Billy Eichner knows he has a reputation for being loud, brash, and irreverent.
That’s bound to happen when you find him making a name for himself by shouting questions at strangers on the streets of New York City, as he did as host of “Billy on the Streets.”
That’s why his new memoir, “Billy on Billy,” was released only as an audio-only book. “Sometimes people don’t know if[‘Billy on the Streets’]is Persona or not,” Eichner tells me over Zoom from his New York City apartment. “I’m 47 years old and I’m at the point where I want people to know who I am as a real person and feel the real me. I thought this would be a good opportunity to do that, especially if people could hear my real voice.”
“I didn’t want people to accidentally hear what I thought was a really sweet, heartwarming story about my parents, growing up, and the pop culture I love. I didn’t want them to hear it in my screaming ‘street’ voice,” he continues. “It’s a completely different tone and very personal.”
Eicher grew up in Queens, New York and is the only child of Debbie and Jay Eichner. “I think people can be divided into two groups: those who were successful despite their parents, and those who were successful because of their parents,” Eichner says. “I know a lot of people. I know a lot of LGBTQ people, and I know a lot of artists who were successful despite being discouraged or their parents weren’t happy about things. I’m very much a product of my parents’ love, and this book is chock-full of stories of how my parents supported me and always let me be me, which is their default mode, even when they were confused by the strength of my passion for entertainment.”
Eichner was only 20 when her mother died of a heart attack at age 54. My father passed away in 2011, just before the movie “Street Billy” was released. “When I think about my mother, I usually feel sad for her,” she says through tears. It has nothing to do with my career and I’m so sorry she didn’t live longer…(But) the cruel and unfair fact about my life is that you couldn’t have found more supportive parents. My parents did everything in their power to ensure that I achieved this dream. ”
In 2022, Eichner has become a kind of poster child for queer cinema. Brothers, a romantic comedy he co-wrote and starred in about an unlikely couple (Eichner and Luke MacFarlane), was hailed as the next big thing in LGBTQ storytelling. In addition to being directed by Nicholas Stoller and co-produced by Judd Apatow, Universal Pictures poured up to $40 million into marketing the film, predicting it would appeal to gay and straight moviegoers.
However, “Brothers” was a huge failure at the box office. The $22 million production grossed just $14 million. At the time, Eicher’s tweet blaming heterosexuals for the disastrous outcome went viral. “Despite glowing reviews, a great Rotten Tomatoes score, CinemaScore, etc., straight men, especially in certain parts of the country, did not come to see ‘Brothers,'” Eichner wrote. “It’s unfortunate, but it’s the reality.”
“Obviously from a commercial standpoint we wanted to have a better opening weekend and stuff, but hindsight is 20/20,” Eichner says now. “Aside from all the noise about the box office and all that, it’s been almost four years since ‘Brothers,’ and a lot of gay men, not just gay men, come up to me all the time and talk about ‘Brothers’ in very emotional ways…Sometimes they really pour out their hearts. What they say is not the kind of thing someone would say about ‘Billy on the Street.'”
“‘Billy on the Street’ makes people laugh a lot, which is great, but I think for people who saw ‘Brothers’ and understood ‘Brothers,’ it really touched them, and that moved me, too. So I’m proud of that,” he continued. “And that’s it.”
“Billy on the Street” may come back someday. “That’s something we talk about all the time,” Eichner said. “I really can’t believe it’s still so popular. I mean, the clips are everywhere.”
Meryl Steep is his dream guest. “The internet is usually a very toxic and negative place, but the comments on the ‘Billy on the Streets’ video were so positive that people were just begging me to bring the internet back,” Eichner said. “I don’t know exactly what that’s going to look like, but part of me wants to honor that.”
And then there’s the biopic, which has been in the works for years, about the late comedian Paul Lynde, the late comedian and icon of Bewitched and Hollywood Squares. “I’ve been working on the script off and on for a long time,” Eichner says. “Last year I started getting excited about it again. Now I have a perspective that I didn’t have before.”
He says a “Billy on Billy” movie may be made. “We’ve had serious discussions about making it into a movie,” Eichner said, before adding, “Conner Story will be playing the mother, Hudson Williams will be the father, and the barista (Robbie GK) will be playing his 10-year-old self. That’s the only way we’re going to get funding.”
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