Billy Porter has shared some insight into the financial repercussions of the Hollywood strikes, revealing that he has to sell his house as a result.
The actor and singer has been active in the entertainment industry since the late Eighties, but received mainstream acclaim for his portrayal of ballroom announcer Pray Tell in Pose from 2018 to 2021.
Last month, the Screen Actors Guild – American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) joined striking film and TV writers in the demand for fairer pay. It is the first time that screen actors as well as writers have simultaneously withheld labour in 60 years, and has resulted in an effective shutdown of Hollywood.
Porter, 53, spoke to the Evening Standard in London about the protests. Controversially, Disney CEO Bob Iger told American press in July that actors’ expectations of treatment are “just not realistic”.
Other reports refer to an unnamed Hollywood exec admitting that “the endgame is to allow things to drag on until union members start losing their apartments and losing their houses”.
Responding to the corporation boss’s remarks, Porter said: “To hear Bob Iger say that our demands for a living wage are unrealistic? While he makes $78,000 (£61,000) a day?
“I don’t have any words for it, but: f*** you. That’s not useful, so I’ve kept my mouth shut. I haven’t engaged because I’m so enraged. I’m glad I’ve been over here. But when I go back I will join the picket lines.”
The actor then added that with no end to the strikes in sight, he has been forced to make a drastic change to his living situation and sell his house.
Billy Porter— (Getty Images for Tribeca Festival)
The “Children” singer explained that the Hollywood shutdown means several projects he’d been due to work on are stalled or have been cancelled.
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“The life of an artist, until you make f***-you money – which I haven’t made yet – is still cheque-to-cheque,” Porter said. “I was supposed to be in a new movie, and on a new television show starting in September. None of that is happening.
“So to the person who said, ‘We’re going to starve them out until they have to sell their apartments’, you’ve already starved me out.”
Last month, Porter announced that he and his husband Adam Smith were separating after 14 years together and six years married.
