Billy Porter's mother was told she would "burn in the fiery pits of hell for loving her gay son".
The 55-year-old actor and singer - who came out as gay when he was 16 - has paid tribute to the way his Christian mother Cloerinda Jean Johnson Porter-Ford accepted his sexuality despite her own religious beliefs.
He told the 'Dish from Waitrose' podcast: "My mother was the greatest woman who ever walked the face of this earth.
"She is the personification of what true Christianity means. She didn't understand me. She didn't understand my gayness. She didn't understand this theatre thing. She didn't understand any of it.
"And yet and still, she was my biggest supporter. She said, 'Whatever God has called you to do, and I believe you when you say that to me, go do that'.
"And I'm so grateful that she lived long enough to see the fruits of her labour. Cause it wasn't easy for her, you know, her community was not kind to her.
"You know, they would call her on her telephone and tell her that she was going to burn in the fiery pits of hell for loving her gay son and she did it anyway."
Billy's mother died in February 2024, aged 79, but the Broadway star has revealed she "really got to see" his success before her death.
For the last eight years of her life, she was in the Actors Fund nursing home in Englewood, New Jersey, and it was there she really understood her son's achievements on stage.
He added: "Because she wasn't in the business, she didn't really realise - and this is before like the television and the fashion and all of this, this was like 'Kinky Boots'.
"But like, I'd been in the theatre business and everybody knew me for like 28 years at that point, right?
"So, she's at the Actors Fund nursing home with all of these-old theatre people and blah, blah, blah, blah. Like four or five months in, she calls me, and she said, ‘Son, these people have found out that I am your mother. And these white people are losing their minds!' She's like, ‘Who are you?’ "
In 2017, the 'Pose' star told how his mother was "born with a degenerative disability that has only progressed and worsened", but her drive inspired him.
In an interview for Build Series, he said at the time: "That woman has got out of bed every single day of her life and has fought for her life when everybody on the planet said that he shouldn't even bother.
"I don't know how to be anything else when you have an example like that. You can't be anything else."
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