Billy Eichner

And not only the gay thing, what they were really quick to embrace also is this real passion I had for the performing arts.

I was a really good singer as a kid.

in like kind of the old school Broadway way.

And I would belt out show tunes in our very small apartment in Queens.

And everyone in the building would hear me.

And sometimes they would complain that I was singing too loudly, the neighbors.

And my parents would kind of roll their eyes and be like, okay, well, we'll tell them to quiet down.

And then they wouldn't.

And they would applaud.

I would sing in the apartment on a Saturday morning and I would belt along to pop songs at the time or Barbra Streisand's Broadway album, which was like my introduction to show tunes.

And I would be belting out at the top of my lungs.

And I was like a five-year-old kid, so I can sing like a woman.

I could still sing really high notes.

And my father, who spent most of his time loving the Mets and the Yankees and football and was kind of a more conventional straight guy from the Bronx, he loved when I sang.

I'm going to cry.

He loved when I sang.

And they would applaud in the living room.

And they always completely leaned in and let me be me.

And

Whether someone likes my work or not, I would say my success, and I've had a fair amount of success, especially for an unconventional kind of person in a very cutthroat industry in Hollywood.