Photo: Jamie McCarthy/Getty Images
The Met Gala was a one-and-done event for Billy Porter. On the Bevelations SiriusXM show, Porter said Ryan Murphy invited him to his first Gala in 2019, and he hasn’t been invited back since. “That’s the only time I’ve ever gone, and the only time I’ve ever been invited,” he said. “The reality is, when people ask me, you need to know I was not invited and I’m good.” Porter added that he was particularly hurt by not getting an invite to the 2025 Gala, in honor of the “Superfine: Tailoring Black Style” exhibition. That’s the one where people thought Blackpink’s Lisa wore underwear with Rosa Parks’s face on them, if you’ll recall. For the record, she did not.
“I don’t go to places where I’m not welcome,” Porter said. “I’ve earned the invitation and it’s ok that I don’t have it because there’s a level that I’ve reached that doesn’t require validation from the outside. I’m going to sit and live in that because it helps keep me sane, too.” The Pose actor’s relationship with Vogue and Anna Wintour, who host the Met Gala, has been mixed. Porter accused the magazine of queerbaiting in 2023 when they made Harry Styles the first man to grace the cover in a dress. “It’s not Harry Styles’s fault that he happens to be white and cute and straight and fit into the infrastructure that way. That’s why he’s on the cover. Non-binary blah blah blah blah. No. It doesn’t feel good to me. You’re using my community — or your people are using my community — to elevate you. You haven’t had to sacrifice anything,” he said, adding that Wintour reached out before the cover went live. “That bitch said to me at the end, ‘How can we do better?’ And I was so taken off guard that I didn’t say what I should have said.”
If Porter only got one chance to walk the stepped carpet, at least he went all out. For the 2019 camp-themed Gala, Porter arrived on a palanquin carried by shirtless men. He was dressed by The blonds as a winged golden phoenix. If only the relationship between Porter and Wintour could arise from the ashes.
Source: Read Full Article
