He's Ready to Speak on It

Billy Porter spent decades dazzling in performance before he could be himself in public. He's making up for lost time.

- MIKELLE STREET

BILLY PORTER’S VOICE booms. It fills up a space, demanding to be listened to. It’s likely you know a mom with a voice like that—or a Black Pentecostal pastor who uses it to work his congregation into a sanctified frenzy. Porter speaks with a rasp that glides into clear, full-throated song, sometimes mid-sentence to emphasize a point. The voice has served him well on Broadway, where he debuted over 30 years ago. And as Pray Tell, the firecracker of a ballroom MC and an elder who rules with an always-on mic and a stern tongue on the FX show Pose.