“Your people are using my community to elevate you”: Billy Porter calls out Anna Wintour for making Harry Styles first male solo Vogue cover

American actor Billy Porter slammed Vogue editor Anna Wintour for putting singer Harry Styles as the first male artist to feature on the publication's cover. In an interview published on August 11 by media outlet The Telegraph, the 53-year-old star called out Wintour for making Styles feature on the Vogue cover, even though she interviewed him shortly before the English singer made his publication debut.

He said:

“That b—- 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 [which was] 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.”

The Vogue cover in question is from December 2020 and features the As it Was singer wearing a Gucci dress. In it, he shared that his gender-bending fashion draws inspiration from personalities like Prince, Elton John, and David Bowie.

However, during the same Telegraph interview, Billy Porter explained that he does not have a problem with Styles but how he is being used to portray a message.

“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. [Styles is] white and he’s straight. 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.”

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Billy Porter had previously expressed his displeasure with Harry Styles' Vogue cover

Billy Porter had previously expressed displeasure with Harry Styles' December 2020 Vogue cover. While speaking to The Sunday Times in October 2021 the Cinderella star said that Styles being featured on the cover of the publication is an insult for individuals like himself who have actively been working towards making genderfluid and androgynous fashion more mainstream.

At the time, he said:

“I’m not dragging Harry Styles, but he is the one you’re going to try and use to represent this new conversation? He doesn’t care, he’s just doing it because it’s the thing to do. This is politics for me. This is my life. I had to fight my entire life to get to the place where I could wear a dress to the Oscars and not be gunned down. All he has to do is be white and straight.”

But Billy Porter revealed what he actually meant by his Harry Styles statement when he appeared on an episode of The Late Show With Stephen Colbert in November 2021.

He began his statement by apologizing to Styles for "having your name in my mouth," adding the conversation was not about him.

“The conversation is actually deeper than that. It is about the oppression and the erasure of people of color who contribute to the culture. That’s a lot to unpack. I’m willing to unpack it sans the dragging and culture of the Internet because I do not now, nor will I ever, adjudicate my life or humanity in sound bites on social media. So when you’re ready to have the real conversation, call a b—-!”

On the professional front, Billy Porter will next appear in Untitled James Baldwin Biopic as the lead character. As per the biography's IMDb profile, the story is written by David Leeming Dan McCabe, and Porter, and is based on the 1994 book by David Leeming.