MIAMI BEACH, Fla. – Actor Billy Porter, a musical theater legend and advocate who has been living with HIV since 2007, was celebrating Pride in South Beach as a singer-songwriter and performer.
Porter, 54, said it was his first time at the Miami Beach Pride festival with the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer community in South Beach.
“I am so happy and grateful to be here. You know, I love the sun, and it has been a long winter, so I am feeling very blessed,” Porter said. “This is the first time I am headlining with my own original music.”
The two-time Tony Award winner and Broadway veteran said he was looking forward to headlining his show on Sunday night on the festival’s main stage.
Porter’s music career as singer-songwriter started with “Love Is On the Way,” a song released on the 1196 film “The First Wives Club” soundtrack and covered by Celine Dion’s “Let’s Talk About Love” album. Late last year, he finally released his “Black Mona Lisa” album as a “celebration of life.”
“It has been out since November,” Porter said. “I am like you know, out in front of the people and sharing, you know, this message, sharing my message of love and hope and resilience, and self-love and compassion.”
Porter grew up with a mother who was a member of a Black Pentecostal church in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and with a stepfather who sexually abused him. He revealed that and more in his memoir, “Unprotected” a few years ago.
Porter identified as a gay teenage boy when the global epidemic of HIV/AIDS started. He also wrote that musical theater saved him while he was a student at the Taylor Allderdice High School, the Pittsburgh School for the Creative and Performing Arts, and Carnegie Mellon University.
Porter took his dreams to New York City. He eventually landed the lead roles of Lola in the Tony and Grammy award-winning “Kinky Boots” and Pray Tell in the Emmy award-winning “Pose” series on FX.
On Saturday, Porter said all of these experiences prepared him to share his joy at Miami Beach Pride. His “Black Mona Lisa” performance is set for 10 p.m., on the main stage at Lummus Park, at 1130 Ocean Drive.