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Billy Porter Calls Out Harry Styles’ Vogue Cover Wearing a Dress

Pose‘s Billy Porter wasn’t happy with Harry Styles’ Vogue cover last year, in which he made history being the first man to grace the cover. Styles, 27, was photographed for…

Billy Porter attends the 73rd Primetime Emmy Awards at L.A. LIVE on September 19, 2021 in Los Angeles, California. Harry Styles visits SiriusXM Studios on March 02, 2020 in New York City.

Rich Fury/Dia Dipasupil/Getty Images

Pose's Billy Porter wasn't happy with Harry Styles' Vogue cover last year, in which he made history being the first man to grace the cover.

Styles, 27, was photographed for the cover wearing a full-length dress. This made the One Direction alum a symbol of a new, more fluid men's fashion -- but Porter wasn't so impressed. Porter, 52, has built a reputation around his gender-fluid fashion choices.

In an interview with The Sunday Times, Porter argued there was a disconnect in the opportunities afforded to him as a Black, gay man and those given to Styles.

"I feel like the fashion industry has accepted me because they have to," he said. "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, whose first autobiography Unprotected: A Memoir will be published later this month, spoke candidly about his delayed professional success. In the early 2000s, the star struggled to book acting jobs after making his Broadway debut in 1991. By 2007, he was forced to declare bankruptcy. It wasn't until the success of Netflix series Pose, for which Porter won an Emmy in 2019 for his performance of the ballroom MC Pray Tell that his career began to stabilize.

Now Porter is a red carpet regular, wearing innovative, eye-catching looks that push the conversation around gender and style forward. However, Porter told The Sunday Times that he "changed the whole game" when it came to men wearing skirts and dresses.

"I was the first one doing it and now everybody is doing it," he said. "I'm not dragging Harry Styles, but... He doesn't care, he's just doing it because it's the thing to do. 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," Porter continued. "All (Styles) has to do is be white and straight."

Laila Abuelhawa is the Top 40 and Hip-Hop pop culture writer for Beasley Media Group. Being with the company for over three years, Laila's fierce and fabulous red-carpet rankings have earned her a feature on 'The Late Show with Stephen Colbert!' Her favorite stories are those surrounding the latest in celebrity fashion, television and film rankings, and how the world reacts to major celebrity news. With a background in journalism, Laila's stories ensure accuracy and offer background information on stars that you wouldn't have otherwise known. She prides herself in covering stories that inform the public about what is currently happening and what is to come in the ever-changing, ever-evolving media landscape.