Billy Porter Drops Out of Manchester Pride Due to Illness

Billy Porter, who was set to headline Manchester Pride this past weekend, pulled out of the festival the day of due to illness.

A statement on the official social media for the pride event read, "We’re sad to share that Billy Porter will no longer be able to perform at Mardi Gras today due to illness. We know many of you were looking forward to their set as much as we were. Get well soon Billy, we hope you have a speedy recovery."

Manchester Pride ran 15th - 25th August at Manchester City Centre. The event included performances from Ghetto Fabulous, Gok Wan and Leigh-Anne, plus over 120 artists across 6 stages.

Billy Porter is currently appearing on Broadway as the Emcee in Cabaret at the Kit Kat Club. He won an Emmy Award for Lead Actor for his role in FX’s Emmy- and Golden Globe-nominated drama Pose. He earned three Emmy nominations for his role in the series. In 2024, Porter received the Isabelle Stevenson Tony Award for his activism and contributions to the LGBTQ+ community.

A Hollywood Walk of Fame inductee, Porter has numerous theatre credits, including the role of Lola in the Broadway musical Kinky Boots, which he originated in 2013 and for which he won the Tony, Drama Desk, and Outer Critics Circle awards, as well as the Grammy for best musical-theatre album. He won his second Tony Award in 2022 for Best Musical as a producer on A Strange Loop. Currently, he is starring as the Emcee in the West End revival of the musical Cabaret and will soon make his London directorial debut with Harrison David Rivers’ This Bitter Earth at the Soho Theatre. 

Recently, he starred in the film Our Son alongside Luke Evans, the Paramount comedy 80 For Brady alongside Jane Fonda, Rita Moreno, Lily Tomlin and Sally Field, and Prime Video’s Cinderella remake. His feature directorial debut Anything’s Possible, a coming-of-age film written by Ximena García Lecuona, was released in July 2022 on Prime Video. In 2023, he directed an episode of Fox’s anthology series Accused.

Upcoming, he will co-write and star in a James Baldwin biopic. In 2022, Porter launched his production company, Incognegro, alongside his producing partner, D.J. Gugenheim. Porter released his first literary project, Unprotected, in October 2021, which was published by Abrams Press. As a recording artist, Porter most recently released his album Black Mona Lisa under his record deal with Island Records (UK) and Republic Records (US).