The Super Bowl airs this Sunday, and the conversation surrounding the halftime show is at its peak. Since Bad Bunny’s upcoming performance is all the buzz, conservatives are countering with a petty, spiteful alternate line up. Paired with Trump’s deeply racist tweet of the Obamas early Friday morning, it’s clear that bigotry is alive and well in America.
In a special episode of The Tea, April is joined by superstar and queer advocate Billy Porter. Together, the two spill the tea on how politics intersect with Bad Bunny’s upcoming performance. April and Porter also explore political complacency and the inability of social media soundbites to capture true intentions.
Billy Porter is an Emmy, Tony and Grammy Award-winning, and Golden Globe-nominated, actor, singer, director, composer, and playwright from Pittsburgh, PA. His electric portrayal of ‘Pray Tell’ in the FX’s breakthrough series “Pose,” earned him the Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series, as well as Golden Globe, Critics’ Choice Award, and Television Critics Association nominations. He most recently earned a third Emmy nomination for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series for this role. He was also the recipient of the Dorian Award for TV Performance of the Year from GALECA: The Society of LGBTQ Entertainment Critics, as well as nominated for a Black Reel Award for Outstanding Actor.
The following transcript has been edited for formatting.
April Ryan
Alrighty. Guys, welcome to this special edition of the Tea. This is the Super Bowl edition! Let me tell you something, and look who I have with me. We are wearing our sweats, none other than the great Billy Porter. Billy, Billy, Billy, Billy! Now, it’s the Seahawks versus the Patriots, but guess what? Guess who I’m rooting for? Bad Bunny! So, why is there such a problem with Bad Bunny being at the Super Bowl?
Billy Porter
Well, I guess you’re a journalist, and you have to ask. these questions. I clearly have answers. But it’s called racism, it’s called white supremacy, it’s called xenophobia, and you know all of that stuff. That’s what it is. It’s out loud, the gloves are off.
April Ryan
But then, have we ever heard of another alternative show? Have we heard of an alternative show for the Super Bowl? I didn’t hear that when Prince sang, I didn’t hear that when Michael Jackson sang, or Beyonce sang, or Rihanna sang.
Billy Porter
What are you talking about? I don’t even know what you’re talking about.
April Ryan
When they did the halftime show, there is an alternative Republican show. It’s Kid Rock and some other people, some other white men that I don’t know.
Billy Porter
Some people that nobody actually really knows or cares about anymore. You know, the color is not… when you’re getting on this level. The color is not black or white or anything else, the color is green. Bad Bunny is green. Kendrick Lamar is green. These people are green. They’re not black, they’re green. This is business. The Super Bowl don’t care nothing about any of that political stuff. They want their paper! And those people are gonna bring that paper in. Is it transactional? Yeah! It’s all transactional, and that’s something that I’ve learned this year.
You know, I lead with my heart, I lead you know, even in my business, I’ve had to go, “oh, wait a minute” this is not about the fullness of me. This is transactional. So, now a boundary is, then let it be transactional. I’m good with it being transactional. I’m fine. Now that I know, when you know better, you do better. So when it’s transactional, there are boundaries for me with how what I give and how I give it. The fullness of me.
April Ryan
Yeah. So, at the end of the day, well, we’ve seen—look, we have seen, in the last couple of weeks, the fullness of you and your thoughts. Oh my god. But listen, and you are very much on social media. What did you think about Donald Trump in that stupid, racist, ignorant post that he had today, that he’s now taken off with the Obamas,
Billy Porter
I just think it’s on purpose. And I think that, unfortunately, we, the people, are stuck in this reactionary outrage space that they don’t care about. You know, it’s like, outrage used to matter. Have you no decency, sir? Have you no decency? No, they don’t. The answer is they don’t.
So when we’re trying to engage with them in the ways that we’ve been engaging in the past, it doesn’t work! And we have to find a new way to engage. We were talking about this when I was in London last year. I was like. you know, I say, spend the first 5 minutes covering him, and then move on. Stop talking about him.
April Ryan
But this is a new level
Billy Porter
Yeah! Every time we give him 24-7 oxygen, it just grows bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger. I did a Twilight Zone, the reboot, a few years back, and I pitched It was, like, the beginning of him, and I pitched an episode, and I said, you know, what if there’s, like, a Trump kind of character, and somebody like a journalist, like a Don Lemon or an April Ryan, gets on television and says, for one week, nothing. For one week, we say nothing. He would lose his mind!
April Ryan
The rest of his mind.
Billy Porter
And my idea was that the less you speak about him, the more he digitally just disappears. I know that that’s not, possible, but I do feel like we are still trapped in the old way of engaging. And I’m not sure what the new way is, because that’s not my wheelhouse, but like…
April Ryan
But I beg to differ with you, because I’ve watched you and your interviews and the most recent Grammy interview that went viral, and you talked about you were born in 69. I was born in 67, right after the Civil Rights laws, all the laws that we have, and you said you’re an activist, baby. That’s all you know how to do. How do we activate now? I mean, I understand, don’t cover him, but when he does something like this.
Billy Porter
I’m just saying the way we cover him. The way we cover him it’s 24-7, 7 days a week, Takes up so much space! That there’s no room for anything else to blossom! I turn on my news! It’s all Trump. I turn on MSNBC, or whatever they call it now. It’s all…it’s never anything else, really.
You know, and it’s like, how do we then find a space to exist! Where we actually have the space to find a new way to engage. I really believe—and I’ve been saying this too—it’s like… so much of our… democracy in the past few years that I’ve realized seems to be rooted and based in tradition. And somebody’s moral fortitude. The peaceful transfer of power is not a law. It’s something that’s moral. And people just did it because of morals. So all it takes is for one person and a group of people to say no? All it took was for him and his people to say no for 10 years, and here we are. To not follow the rules, to not answer the subpoenas, to say no to the law, to not do… that’s all they had to do? That makes me question, then, what it was this to begin with. If it’s that easy to dismantle, then what was it to begin with? That is my big question. And I go back to something like, you know, and I’ve always paid attention, I’ve never been a civic, you know, like, but I’ve always paid attention, and I grew up, like I said, I grew up in that time. It’s like, I know to vote, I know to show up, I know to pay attention, I know to listen. But it’s like something like… Roe v. Wade wasn’t… what is it called? codified. I didn’t… I don’t even know what that meant. Like, so, there was something besides—
April Ryan
There were no protections.
Billy Porter
Something was supposed to happen that would have protected Roe v. Wade, right? And it didn’t happen for 50 years? What are we doing?
April Ryan
Same thing with voting rights. We’re voting without the full protections of the Voting Rights Act, right?
Billy Porter
I don’t understand what’s happening. It doesn’t feel, then, to me like, democracy is the real goal! It doesn’t feel like that to me when things like this… you know what I mean? It’s like… So we just out here. Right? Like, I don’t… I’m really, truly at a loss everywhere.
April Ryan
Like you say, we just out here, but, you know, and I think about this, and this is the Civil Rights Movement now. Today is the new Civil Rights Movement. And the thing that I’m thinking about, and someone said this, they said there’s always a song with the movement. We don’t have a song, and the face has flipped. It’s more white than it is black. Isn’t that something?
Billy Porter
I just feel like everybody—I don’t know, not everybody. I just feel like this snuck up on us. Because we had so many years of relative progress. We had 60-plus years of relative progress. It was hard, but, like, it was relative progress, and I feel like we got comfortable. We forgot about assassinations. We forgot about our ancestors dying so we could have these rights. We forgot about all of that. So now the question is, what will you sacrifice? Who’s ready to sacrifice their life for our freedoms? Again. Because that’s where we are! That’s where we are.
April Ryan
Renee Goode.
Billy Porter
On the streets, the ICE on the streets, like, it’s like that’s the Edmund Pettis Bridge! Like, that’s Jim Crow! And I speak to myself, I don’t know, because we have to find a way to approach it. To match the energy that they’re vomiting all over us. We have to match it.
People didn’t believe. I don’t think people believed —they don’t still believe. Believe it. We’re in it, and people still don’t believe it.
April Ryan
So, how do you take care of your mind and yourself in this moment? Because—and I know this sounds like I’m pandering—but I have gospel music, and you know one of my favorite songs is your song.
Billy Porter
We’re just gonna have to wait.
April Ryan
The world’s gonna have to wait. Guys, if you don’t know that song, I gave it to my aunt. She said, did you see Billy Porter? I said, yes, I’ve been talking to Billy Porter. She said, you know Billy Porter? I said, listen to this song. She said, girl, you need to bring that song, that might.
Billy Porter
Yeah, I know, I’m bringing it back.
April Ryan
You are?
Billy Porter
Yeah, I’m starting to do concerts again, and I’m gonna put that. I’m gonna put that in the sack.
April Ryan
I called you while you were in London asking.
Billy Porter
You know, I was sick with sepsis earlier this year. And it brought me to a—I’m sorry, late last year, August of last year. And I’m still you know, in the throes of healing from that. And it was the Spirit saying to me. Sit down somewhere. Be still! You have shown up for your whole life for rights and equality for everybody else. Have some time for yourself now. You know, and even knowing that, you know, I find it… I find I have to remind myself to do that. I have to remind myself of my own new boundaries. You know? Last week at the Grammys was my first week back since August.
April Ryan
You were fabulous.
Billy Porter
Thank you, and I, and I… and I look back at, you know, the interviews, and what went viral, and all of that. And I said to my sister yesterday, I was like, you know, it takes everything out of me. Even when it’s positive in my direction, and I’ve done everything that I wanted to do. It takes so much out of me, you know, because the market… still, with everything that we’re going through, it’s still about soundbites. And clicks. It’s like, I, you know, yes, I said F. Nicki Minaj, but there was a whole minute-long-plus interview before that that led me to that. I had to post that.
April Ryan
I saw that, I saw that.
Billy Porter
So y’all know what I’m saying? I’m not out here trying to get clicks and go viral. That’s not who I am.
April Ryan
But there’s a large portion of society that feels that, especially as there are questions about her documentation, and who’s in her circle, and the fact that she’s going to Donald Trump, to the White House, and to Melania’s movie, to get favor.
Billy Porter
Yes, of course!
April Ryan
We are hurting. I’m mad at you, and your performance was stellar, too.
Billy Porter
I had that cute government blowout. Yes, I did. Yes, I did, daddy’s in wigs now! Yes, I am!
April Ryan
It was colored, too! I saw it, it was beautiful!
Billy Porter
There was a curly one, there was my hair girl. from college was on, you know, she was there for me, honey. She said, let’s straighten it today.
April Ryan
So, what song right now— because that’s what’s missing in this movement. In this civil rights moment, what song would you label on this moment?
Billy Porter
Well, I have a song called Not Today. And it was up for the Harry Belafonte Grammy for Social Justice. Ray won it. So, I’m just gonna leave that there. He’s not even from America! No shout-out.
April Ryan
I know, I know. I know. But you know what? Someone who I was glad that the Grammys that won? Durand Bernarr.
Billy Porter
Bad Bunny! Yes!
April Ryan
Bad Bunny, too, but Durand Bernarr, Black History Month, all my life, and he put it out there.
Billy Porter
I mean, we are minorities… And he’s queer! And he’s brilliant!
April Ryan
He is a bad brother!
Billy Porter
Brilliant!
April Ryan
Oh, yes. Yes, he is. Yes, he is. Well, I know you gotta go. You gotta go run and catch a plane, and I’m so thankful for you.
Billy Porter
I appreciate you. I’m coming over to Substack.
April Ryan
You are on substack, you’re a contrarian!
Billy Porter
I’m on it, but I don’t quite know how to use it. So I’m getting… I’m getting tutorials from the VIP people. So it’s just getting on there so I can set up, because I think one of the things… well, I know one of the things that I need to do…Well, because my… You know, my mantra is, I do not now, nor will I ever adjudicate my life or humanity in soundbites on social media, and I will never do that. But what I feel about Substack is that it’s actually not soundbites. This is a space for you to actually have expansive conversations with yourself and with other people about various things. It feels like… Still, before, you know. And hopefully it will never, you know Go away from this. I hope we don’t get regulated right. It feels like the maturing of social media.
You know, it feels like a space where I can go and, like. do my essays and my thoughts for the day. You know, like… I’m excited! Because I need to get it out. You know, I need to… Not responding in the toxic space. Has it just sit with me, though? It just sits in me. And it made me sick. It literally made me physically ill, and I can’t do that, I gotta get it out.
April Ryan
You gotta get it out. And you have a song called I Gotta Get It Out.
Well, you are subscribed to The Contrarian, and you’re subscribed to me, and I’m so thankful that you spent… this may be… is this your first interview on The Contrarian… on the… on Success?
Billy Porter
I’m on the contrarian, yeah, but I’ve been with you in other spaces.
April Ryan
Yes, well, of course, and you’re always gonna be with me, and I’m so thankful. This is our Super Bowl time. Are you rooting for Bad Bunny? You gonna be watching him?
Billy Porter
I’ll be watching the Bad Bunny concert, yes.
April Ryan
I could care less about the football, because my team is not there. The Ravens lost, but Bad Bunny, we gonna watch halftime? That’s it. I’m gonna be texting you halftime, okay? What you think, Billy? What you think, Billy? Much love, my friend!
Billy Porter
Much love, honey. Thank you. See you soon.
April Ryan
Yes, baby! Thank you for sipping tea!
Billy Porter
Sipping and pouring the tea!
April Ryan
That’s Billy Porter, guys! Thank you.
