Emmy, Grammy and Tony Award winner Billy Porter graced Toronto last night in celebration a new free LGBTQ+, ad-driven streaming platform, The Bow – coming soon.
The star of F/X‘s Pose, won much acclaim in the Broadway community starring on Kinky Boots and continues to thrive as a Red Carpet staple. Just this year, Porter was seen in amazing Super Bowl-set Comedy 80 FOR BRADY!
Porter before the celebration at historic El Mocambo, says “The Bow streams queer content by queer artists, for queer people. There is a Social Media component to it. When we think of high-level queer content now, most of it is adult. And most of it are behind pay walls.”. He adds, “When I was doing Pose, it was for my community and it was behind a paywall. At first the people we made it for couldn’t even watch it. What I love about this idea is that not only does it allow people to create, there’s also a social media component to it. But it gives Advertisers the opportunity to step up. Not just in June, but 365 days a year.”.
While speaking to KISS 92.5′s Maurie Sherman, Porter expressed strong feelings about the SAG-AFTRA strike which has Hollywood at a standstill. “I won that company an Emmy and I’m getting six cent cheques. So yeah, I’m beyond pissed off. Yeah I’m enraged”, he says. “I talk about the tiering. What the world needs to understand is that we’re not all Tom Cruise. Actors are blue collar workers. We have 160,000 Actors in our union. 2% of those people work regularly. 80% cannot meet the $27,000 to make their medical insurance. This is where we are. I said what I said and I mean exactly what I said. Eff them for real. This is not a game!”.
Also appearing at the affair were the likes of Matthew McLaughlin (The Bow Founder), Canada’s Next Emerging Artist Nano Talrose, Canada’s International Drag Sensation Sofonda Cox, Drag Artist Lucy Flawless, Toronto’s premier R&B Gospel Inkloosiv Voices, Actress Olunike Adeliyi (CBC’s The Porter), and Actress Rakhee Morzaria (CBC‘s Run the Burbs).
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(Photo/video credit: Mr. Will Wong)
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