Billy Porter Criticizes ‘Vogue’ Cover of Harry Styles Wearing Dress: ‘All He Has to Do Is Be White and Straight'

Billy Porter offered his thoughts on Harry Styles' 'Vogue' cover, a year after the pop star became the first man to appear on the magazine cover solo.

Billy Porter and Harry Styles
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Billy Porter and Harry Styles

It’s been nearly a year since Harry Styles wore a dress on the December 2020 cover of Vogue, becoming the first man to appear on the magazine cover solo. Despite that time gap, the cover has clearly been weighing on Billy Porter, who shared his thoughts on it in a new interview with The Sunday Times.

“I created the conversation [about non-binary fashion] and yet Vogue still put Harry Styles, a straight white man, in a dress on their cover for the first time,” Porter said. 

He continued, explaining that he’s “not dragging Harry,” but rather questioning why the pop star had to be the one to represent “this new conversation.” He also argued that he personally “changed the whole game,” a statement that he called “just fact.”

“He doesn’t care, he’s just doing it because it’s the thing to do,” Porter elaborated. “This is politics for me. This is my life. I had to fight my entire life to get to the place where I could wear a dress to the Oscars and not be gunned now. All he has to do is be white and straight.”

Styles, who has not labeled his sexuality in public, has previously credited people such as Prince, David Bowie, Elvis Presley, Freddie Mercury, and Elton John as those that have inspired his “flamboyant” fashion sense in his Vogue story. 

“Clothes are there to have fun with and experiment with and play with. What’s really exciting is that all of these lines are just kind of crumbling away,” Styles told Vogue. “When you take away ‘There’s clothes for men and there’s clothes for women,’ once you remove any barriers, obviously you open up the arena in which you can play.”

Harry has not responded to Porter’s comments, but posted a photo to Instagram Monday that was seemingly shot on the day of his latest Madison Square Garden performance. 

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