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Actor-singer-author Billy Porter is in high demand these days. He’s on red carpets for the biggest award shows and galas. He’s on hit TV shows. He’s got a new record coming out and a new book. It hasn’t always been that way, however. For decades he had to hide his real self in order to work in the business, he tells Seth Doane in an interview for CBS SUNDAY MORNING to be broadcast Sunday, Oct. 10 (9:00 AM, ET/PT) on the CBS Television Network and streamed on Paramount+.

“The calls I’m getting now are for me to be Billy, the ‘Billy’ that was rejected for decades. They want me to show up in my dresses, they want me to show up in my gowns, they want me to show up in my wings,” Porter tells Doane.

“Yes, it surprises me,” Porter says. “I spent the first 20 years of my career trying to be masculine enough so I could eat.”

Porter, an Emmy, Tony and GRAMMY winner, talks with Doane about his childhood, knowing he was gay at a young age, and the challenges he faced at home and in his career.

“I was born queer. I was born gay,” says Porter. “And I was effeminate, you know. As a little one, I was effeminate. You could tell.”

He says he was beaten up regularly at school until he landed a part in a fifth grade talent show where he sang. And he hasn’t stopped.

Porter will release a single on Oct. 15. His memoir, Unprotected, hits stores later this month. And he earned an Emmy in 2019 for his work on the TV series “Pose,” in which he played a flamboyant emcee who rules the 1980s New York City trans and queer nightlife.

“I’ve prepared a long time for this moment, and I’m so ready,” Porter says. “I’m 52, and I’m grounded in ways that allow for me to be able to enjoy this … to be able to be present and understand the magnitude of what is happening, the platform that I have, and how to use it.”

Porter opens up about his own struggle with being molested by his stepfather and how the arts provided a safe haven for him. He also talks about the shame he felt when being diagnosed as HIV-positive, something he didn’t reveal publicly for 14 years.

“It was devastating. It really almost took me out, it really did,” he says of being diagnosed in 2007. “I’m of a certain age, I was supposed to know better. ‘How did this happen?’”

CBS SUNDAY MORNING is broadcast Sundays (9:00-10:30 AM, ET) on the CBS Television Network. Rand Morrison is the executive producer.

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