Billy Porter's Madame Tussauds Wax Figure Revealed in NYC... And It's Really Good
On Tuesday, the much anticipated Madam Tussaud’s wax figure of Broadway legend and fashion icon, Billy Porter, was revealed!
In a room filled with some of the Emmy winner’s loved ones, including his mother, who came to support her son for the first time in-person in three years due to being in a nursing home, Porter walked in with the biggest smile, in awe of his wax figure.
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The multi-hyphenate had to sit and stand for over nine hours to ensure that the creative team captured every detail on his person (even an indent on his ear from a closed ear piercing) to create his wax twin. The outfit he chose? The iconic blue jumpsuit and curtain hat he wore to the 2020 Grammy Awards. As he stood on stage next to the figure, he explained the significance of the look and the process to make the custom outfit. “I had gone to another music show and Billie Eilish was in front of me and she had like something on her face and my stylist was like, “Oh, we need to do that”.
At first, Porter wasn’t fond of the idea to have something covering his wax figure’s face, but then his stylist proposed a hat that opened and closed, to which he responded, “Well, that would be a gag!”
Fittingly, this outstanding moment comes during Pride Month, a time that he specifically planned to have the wax figure revealed, due to his tremendous support for the LGBTQ+ community. The wax figure will stand at NYC Pride Fest where the Grammy winner will be this year’s Grand Marshall, saying, “Gay pride is a thing all around the world. I stand at many intersections. So I need to make sure everybody knows that I’m Black, too. Black first, queer second. And, this stands at the intersection of all of those races. You know, pride is a celebration of all cultures, right? We’re queer and every culture has queerness in it. And so I’m just really happy that this gets to stand in that space.”
When asked further about being Black first and how he leads with his Blackness, he simply responded, “I show up Black. Yeah, that’s all that needs to happen”.
This accomplishment happening during Pride Month is how he feels like the intersectionality in his identity shows. “That’s where both things get to exist simultaneously. You know, I came out in the eighties, went to my first gay pride in ‘89, through the AIDS crisis we marched, we fought and we find ourselves back at another fight. And I’m proud to be still around and a leader in this space, because I really truly have lived long enough to be able to say love always wins. We win. Yes, it’s a fight and we win.”
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