Billy Eichner reveals his first encounter with homophobia came from his own manager
Billy Eichner knows he has a pretty skewed view of identity and what it’s like to grow up gay.In a recent interview with Rolling Stone, the Bros star shared that he was privileged to grow up in New York with “very liberal, accepting parents” that “knew who [he] was very early on.”In fact, thanks in part to his supportive and encouraging family, Eichner claims he didn’t experience homophobia until he was in his twenties, when he was first trying to get his career off the ground—and it came from his own manager!“In 2006, I had a manager who represented a lot of Broadway talent,” Eichner recalled. “She’s a fairly well known manager who represents a lot of famous people.
And she was trying to get me agents. And she said, ‘I’m inviting big agents to your next stage show. Can you make it a little less gay this month?’ And I was shocked.
It was insulting, and also impractical, because that would be like literally changing my entire personality. I said, ‘You don’t really know what you’re dealing with, because I have a little bit of a rebellious streak, and I’m not going to deal with that shit.’ And they signed me anyway.”Related: Billy Eichner on gay-for-pay actors and what you won’t see in his new movie ‘Bros’It’s a memory that’s stuck with him ever since, one that’s shaped his perspective on Hollywood as a gay man and has fueled his upcoming movie Bros—said to be the first gay rom-com released by a major studio.
A post shared by Billy Eichner (@billyeichner)And though Universal Studios is certainly going all out to promote the film to as wide an audience as possible, Eichner underlined that his first feature as a writer isn’t concerned with depicting a version of queer life that’s “palatable” to straight movie-goers.
