Tragic Details About Billy Porter

Billy Porter was dealt a bad hand from the beginning. He grew up in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania with his mother, sister, and stepfather, and the latter "groomed" him from an extremely young age, and sexually abused him for five years. In a heart-wrenching op-ed for Out, Porter recalled the moment he told his mom about the abuse, on a day when he was performing in a series of shows as a teenager. "She believed me but she stayed with him," Porter wrote. "I was testing her, I guess? To see if anybody could take care of me. Would there being [sic] any consequences for the damage he had inflicted. Would there be any reckoning?"

But Porter didn't let this horrific experience, which has haunted him ever since, keep him down. "[T]he sexual abuse that I received at the hands of my stepfather from the time I was seven until the time I was twelve, weirdly, was the best thing that ever happened to me," he told Esquire in 2019. Explaining what he meant by this, he continued, "At seven, at twelve, I could look around and see all of these adults with no capacity to do anything to help me. I knew there's not an adult around me that knows what the f**k to do. I will do it myself." Porter built a life for himself, on his own terms.

If you or someone you know may be the victim of child abuse, please contact the Childhelp National Child Abuse Hotline at 1-800-4-A-Child (1-800-422-4453) or contact their live chat services.

Billy Porter was told in so many different ways that being gay was wrong, that being himself was wrong, but he made it to the other side, thriving in his authenticity. "This is the manifestation of the impossible," he told TV Guide in 2018 about his breakthrough role as Pray Tell on "Pose." He continued, "I came out in 1985. I never imagined in a million years it could look like this." He went on to explain that his detractors had discouraged him, told him to "adjust" his expectations, and to settle for being "a part of something else," something other than his own vision for his life. "I chose authenticity and truth and every hit that came with that," Porter told the outlet, while marveling at his unlikely success. "I'm so speechless right now. I'm just floating on air."

That word, "authenticity," lies at the heart of Porter's philosophy in its final form. "One of the most profound realizations that I've had as a 51-year-old man who is finally getting my whatever-we're-calling-this-moment-in-show-business is that I've had a lot of time to sit back and observe the lights that came before me and burned out too soon," he told The Hollywood Reporter. "I've had a lot of time to investigate why; and the answer for me always circled back around to authenticity." And that's something Porter won't compromise on.

Billy Porter has faced discrimination and injustice because he is Black and because he is gay. Those two parts of him exist alongside each other, and they sometimes interact in painful ways. In a video he released on Instagram in response to the murder of George Floyd, Porter describes not only fearing for his life as a Black man, but also the rejection from his own community. "And just to go even deeper," he says, "as a Black queer man in America, my basic human rights have been up for legislation every single day that I have had breath in my body, from all sides. And by that I mean that the Black community's relationship with the LGBTQ+ community is appalling at best, and eerily similar to that of white supremacists versus Black folk."

Billy Porter is deeply invested in the fight against every form of oppression. "I stand on the shoulders of my [B]lack folks who came before me and know what it feels like to be disenfranchised," Porter said in Gay Times. "It's a continued call to action for me and I hope that everybody in the LGBTQ community can come together and continue to fight for equality. I hope that's what I exude."

There's no denying that Billy Porter has had a difficult life and continues to face many struggles, but the actor has been able to find the silver lining in all of his experiences. "There has never been a moment that I've not been in trauma, which is what I've discovered this last year," he told The Hollywood Reporter in May 2021. "And it was my engine for a very long time. My trauma served me, my story has served me, in terms of forward motion. And as an artist, I'm grateful to have been given opportunities to work through my s**t."

Both "Kinky Boots" and "Pose" allowed Porter to work through personal issues. "I know Pray Tell becomes an activist, so we get to see that side of him," he told Esquire about his role in the TV show. "And I get to funnel my real, everyday rage into something that feels productive." Importantly, "Pose" also allows him to give a voice to marginalized communities in a way that wouldn't have been possible even just a few years ago. Speaking with IndieWire about the inexorable blend of his "art" and "activism," Porter said, "Through the decades, it's deepened. I have learned how to show up and participate better, but I don't have a choice. I'm [B]lack and gay. I don't have a choice. I can't sit back and be silent, and expect the world to do anything for me."

In a beautiful as-told-to piece for The Hollywood Reporter in May 2021, Billy Porter made the courageous decision to reveal his HIV status. "I was the generation that was supposed to know better, and it happened anyway," Porter said. "It was 2007, the worst year of my life. I was on the precipice of obscurity for about a decade or so, but 2007 was the worst of it. By February, I had been diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes. By March, I signed bankruptcy papers. And by June, I was diagnosed HIV-positive."

When asked by Tamron Hall why he chose to reveal his HIV-positive status now, Porter explained that he felt "survivors' guilt," as do many "gay men of a certain age" about making it through the AIDS crisis. "Why did I survive?" he asked. "Because there's something in the survival that is greater than me. And then 'Pose' happened, and I said, 'OK, God, Universe, she, them, they, whatever we call the force, I understand, because I was left here to tell the story, to remind the world that we were here, we've always been here, we're still here, and we're not ever going anywhere.'"

Speaking to THR, Porter expressed gratitude for the medical developments that have allowed him to live with his diagnosis and maintain a thriving marriage to husband Adam Smith. "We are in a mixed-status relationship," he said. "I'm completely undetectable. That's the amazing part of the developments."

Billy Porter's relationship with his mother, Cloerinda Ford, hasn't always been easy. They now share a powerful bond, but Ford's health complicates things. "My mother lives in a nursing home in New Jersey," Porter told the The Guardian in 2021. "She's the love of my life, and it breaks my heart that she has a degenerative disability and can't hang out with me in person during all the success I am having now."

Ford has lived with this condition since birth, a result of a result of "medical malpractice," as Porter told Out in 2018. "We should be millionaires but this was America in the '40s ... Black. Poor. Nobody cared. Still don't. But I digress." He also revealed that before his father abandoned the family, he was physically and emotionally abusive to his mother. "He told the neighborhood that she was a witch, that's why she had a compromised gait." 

For Porter, Ford's strength in the face of adversity has been a never-ending source of inspiration. "My mother is my hero," he once told W, adding, "The world told her she wouldn't ever be able to do anything. I sat and watched her get out of bed every day and show up for her life every day. It really empowered me. It gave me that kind of tenacity to never give up."