Billy Porter Feeling the Financial Toll of Hollywood Strikes: “I Have to Sell My House”

Former Pose actor Billy Porter is being transparent about experiencing financial woes amid Hollywood strikes. In a recent interview with U.K. publication The Evening Standard, the Emmy-winner – who refrained from talking about his work in television and film – was honest about his monetary woes as some of his projects have been put on hold.

“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.”

Porter was referencing a recent Deadline article about an anonymous Hollywood executive saying that television and film studios would hold on meeting with the WGA again until actors’ finances went dry. Porter also slammed Bob Iger, for saying that WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikers were not being “realistic” about their demands.

“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?” Porter said.

He continued, “I don’t have any words for it, but: f*** you, [Iger]. 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.”

Porter last appeared in the drama film Our Son, which debuted at the 2023 Tribeca Festival in June. He’s signed on to portray queer author and Civil Rights activist James Baldwin in an upcoming biopic, although the future of the project has not been revealed.