Nearly three years after Harry Styles became the first solo male to grace the cover of Vogue magazine, Billy Porter is still seething.
In a new interview with The Telegraph, the fashionable Pose star said Styles was chosen as the magazine’s cover model because he’s a “straight, white man.”
“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,” Porter, 53, said via The Daily Mail.
Styles appeared on the December 2020 cover, wearing a white lace dress and black jacket.
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A year after the cover was released, Porter told The Sunday Times he wasn’t impressed with the photos. “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.
After being asked to comment on his previous comments, the Grammy, Emmy, and Tony winner told The Telegraph he doesn’t blame Styles.
“It’s not Harry Styles’ fault that he happens to be white and cute and straight and fit into the infrastructure that way,” Porter said. “I call out the gatekeepers.”
The main gatekeeper he has an issue with is Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour. Porter said he spoke with Wintour months before the cover was released and she asked for advice on how to make the magazine more inclusive.
“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 explained, adding that he should have told her: “Use your power as Vogue to uplift the voices of the leaders of this de-gendering of fashion movement.”
“Six months later, Harry Styles is the first man on the cover,” he said.
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Billy Porter Blasts Vogue Editor for Harry Styles Cover