Billy Porter Slams Vogue For Putting Harry Styles In A Dress On The Cover, Claims He Did It First: 'All He Has To Do Is Be White And Straight'
Not everyone was impressed with Harry Styles’ iconic Vogue cover.
Billy Porter is speaking out against the publication’s December 2020 Issue, which famously featured the One Direction alum breaking down gender norms while pictured in a long flowy gown.
During an interview with The Sunday Times, Porter voiced his frustration with Vogue for giving Styles’ unconventional fashion choices all of the attention when he himself had been doing it long before.
The Broadway star claimed that he was the one who got the ball rolling with non-binary fashion, and he insisted that the magazine only chose to feature Styles because he is a “straight white man.”
“I changed the whole game,” the 52-year-old Emmy-winner told the outlet on Sunday, October 17. “I. Personally. Changed. The. Whole Game. And that is not ego, that is just fact. I was the first one doing it and now everybody is doing it.”
“I feel like the fashion industry has accepted me because they have to. I’m not necessarily convinced and here is why,” he continued. “I created the conversation and yet, Vogue still put Harry Styles, a straight, white man, in a dress on their cover for the first time.”
Porter explained that while he wasn’t trying to “drag” the “Watermelon Sugar” singer, he was confused with the publication’s choice to give Styles the spread, asking, “He is the one you’re going to try and use to represent this new conversation?”
“He doesn’t care, he’s just doing it because it’s the thing to do,” the actor boldly asserted. “This is politics for me. This is my life. I had to fight my entire life to get to the place where I could wear a dress to the Oscars and not be gunned now. All he has to do is be white and straight.”
While Porter insisted that he believes the “Sign of the Times” singer is straight, Styles has previously dropped hints about his ambiguous sexuality.
Back in 2019, he was asked during an interview for The Guardian whether or not he identifies as heterosexual, which the singer refused to directly answer.
Styles responded by asking the interviewer why he was asked about his sexuality, wondering “Who cares?” whether or not he is straight.
“Am I sprinkling in nuggets of sexual ambiguity to try and be more interesting? No,” he said at the time. “In terms of how I wanna dress and what the album sleeve’s gonna be, I tend to make decisions in terms of collaborators I want to work with. I want things to look a certain way. Not because it makes me look gay, or it makes me look straight, or it makes me look bisexual, but because I think it looks cool. And more than that, I don’t know, I just think sexuality’s something that’s fun. Honestly? I can’t say I’ve given it any more thought than that.”
Despite conversations regarding his ambiguous sexual identity, Styles has since reportedly started up a relationship with bigtime actress Olivia Wilde.
