Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Pete Bodh Judge and this is the deciding decade.
Speaker 1: Sometimes people say politicians are like actors, and when they
Speaker 1: say it, they usually don't mean it as a compliment.
Speaker 1: There's some truth to that. Just look at our president,
Speaker 1: who was a reality TV star who feels like he's
Speaker 1: acting more than governing most of the time. But I
Speaker 1: think that comparison often sells short the importance of actors
Speaker 1: of artists in their vulnerability, their creativity, their courage. Artists
Speaker 1: bring meaning to our lives that we simply couldn't find
Speaker 1: anywhere else. So I don't think we give artists enough
Speaker 1: credit for shaping and maybe even saving so many lives.
Speaker 1: Art has shaped my life, especially music and literature that
Speaker 1: helped me to understand who I am for my husband Chaston,
Speaker 1: Theater and film have been the most impactful, and I've
Speaker 1: noticed that we have turned to and dug further and
Speaker 1: further into these creative sources to help us navigate the
Speaker 1: times that we're facing right now, and we're seeing how
Speaker 1: many of the experiences of the most vulnerable are being
Speaker 1: given new expression through the arts today. So what can
Speaker 1: art do for us going forward? And what can we
Speaker 1: learn from those who are shaping our time through their
Speaker 1: creativity and courage. My guest today speaks to this and
Speaker 1: embodies this with boldness, courage, and grace, and I'm very
Speaker 1: eager for you to hear from it. Billy Porter is
Speaker 1: an actor, singer, fashion icon, and activist who you have
Speaker 1: hopefully seen in the extraordinary and compelling TV show Pose.
Speaker 1: He has started on Broadway off Broadway in film and television.
Speaker 1: He performed at the Democratic National Convention this summer. He's
Speaker 1: a Tony, Grammy and Emmy winner, and was the first
Speaker 1: openly gay black man to be nominated for and win
Speaker 1: in any leading acting category at the Primetime Emmy's On
Speaker 1: an off screen, he has inspired so many in the
Speaker 1: l g B t Q plus community and beyond with
Speaker 1: his authenticity and his courage, and whose activism I think
Speaker 1: is helping to change what's possible in our future. Welcome Billy,
Speaker 1: and I have to ask, having uh mentioned your awards
Speaker 1: in the introduction, what's the plan to get that? Oscar?
Speaker 1: I don't really have a plan. First of all, thank
Speaker 1: you for having me. It's so good to be having
Speaker 1: this conversation with you. Pleasure. Um. You know I'm trying
Speaker 1: to get some movies. I got some movies, I got
Speaker 1: some plans. We're trying to make it happen. I don't know.
Speaker 1: I've been in the business long enough to like hold
Speaker 1: the idea of awards in a very specific kind of space.
Speaker 1: I don't do it for the awards. I'm an artist first.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna be practicing my art whether I win awards
Speaker 1: or not, as that has been proven for the thirty
Speaker 1: years prior to this moment in my life. Simultaneously, who
Speaker 1: doesn't like to win awards? To be truthfully honest with you,
Speaker 1: As a black, gay artist, they actually do mean something
Speaker 1: for me, a lot more than they do from my
Speaker 1: white counterparts. They do open doors for me that are
Speaker 1: open to my white counterparts anyway. So they don't have
Speaker 1: to win awards to have these doors opened. Um. But
Speaker 1: I'm very grateful to be in this position. Doors have
Speaker 1: been opening, and I'm walking through every single one of
Speaker 1: them that I have the energy and breath to do well.
Speaker 1: The little doubt that there are more awards in your future,
Speaker 1: of course, you've You've made news not only with the
Speaker 1: awards that you've earned and one, but with your appearances.
Speaker 1: I think I'm not out of line describing you as
Speaker 1: a fashion god. And that's an intimidating conversation for me
Speaker 1: because I routinely will come downstairs and Chaston will look
Speaker 1: at me, and I Brad will go up and all
Speaker 1: he'll say is are you going to be wearing that?
Speaker 1: And I know it's time to go back upstairs and
Speaker 1: improve upon myself. And it strikes me that, especially for
Speaker 1: people who aren't very involved or aware of fashion, it
Speaker 1: can be maybe viewed as something that's not as important
Speaker 1: in this very important time of big world events and
Speaker 1: social upheaval. And yet it's clear in the way you've
Speaker 1: spoken about some of your fashion choices that have made
Speaker 1: headlines that this is language that maybe even fashion in
Speaker 1: this way is activism. And I wonder what have you
Speaker 1: sought to say with that language and what impact do
Speaker 1: you seek to have when you're making the splash that
Speaker 1: you so often make when you appear on a red carpet. Yeah,
Speaker 1: first and foremost being first generation post civil rights movement,
Speaker 1: the focus of black people were to make sure that
Speaker 1: your children were educated. First. Second on the list was
Speaker 1: you're judged by your appearing. You know, the first thing
Speaker 1: that people see is what you look like. So one
Speaker 1: must dress for the job one wants, not the job
Speaker 1: one has. And what you're saying is not just a
Speaker 1: job job, but speaking metaphorically, it's like fashion is art.
Speaker 1: For me, art is activism. It always has been. Artists
Speaker 1: have always been at the forefront of creating change, of
Speaker 1: speaking truth to power. We always have we always will be.
Speaker 1: I use this pandemic as an example. You're lost in
Speaker 1: your house for six months, what are you doing the
Speaker 1: most of watching television, reading books, arts and crafts, listening
Speaker 1: to music. We all go back to the art. It's important,
Speaker 1: especially now, especially now. So therefore coming up in the
Speaker 1: business and understanding the impact that fashion can have, mainly
Speaker 1: for women, you know, because women can wear anything. You know,
Speaker 1: men are relegated to the penguin suit and that's it,
Speaker 1: which is something you've challenged correct and you can get
Speaker 1: it in different colors. You know, people are starting to
Speaker 1: wear patterns, but it's it's considered masculine. Masculinity its top
Speaker 1: on the list for everything and everybody. The patriarchy is masculine.
Speaker 1: So unconsciously we live in a space where we all
Speaker 1: receive the message that masculine is better. I want to
Speaker 1: explore this because you said in an interview once you
Speaker 1: said my masculinity was in question before I could even
Speaker 1: comprehend the thought. So I'm wondering, first of all, when
Speaker 1: you did comprehend the thought, what would masculinity mean to you,
Speaker 1: especially growing up in Pittsburgh, and how has that changed.
Speaker 1: Are you seeking to change the definition of masculinity or
Speaker 1: is it something that you view is kind of set
Speaker 1: that that you're seeking to confront and challenge both things. Actually,
Speaker 1: it's standing up and confronting and challenging the status quo
Speaker 1: while simultaneously trying to change the conversation. You know, what
Speaker 1: does being a man truly mean? What does that mean?
Speaker 1: I was five years old when I was sent to
Speaker 1: a psychologist for a year every Wednesday after kindergarten because
Speaker 1: my family was confused, scared in fear of the other,
Speaker 1: and fear that their boy was too effeminate, was not
Speaker 1: going to be masculine enough, therefore would not be able
Speaker 1: to be successful in the world. Because that's the messaging,
Speaker 1: and it's true for a lot of people. I personally
Speaker 1: took myself out of that game and challenged myself to
Speaker 1: look at myself in the mirror and go what would
Speaker 1: it look like if I was just showing up as myself?
Speaker 1: It was there a specific moment when you felt conscious
Speaker 1: of making that choice or is it something that that
Speaker 1: you grew into. Yeah. I was watching Oprah over twenty
Speaker 1: years ago and she had on Maya Angelou and Yalla
Speaker 1: Van Sant and they were talking about setting an intention
Speaker 1: for your life and making sure that that intention is
Speaker 1: based in service. When the intention for your life is
Speaker 1: based in service, no matter what it is, everything else
Speaker 1: will work itself out. And so I asked myself the question,
Speaker 1: in a world, in an industry that's inherently narcissistic, what
Speaker 1: does service look like for me? And it hit me
Speaker 1: like a ton of bricks. It is your gayness. It
Speaker 1: is your queerness. It's the very thing that every single
Speaker 1: solitary person in your life is telling you. Billy, your
Speaker 1: gayness is your liability. Butcher, you won't make it unless
Speaker 1: you're masculine enough. That was the only messaging that I
Speaker 1: got for the better part of my life, and still
Speaker 1: today it can infiltrate. I am challenging that with my
Speaker 1: very presence. It's easy to be who you are, and
Speaker 1: what you are is what popular that was not popular.
Speaker 1: That meant I don't work, That meant I don't eat.
Speaker 1: How did you know that wasn't where the story ends?
Speaker 1: How did you know that not by being yourself chosen?
Speaker 1: Were there moments where you gave up hope where we were?
Speaker 1: There moments where your thought that you know, I'm myself,
Speaker 1: but that's cost me every Yes, yes, absolutely. It was
Speaker 1: not glamorous. It was not easy. You know. There were
Speaker 1: many many days where I couldn't even get out of
Speaker 1: bed in the morning. There were many self destructive behaviors
Speaker 1: that came along with this journey. But there was something
Speaker 1: you must have held onto to bring you through that
Speaker 1: to this point. Was it in yourself? Well, I was
Speaker 1: just talking about this. I didn't have a plan. B.
Speaker 1: I don't have a plan. B. I can't do anything else.
Speaker 1: This is the gift. These are the gifts that I've
Speaker 1: been given. This is what I can contribute to the world.
Speaker 1: So when it's all you have, there is no choice
Speaker 1: but to continue to just put one foot in front
Speaker 1: of the other. That's all I focused on. Don't look
Speaker 1: at the mountain, don't look at how far you have
Speaker 1: to climb, Look at what's the next step. Today. So
Speaker 1: what does that tell us about what the next steps
Speaker 1: are going to be in the years ahead. I'm thinking
Speaker 1: about a show like Posts, extraordinary television show that might
Speaker 1: not have been possible, would not have been possible ten
Speaker 1: years ago, might not have been possible five years ago,
Speaker 1: it wasn't possible, so it was So what do you
Speaker 1: think is now going to be possible five years from
Speaker 1: an hour or ten years from now that we can't
Speaker 1: even imagine today? What are those next steps? Well, you
Speaker 1: know I have to say that Pose and Ryan Murphy
Speaker 1: and Stephen Canals and Brad Feltcha and the entire team
Speaker 1: Jet Market Lady Jake. You know, casting me in this
Speaker 1: show and being in this particular show has taught me
Speaker 1: to dream the impossible. You know, My dreams have always
Speaker 1: been big and huge, but they've and grant but they've
Speaker 1: always been based on and springboarded off of things that
Speaker 1: I had already seen. The impossible has happened in my life.
Speaker 1: That's what poses. You know, I also related to something
Speaker 1: for us gay men of a certain age, gay marriage,
Speaker 1: marriage equality. There was no context to even place the
Speaker 1: mustard seed of a dream inside, Like it just wasn't
Speaker 1: the thing, you know, It's like I'd never, ever, in
Speaker 1: a million years I thought that my life would look
Speaker 1: like this. You know, I spent the first thirty years
Speaker 1: of my career trying to be straight about so I
Speaker 1: could eat, trying to be masculine enough so I could eat.
Speaker 1: And now I'm being called to just simply be myself.
Speaker 1: And by being yourself, you're changing what people I think
Speaker 1: understand to be possible. I should say for people who
Speaker 1: haven't seen it, the post centers on the lives of
Speaker 1: largely black, queer Americans in the nineteen eighties, and I
Speaker 1: kept thinking, as I'm watching it, what those characters would
Speaker 1: think to see where we are today? What do do
Speaker 1: you ever imagine a dialogue between you, Billy Porter, and
Speaker 1: the character you play or the characters you're surrounded within
Speaker 1: the show? Yeah, I mean I I I'm just gobsmacked.
Speaker 1: You know. Every time I get a script, I just
Speaker 1: weep with joy. I just can't believe it. You know,
Speaker 1: Like I'm fifty one, I lived through the AIDS crisis.
Speaker 1: I lost a lot of friends, you know, we lost
Speaker 1: a generation. A quick are people of people in general,
Speaker 1: but mostly queer people and queer artists. And to be
Speaker 1: able to step into that. Boy, you came out in
Speaker 1: the right at the peak of the AIDS crisis. Do
Speaker 1: you think having lived through and confronted AIDS gives the
Speaker 1: queer community any kind of special insight or special preparedness
Speaker 1: or special compassion when it comes to what the world
Speaker 1: is facing with COVID or is it a is it
Speaker 1: a completely different Well, I think there are parallels. I'm black,
Speaker 1: and so the parallels inside of this virus in general,
Speaker 1: you know, the layers of how it started, we don't
Speaker 1: know what it is, how do we contract it, what
Speaker 1: do we do about it? Is there a vaccine? How
Speaker 1: do you know? Like all of that part it's so
Speaker 1: PTSD inducing. It's just we're right back, and I had
Speaker 1: a lot of friends who are experiencing the same kind
Speaker 1: of PTSD, you know, as a black man. The fact
Speaker 1: that this particular COVID nineteen virus is affecting people of
Speaker 1: color in a larger proportion to the rest of the
Speaker 1: population is also reminiscent of the age crisis. So I
Speaker 1: have been really just trying to work on in this
Speaker 1: time of this global reset, is what I'm calling it.
Speaker 1: Working on self care, working on boundaries, working on balance,
Speaker 1: know like we're the first generation in full as gay
Speaker 1: men to be living this light out proud and proud
Speaker 1: in public, Like we're the first generation to be doing that.
Speaker 1: There's a learning curve, there's a steep learning curve, and
Speaker 1: I'm doing it specifically in the middle of all of this,
Speaker 1: you know, the pandemic, my career taking off. It's like
Speaker 1: it all happens at the same time. There is a
Speaker 1: power in that. There is a piece in that in
Speaker 1: knowing that what we're going through right now as a community,
Speaker 1: as a culture, as Americans, is not new. That's a
Speaker 1: remarkable thing to hear. The word peace used to describe
Speaker 1: the incredibly complicated and painful moment we're living in. But
Speaker 1: the piece he's in the connection to other times or
Speaker 1: where do you find that piece? Well, there's a piece
Speaker 1: that passes all understanding, right that's in the Bible. There
Speaker 1: is in this moment. For me, this global reset has
Speaker 1: caused me to go inside and do all of the
Speaker 1: work I say, I'm putting my oxygen masks on first.
Speaker 1: I'm dealing with old traumas that threatened to thwart my progress.
Speaker 1: I'm dealing with all of the bad habits. I'm dealing
Speaker 1: with the shame that is insidious inside of the gay community,
Speaker 1: you know, the shame that propels us into darkness, and
Speaker 1: very often into the type of darkness where there is
Speaker 1: no light. I'm not doing that. I'm not going out
Speaker 1: like that. That's a choice, that's a decision, and then
Speaker 1: one must do the work to make sure that the
Speaker 1: outcome from this work is of some sort of use.
Speaker 1: I can't be of use to anything or anybody until
Speaker 1: I'd take care of myself. Well. Part of that work
Speaker 1: that you're describing for you takes place at that intersection
Speaker 1: of being black and being at this moment, and I
Speaker 1: saw in an interview you said that this moment has
Speaker 1: lit a fire inside of me and truly thrusted me
Speaker 1: into using my platform to deliver the message that black
Speaker 1: queer people are black first, queer second. And when I
Speaker 1: first heard that, I felt that that was a really
Speaker 1: interesting choice. I wanted to ask you, and then I wondered,
Speaker 1: is that a choice or are you saying that the
Speaker 1: world will always see black queer people first according to
Speaker 1: their blackness and then according to their queerness. There's a
Speaker 1: reality that I'm responding to. You look at my skin
Speaker 1: and I'm black. That's what people are judging me for.
Speaker 1: Before I opened up my mouth, before I take a step,
Speaker 1: before any of the things that are detectable, you know,
Speaker 1: um behaviors to anybody in on my sexuality. The decision
Speaker 1: has already been made based on this color of my skin.
Speaker 1: So that's just the truth of it. Um. I have
Speaker 1: found in my quest for understanding and my quest for
Speaker 1: being part of my own community, that I do stand
Speaker 1: at the intersection of these two struggles. You know, the
Speaker 1: queer community is in civil rights fight of their life
Speaker 1: right now, especially the trans especially the trans community which
Speaker 1: has gay men. We have a complicated relationship to write.
Speaker 1: We're under this umbrella of l g B, t Q plus,
Speaker 1: but the gay community has not always been there for we.
Speaker 1: You know, we haven't always understood. My angelus says, when
Speaker 1: you know better, you do better. We know better. It's
Speaker 1: time to do better. But with that said, I just
Speaker 1: I have lived a life of feeling very misunderstood, rejected,
Speaker 1: dismissed from my own because of my gayness. And that's
Speaker 1: a conversation, in a really complicated conversation that I am
Speaker 1: having with my own community. Unfortunately, and historically communities of color,
Speaker 1: particularly in the African American community. In my case, I'm
Speaker 1: always speaking from my experience. The homophobia, the transphobia is
Speaker 1: so toxic and so destructive that I've seen it literally
Speaker 1: killed people. And like I said before, I'm not going
Speaker 1: out like that. Another thing I'm thinking about watching poses
Speaker 1: thinking about, and my life is very different from these characters.
Speaker 1: Mostly characters of color in and around New York ball
Speaker 1: Room seem very different from my life. But I feel
Speaker 1: on one hand connected by the simple fact that I'm
Speaker 1: part of a community or a tradition in the lgbt
Speaker 1: Q community that threads back through their lives, and on
Speaker 1: the other hand, seeing what they were up against and
Speaker 1: seeing what they confronted within living memory, even within my
Speaker 1: lifetime technically but not within my lifetime that I was
Speaker 1: aware of the world. I'm also mindful that the acceptance
Speaker 1: not total, but the acceptance that I've known as an
Speaker 1: out candidate for president is is built in part on
Speaker 1: they're living their lives authentically and yet knowing that many
Speaker 1: of them were destroyed for Yes, and you know, it's
Speaker 1: not lost on me that I am a part of
Speaker 1: the generation who kicked the door down. I'm a part
Speaker 1: of the generation who blazed the trail. And it's not
Speaker 1: lost on me that very often the people who are
Speaker 1: the trail blazers are not the ones that get to
Speaker 1: benefit from the trail having been blazed. I am getting
Speaker 1: to experience both. That takes my breath away because it
Speaker 1: creates inside of me an unquenchable fire that will never
Speaker 1: go out, because I have the history that is the
Speaker 1: worst of all of it. When you don't know your history,
Speaker 1: you are doomed to repeat it. It is our purpose
Speaker 1: that we don't know our history. It is our purpose
Speaker 1: that our public school system does not teach the truth
Speaker 1: about anything in our history. I go back to the
Speaker 1: learning about Christopher Columbus, and it was a cartoon, a
Speaker 1: cartoon about how these levely white people came and you know,
Speaker 1: discovered America as if there was nobody else here. Y'all,
Speaker 1: solid is what happened. You colonize a group of people.
Speaker 1: We don't know the truth, you know, and that's a
Speaker 1: difficult thing. It's like when I think about the young
Speaker 1: people that you know, the last election cycle, who when
Speaker 1: Bernie didn't win the nomination, took their toys and went
Speaker 1: home and didn't show up at the polls. This is
Speaker 1: not blame, This is not to harp on the past,
Speaker 1: But I say this in context of they didn't know.
Speaker 1: We just wanted a better life for our kids, and
Speaker 1: they were born into this life that was better. They
Speaker 1: didn't have their history. There are some people, I'm sure
Speaker 1: who were thinking even now, who were thinking about how
Speaker 1: they're going to vote. But what really worries me are
Speaker 1: the people who are thinking about whether they're going to vote.
Speaker 1: And you have been so vocal and so outspoken on
Speaker 1: why it is so important to vote and why you
Speaker 1: don't just get to take your your your toys and
Speaker 1: go home. But what is the message to people who
Speaker 1: you know, believe because they're under no illusions about the
Speaker 1: problems in America, are therefore so cynical about the entire
Speaker 1: system that they want nothing to do with it, even voting.
Speaker 1: That is the whole point of what voter suppression means.
Speaker 1: Voter suppression isn't just intimidation at the polls. Voter suppression
Speaker 1: is getting into the psyche of the culture and making
Speaker 1: us believe that our votes don't matter. And when you
Speaker 1: think that way, and when you allow that to take hold,
Speaker 1: they have one You know, and I use day in quote.
Speaker 1: It's like, that's the whole point to destroy democracy is
Speaker 1: to make people think that the very action that makes
Speaker 1: a society democratic doesn't work. The one thing, the rue
Speaker 1: right that we have still is to get out and vote.
Speaker 1: Why do you think they're attacking it so much? Why
Speaker 1: do you think that it's not a national holiday. It's
Speaker 1: on purpose. So what we must do is continue to
Speaker 1: use our right or we lose our right. You know,
Speaker 1: I'm trying to get you know, I'm trying to wrap
Speaker 1: my mind around how you look at what has happened
Speaker 1: in the last four years. And there's still a question
Speaker 1: of if if Biden and parrass I don't understand the logic,
Speaker 1: I don't, you know. And this is not Democrat and
Speaker 1: republic speak. This is not I'm not talking about that
Speaker 1: because I'm the kind of Democrat who will vote for
Speaker 1: a Republican if they're better. You know, I'm looking at
Speaker 1: the policy, I'm looking at the human being. You know,
Speaker 1: it's really not about Democrat or Republican. You know, I'm
Speaker 1: very progressive, so most of the time it will be democratic.
Speaker 1: But in this moment, I'm talking about specifically, in this
Speaker 1: moment today, after what we've seen over the last four years,
Speaker 1: how is it even a question? Yeah? You know. Part
Speaker 1: of how I talk about it is that we may
Speaker 1: have disagreements, especially within my party, over how to do
Speaker 1: certain things, how to make good on the reality that
Speaker 1: black lives matter, how to raise wages, how to get
Speaker 1: everybody healthcare. But the question we're going into in November
Speaker 1: is is whether to do any of those things, whether
Speaker 1: to expand or reduce healthcare, whether to raise wages or
Speaker 1: keep exactly. Yeah, And that's just a different conversation. And
Speaker 1: then I hope we will have good people elected and
Speaker 1: we can go right back to arguing over exactly how
Speaker 1: to do these things in government. But first we gotta
Speaker 1: we gotta set the question as a country over whether
Speaker 1: we're going to be moving three steps forward, as you say,
Speaker 1: or two steps back or five steps back. And I
Speaker 1: have to say this, This is the reality that keeps
Speaker 1: me up at night. The reality is the Republican Party
Speaker 1: as it stands today. I'm not talking about the Party
Speaker 1: of Lincoln. I'm not talking about that these people chose
Speaker 1: whiteness over humanity. They held their noses and they voted
Speaker 1: for this monster. They closed their eyes and lined up
Speaker 1: behind him. Every white man, particularly in a position of
Speaker 1: power to check him and stop him, chose to not
Speaker 1: do it. I can go all the way back to Comy,
Speaker 1: I can go to Muller with his anemic response to Maddis.
Speaker 1: I'm calling them all out. Y'all had a chance to
Speaker 1: make sure that the American people were taken care of,
Speaker 1: and you chose your whiteness instead, period, Because I assure
Speaker 1: you if it was the black president or the woman
Speaker 1: president doing any of this, they would have been removed
Speaker 1: without pop m the Republican Party was fine. But everything
Speaker 1: that he's doing because they want to cut social Security,
Speaker 1: because they want conservative judges on the court, because they
Speaker 1: want to steal the Supreme Court, because they want social
Speaker 1: Security to go away, they want Medicaid and Medicare to
Speaker 1: go away. They want all of those things. And they
Speaker 1: thought he could be a puppet to make sure that
Speaker 1: all of that stuff could happen. They did not anticipate
Speaker 1: COVID and narcissism. They didn't anticipate the power of narcissism.
Speaker 1: Intersecting about pandemic and now we're seeing what's at stakes.
Speaker 1: I mean, I remember conservatives, I talked to sometimes saying,
Speaker 1: all right, look, we don't like him either, but it
Speaker 1: doesn't matter that much. We'll deal with it exactly. And
Speaker 1: now we're seeing just how much is at stake. And
Speaker 1: that's privilege, because when Reagan got in office in nine
Speaker 1: that changed my life and everybody I know for the worst.
Speaker 1: So anybody who says the president doesn't matter that much
Speaker 1: are people who are not affected, who have the privilege
Speaker 1: of not being affected by policies that take everything away
Speaker 1: from which is also the kind of privilege that would
Speaker 1: make somebody think it's okay not to vote. I want
Speaker 1: to turn to a question that Chaston, who was very
Speaker 1: excited to know that we'd be speaking as in fact,
Speaker 1: I remember, I don't know if you remember this. We
Speaker 1: were somewhere in the middle of the campaign. We're at
Speaker 1: l A X waiting to catch a flight, and Chaston
Speaker 1: nudges me and says, that's that's Billy Order over there,
Speaker 1: and that's Billy Porter, and I was doing the same
Speaker 1: thing on the other side of them. On the other side,
Speaker 1: I was like, oh, that a Buddha jad When we
Speaker 1: struck up a wonderful conversation, and I've been glad to
Speaker 1: be in conversation ever since. But Chaston wanted me to
Speaker 1: ask you something that I knows on his mind and
Speaker 1: our because he's been thinking about those who aren't seen
Speaker 1: within the queer community. He said, many people in the
Speaker 1: queer community feel left out, unseen, or or unsafe in
Speaker 1: this country. And do you really have a way of
Speaker 1: inviting people in, of making people feel seen and harnessing
Speaker 1: your own story and your own talent to to help
Speaker 1: do that and to do good so for someone as
Speaker 1: visible as you are, who, even though it was not guaranteed,
Speaker 1: learned the power of being yourself. What do you have
Speaker 1: to say to others who aren't quite ready to share
Speaker 1: their truth or who are questioning whether they're ever going
Speaker 1: to belong well? I mean, RuPaul says it all the time.
Speaker 1: You know, if you don't love yourself, how the hell
Speaker 1: can you love anybody else? It seems really simple, it See,
Speaker 1: you know, we hear it so often that we stop
Speaker 1: hearing it. You know, we hear it so often that
Speaker 1: I don't believe that as a collective we totally understand
Speaker 1: what that means. This pandemic, this global reset, you know,
Speaker 1: has taught me that the only way I can move
Speaker 1: forward is to figure out how to love myself, is
Speaker 1: to figure out how to let go of the shame.
Speaker 1: What a wonderful response to the moment we're in, because
Speaker 1: I think some people have become clearly very productive in
Speaker 1: this moment. Others have found it very hard to get
Speaker 1: anything done. But if I understand you, right, it feels
Speaker 1: like you're saying that turning inward is not a bad thing.
Speaker 1: When it comes to being ready and able to have
Speaker 1: more to offer out in the world. You have to
Speaker 1: get you have to get that right first. You know,
Speaker 1: you have to it yourself right first. Otherwise your foundation
Speaker 1: is built on sinking sand. I've built a strong foundation.
Speaker 1: It's been through the years, metaphorically the concrete. You know,
Speaker 1: I poured the concrete my entire life. I'm standing of
Speaker 1: some strong foundation now and it's and I'm ready for
Speaker 1: whatever comes, for whatever this election is, for whatever comes,
Speaker 1: I'm ready. You know, there are people who came before me,
Speaker 1: on whose shoulders I stand, who died for me to
Speaker 1: be here. So who do I think I am that
Speaker 1: I'm just supposed to flit through life with no problem. No,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna be here and I'm gonna make it better
Speaker 1: for those who come behind me. That's my goal, that's
Speaker 1: my service. One of the things that that strikes me
Speaker 1: talking to you is you have zero illusions about the
Speaker 1: problems that surround us, the pain of our moment, the
Speaker 1: trouble in the history and the present of this country.
Speaker 1: And yet you have never sounded to me pessimistic. You
Speaker 1: talk about a global reset, you talk about time and
Speaker 1: space for enlargement, You talk about hopes and dreams for
Speaker 1: the future. Do you believe that is going to be
Speaker 1: better than I believe that will be better? It's my faith,
Speaker 1: it's my hope. That's one of the good things that
Speaker 1: I took from religion that I believe to be man made.
Speaker 1: Religion is man made, spirituality is divine. Faith, and hope
Speaker 1: was instilled in me. It's the only way that I
Speaker 1: understand how to move through life, because otherwise I'm debilitated.
Speaker 1: I've seen the other version of what darkness can bring.
Speaker 1: So be the light that you want to see and
Speaker 1: hope for the best. I mean, that's all we got,
Speaker 1: and remember to embrace possibility and positivity. There were a
Speaker 1: lot of poignant moments in that conversation, and one in
Speaker 1: particular is when Billy said, just tell the truth, and
Speaker 1: it makes me think that it's more important than ever
Speaker 1: to find truth, not just publicly but on the inside,
Speaker 1: more important than ever to find personal, deep truths and
Speaker 1: then find ways to give them expression. There's humanity there
Speaker 1: that we all really need to tap into and are
Speaker 1: going to continue to need amidst all of the devastation
Speaker 1: that's happening around us. I really do hope that we
Speaker 1: can continue to find belonging love of others by better
Speaker 1: loving ourselves and real truth through art. I very much
Speaker 1: believe it's going to be central to shaping and saving
Speaker 1: ourselves in our country, and I'm so grateful for people
Speaker 1: like Billy doing this service simply by being the remarkable
Speaker 1: people that they are. For more podcasts from My Heart Radio,
Speaker 1: visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
Speaker 1: you live into your favorite shows. M