Trump's Deathbed Confession Era is in Full-Swing, He Let's the Truth Slip

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Billy Eichner shares heartfelt memories of his parents and their unwavering love in his new audio memoir, 'Billy on Billy.' The podcast highlights how their support shaped his confidence and career, especially as a gay man in entertainment. He reflects on growing up in diverse New York City and the lasting impact of their acceptance. The conversation turns to the power of radical love and parentin

Key takeaways

• Parents' unconditional love built Billy's confidence
• Growing up in NYC exposed him to diversity and culture
• His parents encouraged his passions from a young age

Transcript preview

So much of the anger we see especially in rep I mean how many closet Republicans are there a lot Many you know I'm an actor I don't talk about my parents in therapy I talked about my agent You know what I mean like all the success I've had You can trace it all back to my parents just loving the hell out of me Did you come out to them or did they always know I literally said dad come on all those Madonna concerts? me and said we discuss the possibility. All right joining us today on I hip news is Billy Eichner. So let's take a break from all the fuckery and he is an actor comedian writer producer and author of a new fantastic audio book called Billy on Billy and audio memoir. Billy Eichner how are you? Hi I'm great. Thanks for having me back. Yes yes I want to show a video in case by chance. Any of my viewers or listeners. under a rock sure and they don't know what Billy on the street is okay so kily will you play the clip what who are you I'm Billy Eichner and okay all right so and is this like TV? yeah this is like television yeah what television like Billy on the street oh okay so are you an internet thing no it's actually a TV thing and an internet thing I don't like your attitude okay I don't like yours I'm on TV who gives a shit about you bitch did you have doing that? A lot I mean it required a lot of energy yeah and a lot of commitment you can't really half-ass Billy on the street yeah but it's also fun and I love how much people love it the people that love it really love it really love it and yeah it's really unlike anything else one could possibly do it's such a unique experience and you were born and raised in New York City that's right and if one were to watch Fox News they would think that this is like a socialist crime-ridden So how did you turn out so well? I know it's a miracle and I grew up in Queens I went to high school in Manhattan and which me in lower Manhattan which means I took an hour and 15 minutes subway ride each way back from school by myself by myself every day well sometimes with friends sometimes by myself Yeah, um what age would you do that so I was high school so I don't know how old was I 14 15 16 around there and but I loved it I mean New York really informed like everything about who I am and so much of my work and it's a huge part of my existence and a lot of the book is about you know how much growing up in New York City really shaped me and I think a pretty wonderful way and in a very unique way. You know I grew I was born in Dallas but grew up in Oklahoma City and you always hear people say you know it's a great place to raise a family and I was raised there and I raised my kids there. However it's void of a lot of multiculturalism and culture and it's very they're very car-centric towns which you miss out on so much cooperating and compromising with other human beings I've recently moved to New York right I know welcome thank you yes and I think it's better for your happy factor to have to every day New York is an equalizer like if you're rich if you're poor if you're black if you're white if you're gay if you're straight if you're trans if you're wearing panties or you're naked you have to walk on the streets nobody can avoid it yeah and it's a complete equalizer is that been here your whole life? Yes and I think that's why it influenced me so much because you do not have an isolated existence. A lot of people grow up in the suburbs and they're pretty isolated. They live around like-minded people, people who look pretty much exactly the same way they do. I don't want to make generalizations, but if we're going to make one. That tends to be true from what I've heard from people who grew up in the suburbs or smaller towns and I grew up surrounded by everyone. If I like I said I said I took the subway to the subway to subway you're seeing every type of person in the world people from all over the world that are visiting or who have moved here immigrants from all over it's a city of immigrants you know I grew up in the borough of Queens which is I think one of the most diverse places in the world Donald Trump from Queens yes he is like I said it's very diverse you ever bump into him I did not know never bumped into Donald Trump but my parents were but I much from the time you're a very young person. And so I'm not saying New Yorkers don't have their biases like every other human. We're still human. You know, we're not perfect. But we're a lot more open, you know, and a lot more, I would say it's beyond tolerance. It's we really pride ourselves on the diversity in the city. And on being exposed to culture from all over the world. And you know, my parents took me to see plays when I was a kid and, and plays, and plays, and plays, and and, and, and, and, and, and, and, sometimes sometimes, sometimes, sometimes, sometimes, sometimes, sometimes, and sometimes, sometimes, sometimes, sometimes, and were really meant for a more sophisticated audience than children, but they didn't care. They knew I could handle it, that I loved it. You know, they took, I talk about this a lot, but I think the fact that I grew up in New York in the 80s and 90s, long before social media and the internet could expose you to all these different things, no matter where you were. I was exposed to things just by the nature of living here, and my parents also being native New Yorkers were not scared to take me to a play about gay men, not scared. I was not scared to support my interest in culture, things that were associated with gay men, even from a young age. And that made me confident. You know, this is all, my whole book is a love letter to my parents and the fact there that their default mode was always to love me and encouraged me to pursue my dreams and encouraged me to be me. They let me be me. And I think a lot of the reason they were not scared to do that is because they themselves were and had also grown up like I grew up exposed to everything in anything in the world and so they weren't scared of things they didn't know. You know I think New York is a place that breaks your give a shit meter and I think that's healthy. When you give a shit about petty things it makes you toxic and unhealthy and when I since moving here last fall and I think about what's going on politically nationally right now and you know there's Stephen Miller who I mean clearly has like white nationalist ambitions and it seems like your childhood and this city is the antidote. I agree. Is the answer is the solution to that. It is a breathing movable main character in everybody's life this city. That's right. It shows you that cooperation and compromise and multiculturalism really works and your parents loving you through all that. I wrote this amazing part of your memoir and I wanted you to read it. my listeners and viewers to kind of get them into what your memoirs about because I feel like we're entering this era right now where everything is toxic like toxic masculinity now there's like the toxic femininity with Erica Kirk and that shit show you know there's women that are running around town I'm ready to breed and all this stuff now I can't I know and they are trying to take ownership in parenting that somehow they do it better or they're better breeders and they're better breeders and that's been around forever and people that have gay kids understand a type of radical love that I equally think is the antidote to the toxic government and all of the stuff they're producing. So will you read this? Sure. Sure. And I will say, you know, I don't think it's so radical. I don't think it's radical. You know, this radical love, this radical acceptance. I know what people mean by that and I appreciate it, of course. But I don't think it's so radical to just love your kids. I don't think it's so radical to love your to love your trans kid to love your non-binary kid or to love your kid who's still figuring it out you know to love your kid that's interested or passionate about something that you weren't prepared to have to know about you know what I mean right so I don't think that's radical and so and again so much of my parents so much of my book is literally about this I was not the child I don't think my parents both passed away I should say that my father died 15 years ago on the street became a TV show my mother died when I was 20 years old when I was in college and so she missed my whole adult life and yet and that part sad of course but while they were around they really nurtured me and let me be me and never tried to get me to be anything other than who I was and never tried to get me to be passionate or interested about something I wasn't interested in and so this is an example of that this is from chapter five in my book this chapter is focused primarily on my dad and it's called my dad and it's about something that happened when I was in fourth grade which was a long time ago for me. Okay. When I was in fourth grade I took up a new extracurricular activity. Was it soccer you ask perhaps the spelling bee? No it was something even gayer and nerdier than spelling bee if you can imagine. I participated in my school storytelling contest. the other competitive storytellers were all girls. Being the little performer I always was, it suited me well to stand on a stage and dramatically tell a short story. And it really rang my bell to figure out how to do this better than everyone else. I performed The Nightingale, a classic children's story by Hans Christian Anderson. I won the first contest at my own school, which allowed me to advance to the district level competition. It was there on a Saturday morning. It was there on a Saturday morning. that I stood on the stage in a very large mostly empty school auditorium in front of the dozen or so parents and three judges who were the only ones to show up to watch us and I killed. And when the judges got up to announce the winner and they said the winner is Billy Eichner, Jay Eichner, my father, usually a stoic man a few words and never that visibly emotional one way or the other, immediately leapt to his