, we've had flashes here and there, whether
Speaker 4: it's The Wiz, whether it's dream Girls. It's like you
Speaker 4: can count on one hand how many times that our styles,
Speaker 4: our voices, our true authentic black musical idioms are connected
Speaker 4: to stories, are connected to human beings. Very often in
Speaker 4: the Broadway space, our voices are relegated and pigeonholed into
Speaker 4: musical reviews. Right, so there are no there's no human being,
Speaker 4: there's no three dimensional human being, there's no story. It's
Speaker 4: just show up black people and send the roof off
Speaker 4: the joint, like you people do. No connection though, to
Speaker 4: a real human being, and that gets exhausting. And so
Speaker 4: I did it, and Boots, Cynthia Rivo, Jennifer Hudson, Heather
Speaker 4: Headley did it in that revival of the color Purple.
Speaker 4: You know, when it's authentic, like that Hamilton. You know,
Speaker 4: Patina Miller and Leslie Odom Junior are my students when
Speaker 4: I was teaching at Carnegie Mellen. I was saying to them,
Speaker 4: be who you are saying, like who you like, how
Speaker 4: you sing, Be authentic to that voice, and.
Speaker 3: Your gift will make room for you.
Speaker 4: You know, this was in the early two thousands when
Speaker 4: my gifts hadn't made room for me yet. So well,
Speaker 4: I was speaking life into myself while trying to speak
Speaker 4: life into others with the hope.
Speaker 3: That it would work out in some way.
Speaker 4: And Dad Knabbitt if I did not win my Tony
Speaker 4: Award the same year that my student Patina Miller won hers,
Speaker 4: I won for Kiki Boots and she won for Pippin,
Speaker 4: And I said, I was right.
Speaker 3: I was right.
Speaker 1: Well, And fast forward to now with this new album
Speaker 1: coming out in the fall, The Black Mona Lisa, where
Speaker 1: you do get to be yourself and tell your story
Speaker 1: as a black queir man. I mean, what has the
Speaker 1: journey been like creating this album for you?
Speaker 4: This journey has been very healing because my first because
Speaker 4: it's because it's connected specifically to the mainstream space that
Speaker 4: has rejected me for so long. The mainstream music space
Speaker 4: that has rejected me for so long, and to be
Speaker 4: able to get in the rooms with like people like
Speaker 4: just Entranter and Emin e k Out of London, and
Speaker 4: Andrea Martin, the late great Andrew Martin, the songwriter, Andrew Martin,
Speaker 4: not the actress.
Speaker 3: You know, they were listening to me.
Speaker 4: They wanted to help me get to the best version
Speaker 4: of what my vision is.
Speaker 3: You know, these are the top people in their spaces.
Speaker 4: Justin Tranter is the top pop songwriter in the business
Speaker 4: for a number of years now.
Speaker 2: Wanting to work with you, yes.
Speaker 4: And what's special about us is that are our journeys
Speaker 4: are similar because he was a signed artist, a queer,
Speaker 4: signed artist.
Speaker 3: Who went through a lot of the same things that
Speaker 3: I went through.
Speaker 4: You know, they sign you and then they want you
Speaker 4: to be somebody else, and so you know, he transformed
Speaker 4: his life and became this songwriter.
Speaker 3: He's queer, he's out, he's fam he's fabulous.
Speaker 4: And so the powers that we're bringing together, you know,
Speaker 4: I think for the first time in that space, who else,
Speaker 4: who else is like us? A team together like us
Speaker 4: out straight, queer, interracial, you know, like it's it's I
Speaker 4: feel like it's a magical I know it's a magical
Speaker 4: thing because it has been and where I'm just trying
Speaker 4: to figure out now, we're just trying to figure out
Speaker 4: how to blow it up.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it is going to blow up because the singles
Speaker 1: you've already come out with have been incredible. And I
Speaker 1: find it so fascinating that you just said the mainstream
Speaker 1: music industry that you were rejected from and felt rejected from,
Speaker 1: is now welcoming you. Two questions, One, how did you
Speaker 1: feel rejected? And two, how did you not let that
Speaker 1: put a bitter taste in your mouth and say, F y'all,
Speaker 1: I don't want you.
Speaker 4: Well, I did have a bitter taste in my mouth,
Speaker 4: and I did say f y'all, and I did walk
Speaker 4: away from it. I was kicked out because I was gay,
Speaker 4: period period, and I was made to believe that I
Speaker 4: was such a flaming homosexual that there would be no
Speaker 4: way for anybody.
Speaker 3: To receive me. I go back to my music videos
Speaker 3: and I watch them.
Speaker 4: You wouldn't have known. I went to drama school. I
Speaker 4: knew how to act butch. I know how to act butch.
Speaker 4: But when you're supposed to be playing yourself, you know
Speaker 4: the music industry. I'm showing up as Billy Porter. I'm
Speaker 4: not showing up as somebody else. I'm showing up as myself.
Speaker 4: And I wasn't.
Speaker 3: Showing up as myself. I was showing up.
Speaker 4: As somebody else. And therefore I failed as somebody else.
Speaker 4: And when I was able to look back at it,
Speaker 4: I vowed to never do that again. That was the
Speaker 4: greatest gift Ah. The compromise, yes, but for me it
Speaker 4: was years of compromise, chipping away, chipping away, chipping away,
Speaker 4: chipping away, because I thought at that age I was
Speaker 4: twenty three, twenty four years old, Oh well, these people
Speaker 4: have had these successes, so they know better than me.
Speaker 4: They don't whoever they are, they don't know better as
Speaker 4: to how to be me than me. They don't. And
Speaker 4: it took me a while to understand that. You know,
Speaker 4: it takes a while a to learn who you are.
Speaker 3: To understand who you are right and.
Speaker 4: Then have the courage and the confidence to sit in
Speaker 4: the fullness of that, to stand in the fullness of that,
Speaker 4: and then move forward.
Speaker 3: In that space. It's easy to be who you are
Speaker 3: when what you are is what's popular.
Speaker 4: M say that again, it's easy to be who you
Speaker 4: are when what you are is what's popular. Wow, it
Speaker 4: gets really annoying to be told from people in positions
Speaker 4: of power, very successful people, that all you have to
Speaker 4: do is be yourself, when who they are is what
Speaker 4: the world wants.
Speaker 1: Thank God, Billy to sit across from me right now,
Speaker 1: knowing that you're going to be releasing something that is
Speaker 1: so personal and so special and so you after everything
Speaker 1: you've been through in this industry while not being dissuaded
Speaker 1: and saying goodbye to it forever. Yeah, you maybe walked
Speaker 1: away for a bit, but you came back. You came back.
Speaker 4: Well, I never I never walked away from it. I
Speaker 4: just went deeper inside of.
Speaker 2: Me how creatively.
Speaker 4: I didn't have anywhere to go, So I started asking
Speaker 4: myself other questions, Well, what is it?
Speaker 3: What should I do? Where should I go? You know?
Speaker 4: I did a work book called The Artist's Way back
Speaker 4: in two thousand. Julia Cameron saved my life. Excavation of
Speaker 4: what it is that you really want?
Speaker 3: How to get it? Creative? The human spirit? You know,
Speaker 3: what do I want to say?
Speaker 4: I'm not interested in material that doesn't move the needle
Speaker 4: in some way.
Speaker 3: Tony Morrison says, this is precisely the time.
Speaker 4: When artists go to work. There's no room spare, there's
Speaker 4: no time for fear. We spok, we do language. This
Speaker 4: is how civilizations heal. I was put on this earth.
Speaker 4: I have a calling on my life.
Speaker 3: That's bigger than me and everybody around me.
Speaker 4: I know that for certain, and I can finally speak
Speaker 4: about it and talk about it.
Speaker 3: There's no ego in this. It's just fact, and I need.
Speaker 4: To understand what that is so I can consistently be
Speaker 4: in order, divine order, and be using my gifts and
Speaker 4: art in the way that I should. I'm still learning
Speaker 4: how to do that. I'm still learning how to excavate that,
Speaker 4: you know, because what I find in these spaces is
Speaker 4: that when you can speak about your worth, when you
Speaker 4: know your worth, you honor your worth, you stand in
Speaker 4: the fullness of it, and you can speak about it
Speaker 4: because one must know what those are so that we
Speaker 4: can show up properly.
Speaker 2: MM.
Speaker 4: You can't show up properly unless you know what the
Speaker 4: point is, you know, and it's really easy. I've been
Speaker 4: in this, in this in this cycle of people calling
Speaker 4: me arrogant and and narcissistic, because I've dared recently to
Speaker 4: speak on my power, and that makes other people uncomfortable
Speaker 4: on the outside of me, sometimes not always. You know,
Speaker 4: it's interesting because I remember watching Oprah and I say
Speaker 4: that because I remember watching Oprah and she, you know,
Speaker 4: she was on the air for like a decade or so,
Speaker 4: and then one year she came on and she said,
Speaker 4: I'm not going to be doing any of the shock
Speaker 4: talk anymore.
Speaker 3: My purpose is something different. The curtain dropped.
Speaker 4: Live your best life, and that's what she has been
Speaker 4: with ever since. There's a lot that I'm destined for
Speaker 4: and always have been. And I can speak on this
Speaker 4: because I've lived long enough fifty three years old, I've
Speaker 4: lived long enough to see the fruits of those facts.
Speaker 3: And my labor.
Speaker 2: M Billy.
Speaker 1: It is so rewarding listening to someone speak in their
Speaker 1: truth and believe it one hundred percent, because a lot
Speaker 1: of people say things that they are a certain way
Speaker 1: or believe in a certain something, but they don't act
Speaker 1: on it. And I don't think that makes you arrogant.
Speaker 1: I don't think it makes you difficult. I don't think
Speaker 1: it makes you any of the things. It makes you
Speaker 1: someone who's had life experiences and is sharing your truth,
Speaker 1: which is what artistry is all about. And I love
Speaker 1: that in your songs and your music as well, like
Speaker 1: your your bop Baby was a Dancer that comes on
Speaker 1: and we're in the car, I'm in the gym and
Speaker 1: I'm like, yes, I am jamming out. But behind that,
Speaker 1: behind that are powerful lyrics and that's what you do.
Speaker 1: You weave you we've fun with power. Talk to me
Speaker 1: about that lead single of yours, because it was is brilliant.
Speaker 3: Well that's the third single and it went number one.
Speaker 2: On BBC two Radio, which is a way.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's number one on BBC two Radio and Baby
Speaker 4: was a Broken Swet just cracked the top ten over there.
Speaker 4: So it looks like I'm going to be spending some
Speaker 4: time over there because they get me in a way.
Speaker 4: You know, America sometimes is unwilling to right now.
Speaker 3: That doesn't mean it, that doesn't mean it won't happen.
Speaker 2: It can change. But the lyrics of that song talking
Speaker 2: about it's all.
Speaker 4: About, like you said, I've been through something and I've
Speaker 4: been on a journey to heal my trauma through my art.
Speaker 4: You know, people, sometimes it's hard to see, it's hard
Speaker 4: to be what you can't see, I am a new thing.
Speaker 4: You know. I'm black, and I'm gay, and I'm out,
Speaker 4: and I'm unapologetic, and I'm doing things that on paper,
Speaker 4: I was never supposed to be able to do.
Speaker 3: My queerness.
Speaker 4: I was told by haters and allies a like that
Speaker 4: my queerness would be my liability. And it was for decades, Tommy,
Speaker 4: it was my liability for decades. And now all of
Speaker 4: a sudden, it's my superpower. So I'm leaning into that.
Speaker 4: And all the lyrics on all of the songs are
Speaker 4: very very personal to all of these years that I've
Speaker 4: been able to live and what I've learned. You know,
Speaker 4: there's a song on the album that you haven't heard
Speaker 4: yet called More to Learn. There's always more to learn.
Speaker 2: Your queerness is your superpower.
Speaker 1: I'm sitting here getting emotional hearing you say that as
Speaker 1: a fifty three year old black man, because I know
Speaker 1: that's something.
Speaker 2: That you didn't believe for probably way too long.
Speaker 3: I wasn't even supposed to be alive at this point.
Speaker 4: You don't how many friends of mine died from a plague,
Speaker 4: you know, Like it's like I wasn't supposed to be here.
Speaker 3: I really wasn't. I'm so grateful that I've lived long enough.
Speaker 4: To see the day where this kind of change powers,
Speaker 4: mean powers the world. And what's interesting is to me
Speaker 4: about all of the trauma that we're going through collectively.
Speaker 3: You know, with this sort of resurgence of the.
Speaker 4: Conservatism, white nationalism, whatever you want to call it.
Speaker 3: You know, the change has already happened.
Speaker 4: That's what I keep trying to just say, like a mantra,
Speaker 4: the change has already happened. That's why the pushback is
Speaker 4: so severe. We all right, you can't put the toothpaste
Speaker 4: back in the too.
Speaker 3: There is a fight.
Speaker 4: We have to show up and fight for what we
Speaker 4: know is right. There will be blood, there has always been.
Speaker 4: Change doesn't happen without somebody laying down their life. My
Speaker 4: ancestors have laid down their lives for me to be
Speaker 4: able to be who I am and live in the
Speaker 4: spaces and take up the spaces and occupy the world
Speaker 4: like I do.
Speaker 3: People have already died for this.
Speaker 4: So the terrorism, domestic terrorism that's going on right now
Speaker 4: to try to stop the progress doesn't scare me. And
Speaker 4: we need to have that conversation. This is what it's
Speaker 4: always been right, So we show up and we fight back.
Speaker 2: So what gives you hope?
Speaker 1: Because, as you said, there's a lot going on, and
Speaker 1: there's a lot of fights that need to be fought.
Speaker 1: But does does anything give you hope for the.
Speaker 3: Childing out of future?
Speaker 4: Teach them well, then liveingly the way?
Speaker 3: Yeah, no, I mean it sounds like.
Speaker 4: I just yeah, it's like it's the next generation's turn, yes,
Speaker 4: to pick up.
Speaker 3: What we fed up.
Speaker 4: And you know, I hear the smart ones talking, and
Speaker 4: you know, they were born into rights that my generation
Speaker 4: and all of the generations behind me fought for. Unfortunately,
Speaker 4: on purpose, there's a lack of history.
Speaker 3: We don't know our history. That is on purpose.
Speaker 4: Those who don't know their history are doomed to repeat it.
Speaker 4: The power structure counts on that, right, they count on that.
Speaker 4: Why do you think they're bannoned books? Why do you
Speaker 4: think they talk about indoctrination? That's you're doing. You're that's
Speaker 4: what y'all are doing.
Speaker 2: And it's really teach it. We're not even going to
Speaker 2: teach it right, right, and our.
Speaker 3: Students that that slavery was useful to black people? Yeah no,
Speaker 3: m m no. And it's up to us and it's
Speaker 3: up to our kids to stop it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we have engaged.
Speaker 4: We have to be present, we have to show up,
Speaker 4: we have to you know, it's we, the people, get
Speaker 4: to make this decision for now.
Speaker 1: Well, and I think to your point, we're seeing the
Speaker 1: younger generations doing that, and I think it's up to
Speaker 1: all of us in any generation we're in to do it.
Speaker 1: But it does get hope seeing that, and like you said,
Speaker 1: seeing the children do that, it's it's it's progress and
Speaker 1: we need that.
Speaker 2: But we also need you. And that's what you keep
Speaker 2: doing as well.
Speaker 1: And you even in your music you get quote unquote
Speaker 1: what people might consider a little political, God forbid, but
Speaker 1: you're putting out the messages that people need to hear
Speaker 1: and be reminded of. And I think that's so important.
Speaker 3: I hear what you're saying exactly, and let me speak
Speaker 3: to that for a second.
Speaker 2: Go ahead.
Speaker 3: There are buzzwords in the power structure meant to silence.
Speaker 3: The biggest one is politicized. It's all political.
Speaker 4: You're trying to take my rights away and I'm not
Speaker 4: supposed to talk about it because that's politicizing it.
Speaker 3: Yes, God damn it, I am. And what you mean
Speaker 3: when you say I'm politicizing it and trying to shut
Speaker 3: me down.
Speaker 4: You're saying shut up, right, You're trying to tell me
Speaker 4: to shut up, and I will never shut up.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's political.
Speaker 5: You're trying to take my rights away, and for me
Speaker 5: to speak about that in public, out loud, you're shutting
Speaker 5: me down by saying I'm being political.
Speaker 3: I know, I know.
Speaker 2: It must be frustrated.
Speaker 3: I'm not doing that. Another word too preachy. Those two words.
Speaker 4: Don't come at me with those two words. Yes political
Speaker 4: and yes I'm preaching. Somebody needs to That's right, Cook.
Speaker 4: We at the same place we've been for four hundred years.
Speaker 4: Somebody needs to do something.
Speaker 1: Well, that's part of your magic is you do it
Speaker 1: and most people respond really well to it, and they
Speaker 1: want to keep educating themselves and learning and hearing perspectives
Speaker 1: that they don't themselves have. And I think that's amazing.
Speaker 1: You actually just reminded me. And this is such a
Speaker 1: random thing to connect us with. But when Taylor Swift
Speaker 1: came out with her video for you need to Calm Down,
Speaker 1: and you were in it, which was incredible, had so
Speaker 1: many LGBT icons and trail blazers in it. She even
Speaker 1: got flack and people were saying, oh, that's political pushing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yes it is, but it was an amazing video
Speaker 2: and moment and message.
Speaker 3: What we're supposed to do as artists, that's what we're
Speaker 3: supposed to do.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, No, I will.
Speaker 5: Not shut up and dribble. No, I will not shut
Speaker 5: up and sing. No, I will not shut up and dance. No,
Speaker 5: I won't shut up and I won't ever go away.
Speaker 5: I don't understand what this is.
Speaker 4: It's like, you know, the idea that the you know,
Speaker 4: these these these these dictator you know whatever we're calling
Speaker 4: these people. It's like, so you it's about silencing. If
Speaker 4: you can get the people to be silent, then you
Speaker 4: can do whatever you want.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, And it's nice to see more and
Speaker 1: more people not allowing that to happen and going outside.
Speaker 4: Everybody, right, I want everybody to strike the words scary
Speaker 4: and terrified from the vernacular.
Speaker 3: Scratch it. We don't have room for that, We don't
Speaker 3: have time for that. Scared of what what I mean?
Speaker 3: Our government for.
Speaker 4: Four years or more still today, you won't stand up
Speaker 4: to Orange in a forty five because he's gonna tweet
Speaker 4: about you. What are we?
Speaker 3: Sixteen year old cheerleaders.
Speaker 1: Billy, that's your magic is you're showing people to not
Speaker 1: be afraid. And I think that's a really beautiful what's that?
Speaker 3: I said it so it is, Patty Willis.
Speaker 2: Now you.
Speaker 1: I just I think what you do for the Masters
Speaker 1: is incredible and thank you. I I'm such a fan
Speaker 1: of the work you do in the person that you are.
Speaker 1: It's just it's so cool to see. And I do
Speaker 1: think your influence rubs off on a lot of people,
Speaker 1: even something like I just mentioned, even something like Taylor
Speaker 1: doing that video. I think the more people see people
Speaker 1: like you, the more people like the rest of us
Speaker 1: feel comfortable with that.
Speaker 2: Was that a fund that video? By the way, go
Speaker 2: ahead say that again, baby, I was gonna say that video.
Speaker 2: I loved you and it was that fun to do.
Speaker 4: It was so fun.
Speaker 6: And she you know, and she called and she said,
Speaker 6: I have to speak, and like I didn't. I don't
Speaker 6: quite know how, but I think this is the this
Speaker 6: is the way.
Speaker 3: That I can speak. This is the way that I
Speaker 3: can like you know, get involved and use my my
Speaker 3: powers for good. And she did, you know, It's like
Speaker 3: we turned it around. Biden is in the White House.
Speaker 3: You know it's you know, it's like it can work
Speaker 3: when we show up and participate.
Speaker 1: Showing up is number one, right, Showing up is so important,
Speaker 1: and you show up for so many people. And I
Speaker 1: told you this privately, I maybe told you this on Rachel.
Speaker 1: I'm going to tell you this again. One of the
Speaker 1: many things I love about you is you show people
Speaker 1: that it's never too late to have a second act. Right, Like,
Speaker 1: you're fifty three now. You said when you were turning
Speaker 1: fifty you were reaching some of your wildest successes. You
Speaker 1: have this amazing new music career. You've always wanted to
Speaker 1: do it in the way that you wanted to do it,
Speaker 1: and here you are actually making that happen. Do you
Speaker 1: believe that it's never too late?
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's my whole point. And that's why I say
Speaker 3: my age.
Speaker 2: So often because a lot of people don't say it.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I say my age so often because I earned it.
Speaker 3: I worked hard for this age. I'm still alive, you know.
Speaker 3: That's one of the lyrics and more to learn. It
Speaker 3: opens with I'm alive. What an accomplishment from my time?
Speaker 3: I lost more people at the age of twenty one
Speaker 3: to AIDS than.
Speaker 4: My eighty five year old grandmother had a Yeah, so
Speaker 4: people hear me speak when people receive my energy to
Speaker 4: the people that I sometimes make uncomfortable because I'm that's why.
Speaker 4: That's why I've lived with life already. Yeah, you have
Speaker 4: not suffer fools. I will never suffer fools ever again.
Speaker 2: We have four Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you you make it very clear in your
Speaker 1: work that that's not something that's going away anytime soon.
Speaker 2: And it creates a space where.
Speaker 3: The people who are in alignment with me show up. Yeah.
Speaker 3: If you don't like what I do, don't. I'm not
Speaker 3: we don't. It's all good. There are lots of people who.
Speaker 2: Do right and will and that's life, and that's life.
Speaker 1: Not everyone is going to always like you, right, and
Speaker 1: and you just got to move on and keep keep
Speaker 1: doing the work that makes you proud.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I'm with you, Billy. I'm with you one hundred percent. Wait,
Speaker 1: before before you went on that tour, I saw you
Speaker 1: a few weeks before and you said you wanted to
Speaker 1: live your wildest Beyonce fantasy. So did you feel like
Speaker 1: Beyonce out there?
Speaker 4: No?
Speaker 3: I felt like Billy.
Speaker 2: Oh I love that.
Speaker 3: I felt like Billy. I was really I was really
Speaker 3: able to just lock into a whole.
Speaker 4: I don't want to say a whole new thing, get
Speaker 4: reacquainted with what has always been there.
Speaker 3: Like I said, I was myself again.
Speaker 4: I wasn't playing Praytell, I wasn't playing Lola, I wasn't
Speaker 4: playing the fabulous Godmother.
Speaker 3: It was not a character.
Speaker 2: It was me.
Speaker 4: And so.
Speaker 3: I was just able to go out there and be me.
Speaker 3: And I'm gonna say this. The show started clocking in
Speaker 3: at two hours.
Speaker 4: By the end we were clocking in and where between
Speaker 4: two thirty at three, and it was just me. I
Speaker 4: didn't even have background singers because I couldn't afford them.
Speaker 4: The background singers were on the were on the track.
Speaker 4: I had video components and.
Speaker 3: A rocking band, and it was just me. And what
Speaker 3: I said was, you know, my whole goal was to
Speaker 3: give the world a big bear hut.
Speaker 4: You know, it's celebration of life and love and hope
Speaker 4: and peace and joy. And that's exactly what I was
Speaker 4: able to do.
Speaker 3: You know, fear not.
Speaker 4: Because the change has already happened, and together we fixed this.
Speaker 4: Love always wins, It always does. Can take some time
Speaker 4: to get there, and we win. Remember that we win.
Speaker 4: We win, Baby, we win every time we went. I
Speaker 4: am so bummed I didn't get to see the first
Speaker 4: leg of the tour. Please tell me there's more coming, yes,
Speaker 4: of course, Okay, yeah, I'm still on Black Mona lise
Speaker 4: I'm still on Black Mona Lisea Volume one. Everybody's like,
Speaker 4: when's Volume two. I'm like, no, I got to get
Speaker 4: the rest of the world with Volume one. Album wants
Speaker 4: to come out in September.
Speaker 3: But because of the.
Speaker 4: The attention that we've been getting and the love that
Speaker 4: we've been getting from the UK, I'm signed to Republic
Speaker 4: Records here, I'm signed to Island Records in the UK.
Speaker 3: So the Island people were like, don't put the album
Speaker 3: out because we're getting so much We're getting so much.
Speaker 4: Bluh and so much buzz that if the album comes out,
Speaker 4: we run the risk of cannibalizing the entire project. Because
Speaker 4: the music industry is a singles market right now, so
Speaker 4: it's whenever the album comes out, we'll be fine, but
Speaker 4: let's like try to market these singles a little bit
Speaker 4: more and like even get more buzz around the singles
Speaker 4: and blow them up, you know.
Speaker 3: So we're pushing the album where I'm I'm I'm.
Speaker 4: We're focusing on the UK a bit through the end
Speaker 4: of this year, and and uh and America too, but
Speaker 4: but like you know, it's more about the singles right now.
Speaker 4: Broke a sweat, So like, go download it, listen to it,
Speaker 4: call it into your radio station.
Speaker 3: I don't know what they do.
Speaker 4: I don't know what it is.
Speaker 2: Keep supporting is all we need to do. Keep supporting
Speaker 2: more music. Yeah, I love it all.
Speaker 1: And Billy's final question, and I know this is going
Speaker 1: to be a tough one for you because you lay
Speaker 1: it all out on the table, so I'm not sure
Speaker 1: what's left. But the name of the show is I've
Speaker 1: never said this before. Can you think of something that
Speaker 1: you've never said before? No, you've said it all.
Speaker 3: I say it all.
Speaker 2: That's a first on this show.
Speaker 3: I can't think of something that I've never said.
Speaker 2: And I actually believe that prior to May.
Speaker 4: Nineteenth, twenty twenty one, it would have been I'm HIV positive, right,
Speaker 4: said it all.
Speaker 3: I lay everything out there, so there are no secrets.
Speaker 2: How freeing must that be?
Speaker 3: It is freeing because there's never a gotcha, gotcha?
Speaker 4: Yeah, and that's what and that's what the cynical press
Speaker 4: and the gossip stuff they five on that. Yeah, gotcha, gotcha.
Speaker 4: It's the hiding of something. So when you don't hide it,
Speaker 4: then there's nothing to.
Speaker 2: Say, right you put it all out.
Speaker 3: I put it all I always put it all the
Speaker 3: way up.
Speaker 1: Well, you put out not only not only things that
Speaker 1: maybe other people would hide, You just put out everything.
Speaker 1: It's whether it's feel good, whether it's inspirational, whether it's
Speaker 1: something silly that you don't like in pop culture, whether
Speaker 1: it's something you love. I mean, you just have such
Speaker 1: an open dialogue with the world, and I think that's
Speaker 1: truly beautiful. And like I said, that's the first time
Speaker 1: someone honestly doesn't have something to say in response to
Speaker 1: that question.
Speaker 2: But with you, you're You're the one person that I
Speaker 2: believe that with so I I love it. I love it. Billy,
Speaker 2: You're a gem. You know that I love you. You
Speaker 2: know my husband loves you.
Speaker 1: We're Billy fans of you artistically and personally. And I'm
Speaker 1: really excited for all that's to come with you. You know,
Speaker 1: you know you always have my support.
Speaker 3: Thank you.
Speaker 1: I've never said this before. Is hosted by me Tommy Diderio.
Speaker 1: This podcast is produced and edited by Mike Coscarelli, and
Speaker 1: executive producers are Andrew Paglici and Katrina Norvel At iHeartRadio,
Speaker 1: I've Never Said This Before is part of the Elvis
Speaker 1: Durant podcast work on iHeart Podcasts for more, rate, review
Speaker 1: and subscribe to our show and if you liked this episode,
Speaker 1: tell your friends. Until next time, I'm Tommy di Dario.