photographer SAM WAXMAN @wamsaxman
photographer’s assistant AUSTIN RUFFER @austinyourface
stylists TY HUNTER @tytryone COLIN ANDERSON @colinmanderson
assistant stylists MANUEL MENDEZ @itsamanuworld MARIO SOLARES @oxandsnake
hair CHERYL BERGAMY @cheryltbergamyhair
makeup LA SONYA GUNTER @lasonyagunter
nail tech NIA MUCH
videographer AUSTIN NUNES @austinunes
“I wanted to be the male Whitney Houston.”
That was Billy Porter’s first dream. He didn’t always aspire to be a Tony Award-winning Broadway star. Or an Emmy Award-winning actor. Or a fashion icon. Or a movie director. Yet he’s done all those things.
That’s just what happens when you “stay ready,” he says with a smile. “I came in with the skill set to be multihyphenated from the start, from the beginning.” He’s not bragging, just stating facts. “I’m a singer. For the first 20 years, I had to fight to try to convince the powers that be that I could act.” Now at 53, an age Houston never lived to see, he’s ready to show the world every trick he has, on his own terms. It’s clear he’s a born storyteller.
“When I was a kid, I’d go to church a couple Sundays a month with Mom,” he recalls. “She’d dress me up in black loafers and some awful striped polo she’d bought from JCPenney, and I’d mentally prepare for the three-hour 12 p.m. service. My Houston megachurch always begins the service with 45 minutes of live gospel music. That was always my favorite part, when the choir would croon and stomp and praise till they were exhausted and the pastor would stumble out, sing-talking over the organ, -ing until the crowd’d get louder and louder, working themselves
