-My next guest is an Emmy, Grammy,
and Tony-winning performer
who you can see in the third and final season of "Pose,"
which airs Sundays at 10:00 p.m. on FX.
Please welcome Billy Porter!
[ Cheers and applause ]
♪ -Billy Porter ♪
♪ Everybody knows ♪
♪ You're shining like a star ♪
♪ When you strike a pose ♪
♪ Billy Porter ♪
♪ Casting a spell ♪
♪ On the audience ♪
♪ When you turn into Pray Tell ♪
♪ Yeah ♪
-I knew it. [ Cheers and applause ]
-I'm coming to "Fallon."
-Billy Porter, come on.
-I know you like my clothes. I'm coming to "Fallon."
I call it Sissy Pimp.
[ Laughter ]
My Sissy Pimp look.
[ Laughter ]
-I want to show you an Instagram photo, because I follow you.
And you're a great follow.
This is you cleaning the pool.
[ Laughter ]
This is how Billy Porter cleans his pool.
[ Laughter ] -Please!
[ Cheers and applause ]
Listen. Listen.
That is a photo shoot in Palm Springs.
It's Emilio Pucci realness. -Okay.
-I didn't have a pool when I shot that.
I do have a pool now. [ Cheers and applause ]
And somebody else cleans it!
[ Cheers and applause ] -Oh, come on!
That's what I'm talking about!
-I don't clean the pool, kids!
I don't clean the pool. [ Laughter ]
-I want to talk to you about a bunch of things.
But I want to talk to you about
this "Hollywood Reporter" article.
This was amazing, actually. It was powerful.
It says, "This is what HIV-positive looks like now."
-Yes.
-We all didn't know, obviously.
You were HIV-positive for 14 years?
-Yeah, I've been positive since 2007.
And, you know, having lived through the AIDS crisis,
it was heavy for me.
It was a heavy year, 2007.
And I lived with the shame of it for a really long time,
and last week, I released that shame.
I released that trauma.
And I am a free man, honey! [ Cheers and applause ]
Free. Free. -It feels good?
-Yes, it does. It does.
I've never -- I've never -- I've never felt joy like this before.
And, you know, we talk about it in the black church.
You know, this joy that I have,
the world didn't give it and the world can't take it away.
I got it. [ Cheers and applause ]
I got some joy now. -I'm so happy.
-You know, and it's just -- it really feels good.
It really feels great.
-I thought it was very brave of you.
But also, what an interesting story.
And I can't even imagine
how anyone would just deal with that and just --
I mean, your mom -- you didn't even tell your mother.
-No. [ Laughs ]
That was the thing, you know.
It's, like, growing up in the Pentecostal church,
there's such a stigma surrounding it.
You know, having lived through it, you know,
I was supposed to know better, it happened anyway.
You know, there was just so much going on, and my mother
received so much, you know, persecution because I was gay.
And I just didn't want her to have to go through that again.
It's sort of like a second coming-out.
And I didn't want her to go through that again,
and my sister and I had vowed
we were just going to wait till she was dead.
And she went into a nursing home six years ago,
and she ain't going nowhere.
[ Laughter ] She's full of life!
-That's right. [ Cheers and applause ]
-So it's time to tell her!
-Time to tell her, yeah. -Time to tell her.
-I know you have -- Last time we talked,
you said you were working on music?
-Yes. -How's the music?
-New music, honey. New music.
-No, no. I want this. [ Cheers and applause ]
-For those of you who don't know, you know,
I had a record deal back in the '90s -- 1997.
My first R&B album came out on A&M Records.
You know, they put my gay ass out.
[ Laughter ] So I did it anyway.
And now I'm coming back! Daddy's coming back!
[ Cheers and applause ] -That's right.
-Move out the way, Ariana Grande, Beyoncé,
you know, Lady Gaga, all the kids.
Just make some space for Daddy. [ Cheers and applause ]
-Alright. -I'm coming. Make some space.
-And you're recording right now? -I'm recording right now.
I've been recording for the last two months.
We got about 10 songs.
And I am so thrilled because, you know, for the first time
in my life, it's exactly what I want it to be.
The music is exactly from me, what I want to say,
and the message, and the gift
that I want to give to the world,
which is, you know, hope, you know, love.
We have to choose it.
We have to recommit to it every day.
We have to choose it, so that we can fight,
you know, the evil that is pervasive.
You know, we can only fight it with love.
We can only do that. It can only change with love.
And I'm so excited for my music for that.
[ Cheers and applause ]
-We also talked about -- You're like,
"I'm just gonna work, work, work during this pandemic."
And you said, "I'm working on a memoir."
I go, "Oh, my gosh." And I go, "How is the editing?
How is it going? How is writing?"
You're like, "Great."
You brought to us tonight, which I'm so thankful,
the cover of the memoir.
-You get a first look of the cover!
[ Cheers and applause ] She's done!
-Alright, here we go. -The book is done!
-Ready? -Ow!
Ah!
[ Cheers and applause ]
-Look at that. -Pre-order!
-Pre-order!
-I need the children to pre-order.
-Pre-order! Oh, my God.
-I need to be on the best-seller list, y'all.
-It's going to happen. That's all it takes.
-Daddy got to pay that mortgage. -Exactly.
I want to talk about "Pose," too, while you're here.
You have so many projects.
This is the final season of "Pose."
-Yes. -But you kind of always planned
this out to be the final season, correct?
-Well, I didn't plan anything.
[ Laughter ]
The creators, Steven Canals and Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk,
you know, they always intended for the story to end
when the antiretroviral drugs came out.
And that was '96.
And, you know, there wasn't really a limit,
but as we told the story, you know,
they realized, "Oh, we're there."
And, you know, the show is too important
to continue it just because it's a hit.
-Yeah. -It matters too much.
You know, this season is -- I think it's exceptional.
You know, I keep saying, you know, just for me personally,
you know, I got to use "Pose" and Pray Tell as a proxy,
you know, for my healing.
-Oh, interesting.
-And, you know, I've been saying,
if I don't ever do anything else --
and I'm already doing a lot of other things --
but if I don't ever do anything in my life -- else in my life,
I will have done it, you know?
It's -- [ Cheers and applause ]
I've said everything I've needed to say,
and now it's time to tell a different story.
Now I get to tell a different story, and I'm excited about it.
-I love you, bud. I want to show everyone a clip.
Here's Billy Porter in "Pose." Take a look.
-I loved you.
And I'm not ashamed of what you once meant to me,
but you're asking me to step away from the church.
-No, no, no, no, the church stepped away from me.
And I'm not the only one.
Every year I watch hundreds of kids flock to the city,
looking for what they lost after the church threw them away.
That's what your church d--
♪♪
That's what your church did.
To me.
[ Cheers and applause ]
-Billy Porter!
Amazing. Amazing. [ Cheers and applause ]
The final season of "Pose" airs Sundays at 10:00 p.m. on FX.
Look for the music! Look for the book!