Billy Porter says he is feeling the financial strain of the writers strike according to PEOPLE.
“I have to sell my house,” he told the London newspaper the Evening Standard. “Because we’re on strike. And I don’t know when we’re gonna go back [to work]. The life of an artist, until you make ‘F— you’ money — which I haven’t made yet — is still check-to-check. I was supposed to be in a new movie, and on a new television show starting in September. None of that is happening.”
Like countless others, The Pose alum, 53, is in the midst of a historical joint writers and actors strike.
The Cinderella star also slammed Disney chief executive Bob Iger for previously making remarks in which he claimed those on strike had demands that were “just not realistic.” Porter shot back, adding, “To hear Bob Iger say that our demands for a living wage are unrealistic? While he makes $78,000 a day?”
That figure was also recently quoted by SAG-AFTRA president Fran Drescher in a livestreamed speech last month.
Porter continued:
“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… But when I go back [to the U.S.] I will join the picket lines.”
He also responded to a widely shared quote from an anonymous industry exec published in Deadline last month who stated, “The endgame is to allow things to drag on until union members start losing their apartments and losing their houses.”
“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,” Porter said during his conversation with the Evening Standard.
In April, it was announced that the Kinky Boots artist would take on the role of celebrated author and civil rights activist James Baldwin in an upcoming biopic. As the strike continues, the future of the project remains unclear.
“As a Black queer man on this planet with relative consciousness, I find myself, like James Baldwin said, ‘in a rage all the time,'” Porter shared in a statement obtained by The Hollywood Reporter as news of the biopic made its rounds in April. “I am because James was. I stand on James Baldwin’s shoulders, and I intend to expand his legacy for generations to come.”
In October 2021, Porter told PEOPLE how performing “has always saved me.” After opening up about being molested by his stepfather at a young age, he revealed that musical theater was his saving grace.
“I don’t think I’d be alive if I hadn’t discovered it,” he said. “If I hadn’t seen those things, like The Wiz and Dreamgirls, then I never would’ve been able to dream outside of my circumstance.”
Porter is currently one Oscar away from reaching EGOT status.
