Todrick Hall Datg, Proud Gay Man's Boyiend Disappots - Turns Savage

BLACK AND GAY AMERI: WHAT IT’S LIKE TO BE TODRICK HALL

As a black gay man the entertament dtry, he is ed to pavg his own yellow brick road.

“The thg that mov me the most about Todrick is that he reprents the thg that my generatn fought for, which is a black man who uld be gay and out the mic dtry, ” says Hall’s iend Billy Porter, a Broadway veteran who has garnered recent attentn for his role on FX’s Pose and his extravagant red-rpet looks. “They lghed my gay ass out of the bs the mid-’90s.

“From day one, Todrick has always been very hont wh me about his life and his experienc as a gay man of lor, ” Swift tells Billboard over email. “When I did what everybody else told me I was supposed to do, when I did the way the homophob told me I was supposed to do , when I tried to be mascule enough for the world to love me, I was broke, bankpt and unemployed, ” says Porter.

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Early on his reer, a black artistic director he was workg wh approached him and said, “ ‘The worst thg you uld ever be this world is a black gay man, ’ ” rells Hall — an unhelpful warng about the uphill battl he might face entertament. Though the “Nails, Hair, Hips, Heels” vio has the same cktail of attu, tense choreography and snappy tchphras many pop divas are celebrated for, Hall’s peers have suggted that racism and ternalized homophobia wh the LGBTQ muny still pose obstacl for artists like him tryg to sell those same thgs back to them.

Last year, durg a panel at the Billboard-The Hollywood Reporter Pri Summ Wt Hollywood, RuPl’s Drag Race alum and mician Trixie Mattel said, “If a whe blond woman was dog what Todrick Hall did, gays would fall the fuck out” — be really imprsed — and Hall says he n’t disagree. Even though he -executive-produced the “You Need To Calm Down” vio, which clud roundg up celebry meos om the lik of Laverne Cox and the st of Queer Eye, there was no shortage of social media posts dismissg Hall for beg “thirsty” for the A-list and allowg himself to be the “token gay black iend” for other celebri. Hall jumped to her fense and, a tweet that SB Projects employe would immediately and vehemently refute, wrote that he had left the pany “a long time ago” and believed Brn was “homophobic” and “an evil person [whose] only ncern is his wealth.

“I genuely attempted several tim to talk to him om a place of love, but wh my wounds om beg black and gay Ameri, and his ego, was difficult to get through. “If you reprent a gay artist and don’t give them the same amount of attentn and rourc as you do your other non-gay artists, ” says Hall, “you and your team should take a moment and nsir the reasons why. Todrick Hall is a proud and openly gay man.