Award-winning actor Billy Porter is sharing the harsh realities that the SAG-AFTRA actor’s strike has left on him as well as many other actors.
He has revealed that he had to get rid of his home among other things since all of his upcoming projects are at a standstill. “I have to sell my house,” he said. “Yeah, because we’re on strike. And I don’t know when we’re gonna go back. The life of an artist, until you make ‘f***-you’ money- which I haven’t made yet- is still check-to-check.”
Porter added, “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.”
He also addressed the comments Disney CEO Bob Iger said about the strikes after calling them “disturbing” and “unrealistic.” “The business has evolved. So the contract has to evolve and change, period. To hear Bob Iger say our demands for a living wage are unrealistic? While he makes $78,000 a day?”
Billy Porter concluded with, “I don’t have any words for it, but: f***you. That’s not useful, so I’ve kept my mouth shut. I haven’t engaged because I’m so enraged… When I go back I will join the picket lines.”