Billy Porter Claims He Has To Sell His House Due To Hollywood Strike: ‘Already Starved Me Out’

 Actor Billy Porter claims he has to sell his home as the writers’ and actors’ strike in Hollywood drags on.

The “Pose” star discussed some of the effects during an interview with The Evening Standard. “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. The life of an artist, until you make f***-you money — which I haven’t made yet — is still check-to-check,” he said.

“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 referring to an anonymous Hollywood exec who told Deadline that studios were intentionally delaying negotiations with the WGA (Writer’s Guild of America) until members ran out of money. 

“In the late ’50s, early ’60s, when they structured a way for artists to be compensated properly through residual [payments], it allowed for the two percent of working actors — and there are 150,000 people in our union — who work consistently… Then streaming came in,” Porter told the publication.

 

“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.” 

The “Cinderella” actor also called out Disney CEO Bob Iger specifically. Iger has said during a July television experience that the union’s demands were not “realistic” and were “disturbing” to him. 

Porter said, “To hear Bob Iger say that our demands for a living wage are unrealistic? While he makes $78,000 a day? I don’t have any words for it, but: f*** you,” Porter said. “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.”

During the same interview, Porter lamented how he hesitates to complain about his pay because of people’s possible reactions. “One of the reasons I can’t talk about the strike is because of the s*** that I’ve seen some lay people write about us: ‘Just a bunch of millionaires trying to get more millions,’” he told the outlet.