00:00Wow. Wow. Congratulations. Thank you. Oh my gosh. So two things real quickly. First of all,
00:07for folks who didn't know, you've been fabulous like this for a long time, okay? This is not new
00:12for us. Thank you. And second of all, how has this award tonight, you beat out really major
00:19people, and so how has this lifted the LGBTQ community tonight with you winning this award?
00:26I feel like visibility and representation are the only things that create change.
00:37It's when we are visible that we have the power to create empathy through the way we tell stories.
00:47I think being black, I know that being black and gay and out and being in this position
00:54and speaking from where I get to speak from is the change. I hope that young queer people of all colors
01:07can look at me and know that they can.
01:19Hi, Billy. Yes. Danielle from Essence. Hi, Danielle from Essence. Hi, Billy Porter. You look amazing.
01:25Thank you. And I know we just got an emotional response from you, so this might come off a
01:29little messy. It's all good. They caught, you're already starting to go viral as a gif on Twitter.
01:38Okay. A reaction. Okay. And it looked like it was in reaction to RuPaul's win tonight.
01:43Okay. So people on Twitter are asking, what was that going on in your mind?
01:49I don't, first of all, I don't know what the gif looks like, so I don't know.
01:53It feels side eye-esque. Yeah. There's never a side eye. Not quite as strong as a print side eye.
01:58There's never a side eye coming from me. Let me make this clear right now in this room to everybody.
02:02Right now, there's never a side eye coming from me. There's never anything negative coming from me.
02:10You're never going to get it from me. Okay. It's all love. It's all light. It's all positivity.
02:17Don't come to me with that mess. Don't. It's never that.
02:20Make it clear. Ever, ever, ever. So I don't know.
02:24Well, I love it. You're going to see it when you get on your Twitter.
02:26You know, because they can catch you in some sort of way. You know what I mean?
02:30Like they can catch you and it can look like a side eye. RuPaul is one of my, is a friend of mine.
02:35I am so proud of him. I stand on his shoulders. I stand on his shoulders. He is doing it.
02:43He paved the way for me. So there's never a side eye about that.
02:47Thank you for making that clear. And I have one more question. Sorry.
02:50So is it bittersweet to you? First of all, did the math. You're an Oscar away from an EGOT.
02:56Congratulations. Thank you.
02:58Is it bittersweet for you to know that this win is amazing and historic, but the women from Pose were kind of ignored?
03:06They weren't nominated?
03:07I don't live in bittersweet. I live in the present. I live in the positive.
03:13The fact that we're in the building. The fact that we're in the building is the point.
03:20Right? We're in the building. The world has changed. Period. That's where we are.
03:27And now we got another season and now they'll get their shot.
03:30And we have time for one more question.
03:33Billy, right over here to your other side here.
03:35Yeah, Billy.
03:36Hi, Billy.
03:38As a gay man, it's really important to see people like you win awards like these.
03:42And earlier this week, Jonathan Van Ness from Queer Eye came out and said that he is HIV positive.
03:48Yes.
03:48As a gay man yourself, and portraying somebody who has HIV on the show, what's it like being able to see somebody like Jonathan speak up about having something like this?
03:59Well, I think, once again, visibility is the point. We need to see what it looks like. We need to take the stigma away from it.
04:07And so it's people like Jonathan who allow for the stigma to be taken away.
04:12It's not HIV porn. You know, it's not all sadness, just like our show.
04:18You know, the point of our show is aspirational.
04:22You're watching people in the depths of the worst of circumstances, of the most dire of circumstances, choose life anyway.
04:31We all choose life anyway.
04:33That's what it's about.
04:34I'm happy for Jonathan, and I'm happy for the world.
04:38Billy, can I ask you one question to your right here?
04:40Congratulations, Steve Futterman from CBS News.
04:43I want to know what this means to your heart, your soul.
04:46When you heard your name announced, what went through your mind?
04:49Thank you, Jesus.
04:52It's been a long time.
04:55It's been a lot of work.
04:56It's been a long time.
04:57And I am just so grateful that I lived long enough to see the day where I could stand up in front of the world
05:03as my true, authentic self.
05:06My true, authentic self.
05:08I was told that who I am was never going to work.
05:11I was told that who and what I am would never be successful.
05:15Period.
05:16That's what I was told.
05:17I did not believe them.
05:19I did not believe them.
05:20This is proof positive that believe in yourself, invest in yourself, love yourself, and then you teach other people how to do it.
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