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We all know there hasn’t been a red carpet that Billy Porter couldn’t slay.

By the looks of it, we can add magazine covers to that list too. See, the Emmy-winning Pose actor is a pillar of beauty, grace, and style on the February issue of Allure, making him the first man to do so in the publication’s nearly 30-year history.

Rocking, an MSGM blazer, a Deborah Drattell brooch and DiorAddict Lip Maximizer Plumping Gloss in Beige, the 50-year-old is channeling his inner Grace Jones…and we are here for it!

 

Known for his gender-bending looks, which includes the Christian Siriano velvet tuxedo he rocked to last year’s Academy Awards and his Golden Globes white Alex Vinash suit with a feathered train, Porter is proud to be who he is and has always been “different.”

In “The Art of Beauty” issue, Porter shared how his family sent him to therapy when he was in Kindergarten because he was different.

“Flamboyance was a silencing mechanism for a long time with me. Flamboyant was code for ‘You’re a f—t, and we don’t want you,’” he said.

“Flamboyant was a word that was used to marginalize me and pigeonhole me and keep me in a box. You get in the room, you give them flamboyant, and then they come back to you with, ‘He’s too flamboyant.’ And that’s when I started to want to murder people.”

 

On using fashion to express himself and having expensive taste:

“It was always an expression for me. I always wanted to do something different. I always wanted to express myself in my clothes differently. And I always had great taste. And expensive taste, ” adding, “When I was 10, I could walk into a store for my Easter suit and scan the suits [he mimics pointing to one], and it would inevitably be the most expensive suite in the store.”

 

 

On losing an entire generation of artists to AIDS in the 90s and how he endures:

We lost an entire generation. But for me, I like to live in the present and in the positive. And what it’s left inside of me is the fire to tell the story and to fill the void. That’s why it’s taken me so long. I was at the tail end of those artists. I was a young’ un, learning from those people who died. And I’ve had all of this time to take” — he held his thumb and pointer finger less than half an inch apart — “the morsel of what I had learned and let it gestate, and grow, and grow, and gestate and grow, and gestate and grow. And it’s our turn. It’s time. I’m a part of the first generation of gay men, ever, who gets to be out loud and proud in the world. My generation is the first. Bitches are scared. And they should be.”

Naturally, Porter is over the moon over his new cover, tweeting that it’s a sign of change.

Yes, Billy, thankfully, times are changing.

Read Porter’s cover story in its entirety here,

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And The Category Is: All The Times Billy Porter Slayed The Red Carpet & Beyond!
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