Billy Porter Opens up About His Childhood & AIDS Crisis in New Series

Highlighting the stories of celebrities and their fans, Apple TV+’s docu-series Dear... has returned for a second season.

Season 1 featured icons like Oprah Winfrey, Gloria Steinem, Spike Lee, and Lin-Manuel Miranda and followed "their illuminating stories and the lives of those they have impacted." The docu-series' goal is to show "how they have shaped culture and society through a collection of intimate letters from their fans. By reading these letters, each influential figure learns how they have unknowingly impacted others and gain new insight into how their work has made a unique contribution to the global community."

Pose star and Emmy Award-winner Billy Porter shares his story in the new season. In a new clip shared exclusively with PRIDE , Porter says that back in the 80s, "the message was clear that AIDS was god's punishment. That's devasting for a young queer, particularly Black person. I found myself not only disenfranchised from the world being a black man in America, but also then disenfranchised from my own."

Porter goes on to reveal that he was sent to a psychologist when he was in kindergarten in hopes of getting "fixed." "There was concern that I was too much of a sissy," he says in the moving clip.

This season also features the late André Leon Talley, Viola Davis, Malala Yousafzai, Jane Fonda, Ava DuVernay, Sandra Oh, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, and Laird Hamilton.

Season 2 of Dear... is available to watch now on Apple TV+. Watch a clip from Porter's episode below: