Billy Porter recently spoke with Evening Standard, in which he disclosed that he has had to sell his house due to the ongoing strikes in Hollywood.
Porter, a singer and Emmy Award winner for his work on FX’s Pose, spoke with the outlet to promote his music career, not TV and film work. When the discussion turned to the recent strikes, Porter said he’s had to take cost-saving measures because various projects he was set to work on in September have been stopped.
“I have to sell my house,” Porter said. “Yeah! Because we’re on strike. And I don’t know when we’re gonna go back [to work]. The life of an artist, until you make f— you money — which I haven’t made yet — is still check-to-check. I was supposed to be in a new movie and on a new television show starting in September. None of that is happening. So to the person who said ‘we’re going to starve them out until they have to sell their apartments,’ you’ve already starved me out.”
In July, Deadline released an article citing an anonymous Hollywood executive saying the studios would hold out on meeting with the WGA again until its members went broke. Porter was referring to the statement made by the anonymous exec. The actor also called out Disney CEO Bob Iger for an interview he did that same month at the Sun Valley Conference in which he said WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikers were not being “realistic” with their demands.
“In the late Fifties, early Sixties, when they structured a way for artists to be compensated properly through residual [payments], it allowed for the two percent of working actors — and there are 150,000 people in our union — who work consistently…Then streaming came in,” Porter continued.
“There’s no contract for it…And they don’t have to be transparent with the numbers — it’s not Nielsen ratings anymore. The streaming companies are notoriously opaque with their viewership figures. The business has evolved. So the contract has to evolve and change, period. To hear Bob Iger say that our demands for a living wage are unrealistic? While he makes $78,000 a day?”
“I don’t have any words for it, but: f— you,” Porter added. “That’s not useful, so I’ve kept my mouth shut. I haven’t engaged because I’m so enraged. I’m glad I’ve been over here [in England]. But when I go back, I will join the picket lines.”
Actors have been on strike since July 14. The Screen Actors Guild — American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) is seeking higher residuals from streaming platforms and stricter safeguards against the use of artificial intelligence, among other updates, from the studios as part of a new contract. Still negotiations have come to a halt, the HuffPost reported.
The Writers Guild of America (WGA), which represents Hollywood screenwriters, has been on strike since May 2.
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