“It doesn’t feel good to me”: Billy Porter slams Harry Styles’ Vogue cover and editor Anna Wintour

"You're using my community — or your people are using my community — to elevate you," Porter said

By Joy Saha

Staff Writer

Published August 14, 2023 3:22PM (EDT)

Billy Porter attends the 80th Annual Golden Globe Awards at The Beverly Hilton on January 10, 2023 in Beverly Hills, California. (Daniele Venturelli/WireImage/Getty Images)
Billy Porter attends the 80th Annual Golden Globe Awards at The Beverly Hilton on January 10, 2023 in Beverly Hills, California. (Daniele Venturelli/WireImage/Getty Images)

"Pose" star Billy Porter hsd a few choice words for Anna Wintour and Harry Styles, who made history as the first solo man to pose on the cover of Vogue styled in a dress. In a recent interview with The Telegraph, Porter said he felt that Styles only landed the December 2020 cover because he's "white and straight."

"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 complained about Styles' gender-fluid fashion sense, which has been hailed as both ground-breaking and bold. Porter continued, saying that he sat down for an interview with Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour just a few months before the cover was unveiled. "That b***h 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 recalled. Porter added that he wished he had told Wintour, "Use your power as Vogue to uplift the voices of the leaders of this de-gendering of fashion movement."

All in all, Porter said his disappointment is with the magazine's decision, not Styles specifically: "It's not Harry Styles' fault that he happens to be white and cute and straight and fit into the infrastructure that way . . . I call out the gatekeepers."

 


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