Billy Porter Slams Rumors He Shaded RuPaul at the 2019 Emmys

Billy Porter is telling the haters to sashay away.

At the 2019 Emmys, whileRuPaul took the stage at to accept his award for Outstanding Reality Competition Series, cameras captured Porter in the audience seemingly giving the host a dirty look. And with that one quick glare, the Internet went wild, assuming there was serious beef between the two icons. 

“So is it safe to say Billy Porter is not a RuPaul fan? #Emmys,” tweeted one user. Wrote another, “What was THAT look about? Billy Porter seems to not be feeling RuPaul’s Emmy acceptance speech.”

But that is most certainly not the case. After nabbing his history-making trophy for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series, the Pose actor cleared the air. “There is never a side-eye coming from me,” he told reporters in the press room. “Let me make this clear right now in this room to everybody, right now, there’s never a side-eye coming from me. There’s never anything negative coming from me. You’re never gonna get it from me. OK?”

“It’s all love,” he continued. “It’s all light. It’s all positivity. Don’t come to me with that mess. Don’t. It’s never that ever, ever, ever.”

Rather, Porter chalked it up to bad timing. “They can catch you and it could look like a side-eye,” he said. “RuPaul is a friend of mine. I am so proud of him. I stand on his shoulder. I stand on his shoulders. He is doing it. He paved the way for me. So there is never a side-eye about that.”

Positivity is, indeed, his mantra, as proven during his acceptance speech earlier in the evening.

“We as artists are the people that get to change the molecular structure of the hearts and minds of the people who live on this planet,” he told the audience. “Please don’t ever stop doing that. Please don’t ever stop telling the truth. I love you all.”