Nearly three years after Harry Styles' historic 'Vogue' cover, Billy Porter is calling out the pop star... and Anna Wintour.
Almost three years after Harry Styles became Vogue's first-ever solo male cover star -- notably in a dress -- the milestone remains a point of contention for Billy Porter.
In a new interview with The Telegraph, Porter -- who has become an icon of gender-bending style -- once again calls out the historic cover and the people responsible for it, including Vogue Editor-in-Chief Anna Wintour.
At a Q&A with Wintour in front of Condé Nast staff months before the cover's release, she asked him an unexpected question, Porter recalls to The Telegraph. “That b**ch 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," he tells The Telegraph.
The answer Porter wishes he gave Wintour was, “Use your power as Vogue to uplift the voices of the leaders of this de-gendering of fashion movement."
"Six months later," he says, "Harry Styles is the first man on the cover."
For Porter, there are other people that should be blamed. "It’s not Harry Styles’ fault that he happens to be white and cute and straight and fit into the infrastructure that way," he says. "I call out the gatekeepers.”
As for Styles, Porter says the singer is “white and he’s straight. 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."
In response to Porter's comments, a Vogue spokesperson told ET, "We of course regret that Billy feels as he does, and Vogue completely recognizes the tremendous amount of work he has done driving the conversation forward around genderless fashion."
This is not the first time Porter has shared his discontent about the cover. In a 2021 interview with The Sunday Times, he did not mince words about Styles being picked for the landmark moment.
"I feel like the fashion industry has accepted me because they have to. I’m not necessarily convinced and here is why. I created the conversation [about non-binary fashion] and yet Vogue still put Harry Styles, a straight white man, in a dress on their cover for the first time," he said. "I’m not dragging Harry Styles, but he is the one you’re going to try and use to represent this new conversation? He doesn’t care, he’s just doing it because it’s the thing to do. This is politics for me. This is my life. I had to fight my entire life to get to the place where I could wear a dress to the Oscars and not be gunned now. All he has to do is be white and straight."
Shortly after, Porter appeared on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert, where he issued a public apology to Styles.
"Harry Styles, I apologize to you for having your name in my mouth," he said. "It's not about you. The conversation is not about you."
"The conversation is actually deeper than that," he continued to Colbert. "It is about the systems of oppression and erasure of people of color who contribute to the culture. Now, that's a lot to unpack. I'm willing to unpack it, sans the dragging and cancel culture of the internet, because I do not now, nor will ever, adjudicate my life or humanity in sound bites on social media, so when you're ready to have the real conversation, call a b**ch. I'm ready to have it and I'm sorry, Harry. I didn't mean no harm. I'm a gay man -- we like Harry. He's cute."
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