Happy Sad Confused - Billy Eichner, Vol. II

Episode Date: May 25, 2026

Billy Eichner is getting reflective as he looks back on his dear parents, the origins of BILLY ON THE STREET, and the creation of his new audio memoir, BILLY ON BILLY. Recorded live at the 92nd Street Y. SUPPORT THE SHOW BY SUPPORTING OUR SPONSORS! Rula -- Rula patients typically pay $15 per session when using insurance. Connect with quality therapists and mental health experts who specialize in you at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.rula.com/happy⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ #rulapod Quince -- Go to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Quince.com/HAPPYSAD ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠for free shipping and 365-day returns. Limited Time Offer–Get Huel today with my exclusive offer of 15% OFF online with my code happy15 at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠http://huel.com/happy15.⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ New Customers Only. Thank you to Huel for partnering and supporting our show! UPCOMING EVENTS! 6/16 -- Matt Smith in NY -- ⁠Tickets here Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

My parents never made me feel uncomfortable about anything. Yeah. You know, and, yeah, my mom waited in line for hours at Barnes & Noble the day Madonna sex book came out to get it from me. She knew I would die if I didn't have it. Sure. Right? You know, I think she just didn't want her, like, very maniacal gay child to die. Yeah.

Prepare your ears, humans. Happy, sad, confused begins. Hey, guys, it's Josh. Welcome to another edition of Happy, Sad. confused. Today on the show, Billy Eichner is back. He's talking about his new memoir, Billy on Billy, Billy on the street, bros, and so much more. Thanks, guys, as always, for checking out the podcast. Remember to hit that subscribe button on YouTube or Spotify or whatever podcast platform you're using. The main event today is Billy Eichner. I'll get to that in just a second. But before we

get to that, a reminder, if you like what I do, check out our Patreon. Patreon.com slash happy say I confuse so many extras over there for Outlander fans right now, or if you just want to see me in person somewhere, you get the discount codes, you get the early access. We have just announced on June 16th in New York City, Matt Smith. That's right, Matt Smith talking House of the Dragon. We'll talk about his upcoming Star Wars role, Dr. Hu. He's always a blast. Get in on that one. The info is in the show notes. Discount code, as I said, is on the Patreon. We have another big June event. we are about to announce. So yeah, support us over there.

It helps us make more over here. Also want to mention, if you don't follow me on the social feeds, et cetera, maybe you don't know this. Big moment for Josh Horowitz-happy-say-confused. I still can't get over this. Out of the blue, no warning. We, I was a clue on pop culture jeopardy. That's a thing that happened.

It wasn't AI. It wasn't a friend messing with me. Insane. Colin Jost, reading the clue. Now, the sad part is, guys, this really sums up the Josh Harowitz existence. The clue is read, Stone Cold Silence.

The contestants did not get me right. They did not know. But I'm going to take it as a win. I'm going to take it as a win. Bucket list item that I never knew I had has been achieved. I, and Happy Sank Infused, a clue on Jeopardy. How insane is that? Okay, just want to mention that in case you guys had a chance to see that on my Instagram, et cetera, because it's too delicious, not to mention. Okay, let's talk to main event.

Ninety Second Street Yawye, New York City, we, Billy Eichner and I reunited to talk about his entire career, including his new audio memoir. This is only in audio form, and I got a chance to get this early and really enjoyed it. It's literally getting Billy's voice in your ear for about 11 hours, and I listened to the whole thing. And it's a really sweet story. His rise from growing up in New York City like I did were very similar ages, so I think I connected on that level. But also, if you don't know his background, his parents, just absolute saints, and they absolutely brought him up the right way and gave him everything he needed to succeed in life. And sadly, Both died way too soon prior to him really hitting it big with Billy on the street.

But this audio memoir, I don't know. I really couldn't recommend it more highly because it's a really sweet recollection of New York City and growing up and being supported and finding your voice and the struggles of a young artist and the successes. So it's really great. And this was a fantastic conversation. Kind of helped kick off his New York book tour. He's on the tour right now. and I was happy to support Billy, and we, of course, talk in depth about Billy on the street

and his relationships with the likes of Joan Rivers and interviewing Madonna and all sorts of adventures on the streets of New York. And, of course, Bros is in there, too, that film that he takes a lot of pride, and I know folks really loved that he was able to make that, and even if it didn't succeed at the box office, has this wonderful legacy.

So a great conversation. a very funny man without any further ado. I know you guys are going to enjoy this. I take you now to the 90 Second Street Y, New York City. It's me and Billy Eichner. Enjoy. Hi, everybody.

Welcome to the 92nd Street Y. My name's Josh Horowitz, and welcome to a live taping of happy, sad, confused. I'm so thrilled to say that I am having a returning guest on the podcast today. His first time before a live audience, the one and only Billy Eichner.

Are we ready for this? Of course we are. We all know and love Billy. He's one of the funniest, most talented human beings alive, from Billy on the street to bros. He grew up living and breathing pop culture, and along the way became a huge part of it. And I'm so thrilled to say that his new audio memoir,

Billy on Billy, is everything that he is. It's smart, it's funny, it's heartwarming. You're going to love it, trust me. Without any further ado, please give a warm 90-second Street. Welcome to Billy Eichner, everybody. Hi, everyone. Thanks for coming. This is not going to be as stressful as throwing out the first pitch in a New York Mets game.

No, but I was good at that. I saw the video. It wasn't bad. You were better than 50 Cent and Carly Ray Jepson? I do so many things better than 50 cents. People don't know. Carly Ray Jepson? Yeah, it's an infamous...

Oh, I've never seen that one. It's bad. Okay, I'll go look that up. Sorry, sorry, Carly Ray Jepson. Was there training involved? I mean, that's... Yeah, I did. I trained with...

My trainer, Bruno, he's so hot. Oh my God. He teaches PE. By the way, he's going to be shocked. I'm talking about him. The entire hour will be on Bruno tonight. Yes, exactly. He teaches PE and he teaches his kids how to play baseball.

And so he taught me how to throw a ball. There it is. I was on Little League when I was a kid, but I was terrible. Well, it was training you in a way, and finally you reap the rewards of being a mediocre little league player. Exactly, yeah. I thought that sent a nice message. Yes. That I was a terrible baseball player as a kid, but you still get to throw out the first pitch if you're good at other things.

There it is. You're good at many things, including writing. This memoir, I have had the privilege of listening to this memoir. I've had 11 hours of you in my head the last week. It's a lot. I'm sorry. It's perfect. It's perfect.

Congratulations, though. I mean, you're just kind of like kicking off the press tour. We're very thrilled. This is kind of the kickoff event for it. Yeah, I've done a few, but it's a lot of talking about yourself. Is it feel a little bit different than promoting a TV show or a movie, a little more exposing? Maybe. It's just, yeah, also the project is so unusual because it's just an audiobook.

And I also really worked hard on it, and I really care about it. So I like to, you know, I like to get out there and try to explain. what it is to people, because it's a bit odd, because it's not in print. So there's no physical form that can sit on your bookshelf, just to point to friends, like, I did that. No. I thought about it. They wanted me to do that.

But I... Hello. You good? He wore shorts. Oh, everyone wore shorts. Not a big deal. Casual. I don't care.

It's 90 degrees outside. The book's not coming out in print. print. It's not a real book. That's not true. Like I say in the book, I wasn't traumatized enough as a child to write a real book. That's the problem. So what were we talking about? So they wanted you to do a physical conversion, but no.

Yes. And it was exciting to me, and I did think about it, because it would be cool to have a book to hold up and have a book in bookstores, but I really wrote it to be listened to. And I kind of, I held to that in spite of the fact that it would be cool to have a real book. So what was... It is a real book, you know. It absolutely is. So talk to me a little bit about the process.

I mean, there's the process of writing it, which took, I would imagine, a while. And then there's the process of recording it. Yeah. Which did you find more kind of emotionally charged draining in the end? It was all very emotionally charged. You know, I'm not really a person who looks back a lot. You know, I have a therapist, but we don't talk about my childhood. You know, it's all like my agent said, you know, it's not like...

Normal stuff, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's not about, like, how I was as a kid. It's not like Freudian. Yeah. And this really forced me to sit down and think about my childhood, which for the most part was actually really lovely. Yeah. Because I had a magical childhood, you know, which is what the book is about.

You know, and it kind of got me in touch with my parents again, and kind of this childlike sense of wonder I had about pop culture that you lose a little bit as you become an old jaded person in the industry. but it was all very emotional. Recording it was very emotional, writing it, but also emotional in a great way. Yeah. You know, because I actually think it's a pretty comforting, heartwarming book in spite of the sad parts. Well, I was going to say, I mean, like, listening to it, I mean, the icing on the cake, I think people will come, like, you know, they want to hear, obviously, the Billy on the Street stories, and they want to hear about the post and all of that. But I think what people are going to discover, and you kind of alluded to this, is, I mean, the first sections, and arguably the bulk of the book that I found really emotionally powerful is your, childhood or your parents and you've talked at length about your parents and you talk at length

in the book and it's you've said it it's a love letter to them isn't it it is yeah does it feel a little bit like I mean this is a way of kind of revisiting not to get like woo-woo on you but to like revisit your parents it did no that's exactly what it was and now that I'm on the press store talking about it again I keep thinking about that I'm like oh this gave me an opportunity to be with my parents again in my head they're dead sorry to spoil the book but um we buried the least But it did. You get to spend time with them again, and you get to enter your childlike brain again, you know.

And that was really fun and delightful, you know, and has been a reminder to me to try to get back to that. And I think the whole book, in the book, I talk about how I'm trying to get back to the artist I was before Billy on the street. That's a running thing throughout the book. But also the book, for me, the writing of it, made me feel a little bit more like the artist that I set out to be,

who's a very different than Billy on the Street, which is a lot of what the book is about, that there's this persona I created that unexpectedly really connected with people, which I love, very grateful for, but it's not the real me at all. It's so different. You know, half this room are like my old friends. Like, you know, they know, like the difference is kind of startling sometimes. And I think that'll be interesting for people to listen to. Let's talk about your parents. Let's start with your mom, who you lost sadly way too young, and it was a very sudden, sad incident, obviously.

What do you get from your mom, would you say? When you look in the mirror, when you hear your voice, when you hear who you are, what do you think you get from her? She had a real larger-than-life quality, which I don't think I do in my real life, but I do on camera. You know, she had like a, oh boy. Oh, shut up. For God's sakes, hold it together. God. I have not gotten through an interview about this book without crying, so, you know, that will happen.

But my mom was very vivacious, and she was really vibrant, and like I said, larger than life. She was also, like, this incredibly sunny person, and I am, like, king of resting bitchface. So that, like, that we don't have in common. She had like so much energy. Like she was the most physically animated person I've ever met. It was very unique in a way and everyone loved my mom and she was the nicest, sweetest person you've ever met. You know, I say in the book, I hope it's not weird to quote myself, but like, I say in the

book my mom's love was like the sphere in Vegas. It was an immersive theatrical experience, you know, it was like, thank you, Diane. Diane knew my mom. Was I wrong? I'm not wrong, right. That's a knowing laugh. Yeah, exactly. But my mom's, yeah, a lot of movement.

She had a lot of like nervous energy, but was a very happy person and incredibly affectionate with everyone, you know, and I'm not. But I think there, she had an energy. I have like a, I have like a relentless energy when I'm working. Like I have like a crazy work. like a crazy amount of energy. Yeah, like my stamina is kind of crazy actually. And Billy on the street required and requires that, you know, and I'm old and like, you know, I still have it when I need it, you know, and I think that comes from like my mom's like overflowing energy.

And she's also willing to help get you Madonna's sex book back in the day. Yeah. Well, that's like the whole thing about the book and where the whole love letter part of the book comes in. It's because my parents never made me feel uncomfortable about anything. You know, and yeah, my mom waited in line for hours at Barnes & Noble the day Madonna sex book came out to get it for me. She knew I would die if I didn't have it. Sure.

Right? You know, I think she just didn't want her, like, very maniacal gay child to die. Yeah. Saving a life. It was like self-preservation for my family. You know, and it was a mildly pornographic book. But my parents didn't care. You know, they were just like, he needs this.

Like, he needs this to live. Yeah. Like, it means so much to him. And it did. But, you know, and I know people who had parents like that, but I know a lot of people who didn't. Right. And my parents, like, even my friends who had good parents, when they hear about my parents, they're like, my parents were nice, but not like your parents. Yours are a mistake.

They went above and beyond. And they just always let me be me. But I'll tell you, and, you know, there are some people who might say, oh, you were spoiled and, you know, yes, in a way I was, but my parents always treated me like an adult. I mean, they cared for me like a child, but they respected what was important to me as if I was an adult. Right. And that gave me an enormous amount of self-respect. You know, that made me feel like, yeah, like, this, and my love of entertainment of performing, this is not just a hobby. And it's to be taken seriously if I'm good at it, which, you know, I was.

You know, oh, well, certain, not everything, but certain things. And so everything in the book is basically saying, how did I get here? Where did I get this confidence to do Billy on the street? Where do I get the resilience to keep going when things go wrong? Right. And all of that, everything I am, you can, like literally, you can draw that line back to how much my parents loved me. And let me be me. Right, didn't try to impose their own expectations.

No, there was no discomfort about it. I could go on and on. And I watched this gay indie movie with my father in 1987. I was eight, nine years old, my beautiful Andrette with Daniel DeLewis. It's about like these two men having a gay love affair. And I told my dad I wanted to rent it and watch it because my Aunt Joyce, so you'll read about it in the book. She was a big influence.

And my parents liked more mainstream things. And my Aunt Joyce made me read The Village Voice and The New Yorker and like circle the movie reviews of indie movies and queer movies. And, you know, I think Joyce knew very early. I mean, she took you to Henry and June. as I recall in the book. Yes, my Aunt Joyce took me to the first NC17 movie, Henry and June. My family took me to a lot of porn now that I like think about.

But yeah, it was the first NC17 movie, which meant at the time you cannot go if you're under 18, even if you're with a guardian. And we went to see Henry and June, which had a lot of like three-way sex in it and stuff. Not like hardcore, but you know what I mean. And after the movie, these two, we went to do. in Queens and Forest Till's to see Henry in June. It was like, you know, it was a three-day weekend and my aunt had to watch me. You know, my parents went to work and she took me to see Henry.

Sure. As one does. Which I wanted to see. Am I talking too much? No, this is perfect. This is why we're here. All right. And so we go see the movie and then these two elderly women, very like Forest Hills, Queens,

probably Jewish ladies, like they looked at my aunt. And they looked at me and saw like my aunt with a child. gave her the dirtiest look. And then when the movie was over, we got up when we were walking out, they look at her again. And one of them actually says to my Aunt Joyce, you took him to see that? And my Aunt Joyce said,

he's smart, he's not looking at it like that. You know, he's here for the art, basically, not the sex. But she was right. We'll be right back with more, Happy, Sad, Confused. From the parents behind law and order comes a mystery the whole family came. and enjoy. Patrick Pickle Bottom Everyday Mysteries. Step into the whimsical world of Patrick Picklebottom,

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and join us in the dark. Your beautiful dad, Jay Eichner, who if you all have the books, you're going to hear Billy's interpretation of his dad, which is priceless. Well, I know you actually wanted to read an excerpt, and this is a little bit about your dad, right? Yeah, sure.

Is that okay if I read this? All right. I didn't know I'd be holding the mic, you know. Okay, to set this up, this comes later in the, well, in the middle of the book, a chapter about my dad, I mean, my dad, my mom are all throughout the book in every chapter, but this chapter focuses on him. And, you know, I had this dad who, my dad was much older than my mom. He was born in 1930.

He was in the Korean War. You know, he was an older guy, and then he had me, you know? And you would think maybe that would lead to some tension. but it did not. Chapter 5, my dad. 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's storytelling contest. Except for one other boy, 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, 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 feet through his fist up in the air triumphantly and in this mostly empty, cavernous school auditorium shouted very loudly, Way to go!

As if I had just thrown a buzzer-beater in the last seconds of a championship basketball game or scored a winning touchdown, when all I had done is won the fourth-grade storytelling contest. His big bellowing Bronx-born voice bounced off the walls and echoed off the vast, dark span of empty seats in the school auditorium on a Saturday morning in Queens, and he stayed on his feet. beaming. This was when I was in fourth grade in 1986. I'm 47 years old now, but I can still

hear him saying those words. There's a Stephen Sondheim song, Children Will Listen, in the finale of Into the Woods, a show about parents and children, about how adults have to remember that children listen more than you think. They listen and learn and remember everything you say and do. They retain everything. And that way to go, I have retained for the rest of my life. Now, sometimes my parents took their love and encouragement to step too far. Because I won the district storytelling competition, I advanced to the next level to perform my story in the Queensboro wide storytelling contest. And yet again, my father attended with the pride of someone who was watching his son play quarterback at the Super Bowl.

Except this time, I fumbled the football by stumbling over a few words in my story, and you cannot stumble over your words in a storytelling contest. I ended up coming in fifth place, losing out to a girl named Jenny Pethconcathon. That was her name. I still remember it. Who at one point in her performance paused for a suspiciously long time while staring hard her mother in the audience. She had clearly forgotten her next line.

There were some speculation among the other contestants that her mother had maled the word she was forgetting, which was, of course, considered cheating. And yet she was given second place. And the girl who took first place happened to be from that same district where the competition was held. Well, my father thought this was very suspicious.

I was just mad at myself for stumbling over the words, and I stormed out of the auditorium telling my, parents to start the car so we could just get out of there. I blamed myself, but not my father. He ranted all the way home in the car about the travesty that these girls had beaten me, that they had cheated, that the competition was rigged to favor the girl from her own district. My dad was like one of those Stop the Steel guys, but about the 1988 Queensland Contest.

It was fixed, he shouted. And I finally had to shout from the The backseat to quiet him. You don't have to make excuses for me. I just lost. I was disappointed in myself, but I wasn't about to blame the other contestants, even if they had cheated.

Plus, to be honest, I really didn't care. I just wanted to go home and eat a bagel and watch TV. But Jay Eichner had accepted enough defeat in his own life, so when it came to me, he refused to accept defeat, and was particularly sensitive about me not having the same opportunities and advantages that a kid from a richer, more powerful, more well-connected family might have. That's it.

So he encouraged you throughout, and all the way, you know, up until his last days. I mean, he saw a lot before the show sold to fuse, before Billy on the Street became a TV show. But he was at Creation Nation often, right? Yeah, my live show that I did, many in this audience are familiar with it, or worked on it, which is the live show I did in New York mostly, which is a live show. where I developed the Billy on the Street persona and where the first Billy on the Street style videos were shown before YouTube even started. This was 2004. I made the first Billy on the Street. It was a very long time ago and we made it to project onto a screen in this

cabaret space. Like I said, I had no idea what would happen. And he did come to, my dad came to every single show. Every single show. And I'm on stage ranting and raving about like gay anal sex. And this is in like 2004. The comedy world is not very gay friendly at that point. I mean, you know, it's not perfect now, but it's gotten way better. And he just, if the audience

laughed, he loved it. You know, and he was smart. He was a New Yorker and he loved show business and like, he got it. Yeah. Yes. Do you remember when you were performing in those shows, like, you got some early validation from some notable celebrities, actors?

Who meant a lot to you that showed up that creation nation that kind of touted you. A lot of people, but Joan Rivers is probably the most important. The first job I got on TV was a pilot that was going to be on Bravo. In 2006, it was a talk show pilot. It was like a Joan Rivers version of The View. And it was supposed to be, instead of Barbara Walters and four different types of women, it was going to be Joan Rivers and four different types of gay men.

Sure. And it was called Joan Rivers Straight Talk, ha-ha. 2006, that was good for 2006. And it was me, and I was on the panel. And Andy Cohen, before he had his own show, and two other guys, L. Z. Granderson and Preston Conrad, and Joan. And the pilot didn't get picked up, but Joan started to come to Creation Nation, which was the live show,

and she became like a real mentor to me before anyone knew who I was. And she was just unbelievably encouraging. Does anything she said to you? I mean, she was a true mentor. Does anything stick in your... People used to ask me if Joan Rivers was my grandmother because she was so supportive. They thought we must be related.

Joan would... She asked me to put my Billy on the street videos, the very early ones, on a DVD. And she would go around to all the... When she went to do a talk show, a late-night talk show, Letterman and Kimmel and Fallon, she would go up to the showrunner

before the show and say, you need to know who this guy is, watch this DVD. Right? I mean, that's crazy. No one does that in show business. You know, that is very rare. And I tell the story in the book about how I think it was 2009 and I was very frustrated because I could not get a job. And I was getting great press and everyone was like, oh, you're so great, you're this and you're that. But I couldn't get a job. My dad used to say, you know, if you're just a genius, why can't you get three lines on law and order? But he wasn't insulting. He was just being practical. He was confused. He was like, I don't understand. Why is the New York?

time saying this and this about you that's so great but then no one hires you right and so I didn't have health insurance it was rough and so I emailed Joan and said I don't know what to do I really am considering quitting the business because I don't understand like the disconnect between people saying I'm talented and unique but not being able to get a paying job you know and Jones said you know come meet me after my stand-up show and I met her me and my best friend Heath of 30 years who's here tonight my best friend since high school I took him with me and we went to have dinner with Joan and she just gave me the most amazing pep talk of all time

and it literally, I know this sounds dramatic, it's why I continued. You know, I really was about to quit. And my dad, although very, very, very encouraging, like beyond belief, I was in my early 30s at this point and it's starting to get scary and he's starting to get scared for me. And then I called him and I said, Dad, Joan says I need to stick with it a few more years. and my dad was older.

He was from Joan's generation. So Joan was very important to him, and she was from New York, and she's Jewish. You know, like, there was a lot of overlap. And he knew she really loved me that it wasn't disingenuous, and he said, well, that's what Joan says, you got to do it.

And I did, and a year or two later, Billy on the street became a TV show. It is crazy, yeah. I mean... True, true story. I mean, you alluded to this. Like, the timeline, people don't realize, I think, like, you get this, you know, it pops and, like, Creation Nation gets

some buzz. The Times writes this amazing article, but it's like five or six years later before you get. Times wrote about me, this crazy amazing article about me in the show, and my best friend, Robin Taylor, who did the show with me, who's also here. And that was 2005. And then, and I got, I finally got an agent. I went from no agent to, like, Brian Lord from CIA in the audience and signing me. I was like, what? I just wanted to do an off-broadway play. Right. You know? And then all of a sudden people were thinking like, people were saying like, oh, you're going to be on TV in six months and I was like, TV. I never even thought about TV, right? Now, once they said it, my gear started turning. But like, but, okay, so that all happens

2005 and by 2009, there's nothing. I've been dropped by two agents. I've been dropped by two managers. There's nothing, right? But I, what, well, there was something and it was called the internet. YouTube came along, and then you could share videos on Facebook, and I just kept at it for some reason that I still don't know. Well, I know why, but thinking back now,

I'm like, God, I had nothing. Where did this confidence come from? And, well, it came from my parents. I was going to say, I think we all know now. Yeah, yeah. More happy, say, confused coming up. Hi, listeners. We want to tell you about a podcast we love.

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So let's talk a little bit about the character, Billy on the street, and how it developed. I mean, was it fully formed at the start? Did it take a little while to kind of like hone in on what was working for these? It wasn't fully formed, but it was pretty close. Yeah? Yeah. What was the germ of the idea? What did you think was funny?

The germ of the idea was we were doing my live show. and I was playing, my live show was like a live late-night talk show, but on stage, because no one was putting me on TV. It was my version of Conan or Letterman, but it was more theatrical because I wasn't from the comedy world. I was a theater kid who knew I had some skills for comedy and was just trying to find a way to break through. But because of that, Creation Nation was somewhere between a sketch comedy show and a play. So it would be a bunch of sketches about satirizing pop culture and my obsession with pop culture, but Robin Taylor played my my sidekick. His character was in the closet and I was very out and we alluded to a potential relationship that we might have off camera which he didn't want to talk about in which I did.

And that storyline was like woven throughout the sketches about pop culture. That's one thing that's happening and then sort of propelled by my anger about that situation. It's weird. Robin and I used to sit just like this in stools just like this. And sort of propelled by the the anger of that, my character. I didn't say my name was Billy Eichner. My name was Billy Willing. I created an alter ego because it wasn't me, William Willing, and then we shortened it to Billy Willing.

Because he was willing, blah, blah, blah, who cares. So, and then over the course of the night, my character would get increasingly angry about pop culture. I would start out pretty normal. And then, midway through the show, I would do a monthly movie review or a review of a Broadway show or some. something, right? And it would start out relatively normal, like a little snarky, but like not

over the top, but it would grow. And it would become like a 12 to 14 minute rant. By the end, I was like having a stroke. I hated whatever I was talking about so much that clearly something else was going on with me. And it was like a satire of criticism about people who take pop culture too seriously, which was me as a kid. Billy on the street is like my id. It's like me as 12-year-old in the body of a six-foot-three man. And over the course of this rant, I would get like just disproportionately irrationally worked up and angry and Robin would have to come over and comfort me and I was crying.

And the, thank you, Diane. Yes. The audience, and the audience loved it. They were like falling out of their chairs, right? And I kind of like, my goal was to make a very, cynical New York audience. Mostly, it was like a combination of comedy fans and theater people, right? There were songs in the show. We had a band. I would write songs like these silly satirical songs and I would sing them. I used to say it was like a variety show, but I'm the only act.

And there was kind of an emotional arc to the show, you know, even though there was no plot necessarily, but there was like an arc emotionally. Okay, so then I'm doing the rants and everyone's liking me getting angry about pop culture. And then I say to Jamie, our good friend who was directing the show, I have an idea, what if we go out into the street and I do this guy, but I force other people to deal with him? Right? Because I'm a New Yorker, so I know how New Yorkers walk down the street.

Like there's hundreds of people around, but you have blinders on, you're kind of ignoring them, right? Everyone's just getting to where they need to go. And I said, I am going to break that rule, and I am going to stop them and force them to talk to me about the Oscars, right? Or about some pop culture topic that my character finds, like, you know, incredibly important. More specific, the better. Like, the very...

Yeah, exactly. And so we went out to shoot it, not knowing. We're theater people. Like, we didn't know about film and cameras. This was long before iPhones. We had to actually go to Radio Shack and get a camera. We kept borrowing cameras from friends of ours who had, like, cam quarters, and we would always lose them.

We were constantly losing our friends' cameras. Because we were, like, you know, on our 20s, they were, like, a mess. But, and then we made the video, we went to Washington Square Park, I remember vividly. Robin is in the first few videos with me, and I'm like making circles around Washington Square Park, Jamie's following me, and I am working up the nerve to go up to someone, because that does not come naturally to me either, or it didn't, now it does, but it didn't 22 years ago. But then we did it, we put that first video together, Jamie, like, edited it, and we worked on it together. We didn't know how it was going to go and we projected it onto a screen

and from the first time we showed it, even in that raw form, the audience fucking loved it. And I stood backstage hearing the laughter and I thought, oh shit, I'm going to have to keep doing this. Yeah. It resonates on a thousand levels. I did some man on the street interviews way back when for all things Joan Rivers radio show at WOR, a thousand years ago. It takes a certain kind of temperament to go up to strangers, let alone... It's an insane thing to... In your character. It's insane. It is insane. Now I can do it. Now I can do it in my sleep. But...

But then jumping ahead, you obviously... I mean, this is jumping way ahead, but then to add celebrities into the mix and to be in these crazy contexts where, like, talk about full circle, you're talking to Madonna in character, meeting Madonna as Billy on the street. Right. what's that due to your head? What's that like for you? For a little kid, Billy. Well, you know, I'm a bit of a Madonna fan, Josh. I've heard. I've heard.

There's a chapter in my book called Madonna-Louise Veronica Chaconne. It's her full name. It's not just like fan-girling out on her, though. Although there is some, I think, very sophisticated analysis of her career. But it really is about, what it really is about is, again, my parents, learning to understand me by watching me love Madonna. That's what that's about. And there's kind of a throughline in the book.

I'll get back to what you're talking about. But there's kind of a through line in the book about, even when you have parents that support you and love you and understand you, which I was lucky enough to do, they were not in the performing arts. They were not creative types. They loved show business from afar and like, my God, they loved a Broadway show, like more than anything.

But they weren't actors. They weren't performers. And I realized looking back, I think the artists we love as kids, they help raise us too, in a way, in the way that our parents can't. And so Madonna did that for me. She filled in certain blanks, you know, and I just loved her so much and still do. And so make a long story short, it's all in the book, but yeah, so Billy on the street becomes a TV show in late 2011. And then Conan, the Conan O'Brien show, they were kind of early adopters.

and Conan's show becomes the first major talk show I'm ever a guest on. And I go and I just, you know, I'm on the couch and that was fun. And no one knows who I am. And it was like early 2012. And then they call me the next day and they say, hey, we have crazy access to the Super Bowl. We have like press passes. And do you want to go and do like a Billy on the street style segment at the Super Bowl? They said, we can get you on the field.

And I said, I mean, no one knew who I was. I was like, well, yeah, of course, Conan O'Brien, I'm going to say yes to that. But I got off the phone and I thought, what the hell am I going to do with the Super Bowl? Like, I don't follow football. You know, I'm not a sports guy. And then I remembered the halftime show that year was Madonna. And so, I know. But, and so I call Conan's team and I say, okay, here's my angle.

I am going to the Super Bowl, but I only care about Madonna. I only care about the halftime show. and I run around Indianapolis, which is where the Super Bowl was, and I'm only asking people if they're excited about Madonna. And... Re-watched the clip, I did.

It's amazing to watch the football players just want to talk about... And then at the end, I'm on the field. And the New York Giants win the Super Bowl. That's amazing. And I am running onto the field. And I am shouting, like, The Giants just won, but Madonna was amazing.

And I'm like, Vogue, motherfucker! I'm just like, you know, and I run on to the field, and I literally go up to the Giants who just won, and their families are on the field, and they're crying, and there's confetti, and the trophy's there. Spike Lee is there, because he likes the Giants, I guess. And I go up to the players, and I say, you know, great game, man, and no one knows who I am.

So they think I work for ESPN or something. And then I follow it up with, did you see Madonna? and they look at you, you have to go watch it, I'm telling you. It's perfect. And I wouldn't say that about everything I've ever done. And they look at me so bewildered, and they're just like, no, I was in the locker room. And then, so that video did very well.

And then Madonna's team finds out about the video. And we get connected. And, you know, there's a longer story in the book, but I end up ambushing Madonna when she's rehearsing at Yankee Stadium. She couldn't be on the street with me, but Yankee Stadium was outside. And so I thought, okay, that'll work. And they say, okay. So Madonna knows you're coming, but she doesn't know what you're going to say, right? And you will improvise the way you do on the street. And I said, okay. And so we go with my camera crew and we do it. I mean, you can see it. It's on YouTube or something. And I am, but I had, I had this moment where, okay, it's like,

it's Madonna. Right? And I'm like, How is this happening? I don't understand, right? My parents and I went to watch her masturbate at the Blonde Ambition Tour. They bought me the sex book. There's so many amazing Madonna stories. But I had a moment with myself at Yankee Stadium. I remember before I went out, it was my moment to go out and ambush her.

And I thought, you have to stay in character. You cannot be Billy Eichner who loves Madonna. And Billy on the street gets mad at everyone, so you have to get mad at Madonna. Otherwise, you're betraying yourself. I have a lot of artistic integrity. And I did, and she was great. She was shouting at me, and Rocco was there. He was a baby.

Yeah, it was wild. Is she an acquaintance now? Do you have a personal relationship with Madonna? No, no, no, no. I leave Madonna alone. Madonna's busy. I know her team. But by the way, I was such a Madonna fan

that her publicist of many years no longer her publicist. Liz Rosenberg. I read about Liz Rosenberg on page six when I was a kid, right? just getting to email with Liz Rosenberg. I was starstruck, right, by her publicist. And you, okay, so jumping ahead, the time is flying by, but this is all amazing.

The residual effect of Billy on the street is a beautiful and challenging one. I mean, it makes such an impact, and you alluded to this, it's like it's followed you. It will always follow you to a degree, and I'm sure you've kind of reconciled that to a degree. But talk to me a little bit about, like, is it part of your day-to-day nowadays even? Like, do people run up to you expecting you to scream at them? Do they scream at you? Like, what's the... Sometimes people will come up to me and say,

will you shout at me? Right. Which is so funny, because that's not a thing people want someone to do to them, usually. But, no, I mean, people are... Well, social media, I mean, the show ended up having this, like, second, third life. I don't even know anymore. Like, it's just been out there so long. TikTok came along.

A friend of mine said, you know how viral you are on TikTok? This was, like, four years ago. and I said, I'm not on TikTok. What are you talking about? And they said, Billy on the street is all over TikTok, and I had no idea. Fans were posting clips, and then I got on TikTok. But like, yeah, it's crazy. It has sustained in a very unexpected way. It's one of those things like you cannot plan for. So now that there's a bit of distance and you've kind of like proven yourself in other areas, is there more willingness to kind of go back every now and then? I mean, the last time he did it was for the campaign with Will Ferrell.

for Kamala. That helped. We all tried in our own way. We tried. We tried. We tried. Wish more people had tried. But where are you at in terms of that character and its place in your career going forward? Well, I am at a place where, for a while I was like, I can never do it. I have to, like, draw a line in the sand. But people love it. And if you look under the internet, which can be so snarky, including about me,

but like under Billy on the Street videos, that's like a different thing. Like it's just people, the people who get it, not everyone gets it, but the people who get it, it's like their favorite thing. And they are always, please do more. Please bring the show back. The world is so awful. Please do this. And I am very touched by that.

And I want to like honor that. You know, that's a very rare thing. It does not give me as an actor the creative satisfaction anymore because I've been doing it for so long. And it's not aligned with who I really wanted to be as an artist because it's not acting in the traditional sense. I'm very proud of it. I created it. But for me, I want to have a more eclectic career. But now, you know, what I'm always trying to sort of figure out is like, okay, I can do both. You know, like, you know, my therapist would want me to say that.

She was like, you can do everything. And so it's never going to be, I'm never going to do like half hour episodes of Billy on the street again, but we're always kind of talking about what it could look like. And I don't know what the answer to that is, but never say never.

I don't know. We should bring up bros, which obviously is very important to you and to so many. I mean, it made an impact. And I know, yeah. Oh, thank you. Thank you.

And I know last time you were on the podcast, we talked about it. I mean, it's a complicated conversation because, like, you have such pride in it, and those that saw it, loved it, and luckily it does have this shelf life, this residual life. But at the time, it didn't do the box office that you wanted, even though the critics did respond, I think. Have you kind of, like, come around and can you kind of appreciate more the place that Brose sits in pop culture today? Yeah, I'm going to go back in the closet, obviously. I think that would be good. So you're cool. You're good.

I'm good. I'm totally good. No, no, no. I'll say this about the book, which was really nice, is that it, bros is complicated. All of it, the making of it, everything about it was complicated. It is not something easily summed up in some, like, click-baity soundbite or a tweet or like a headline on Instagram where no one reads the article. They just, like, read the four words that I said that were taken out of context for, like, click-baity reasons. And so, But what the book did is give me the space to properly talk about it, right, in all of its complexity, like the good, bad, and the ugly. And I do. You know, and I am very proud of it.

And I know what my intentions were with that movie. And I think certain people got it. Certain people didn't. That's fine. But what I'm happy about is that the book gave me the opportunity and the space and time for me to be thoughtful about it, to be articulate about it, and to say exactly how I feel about it. you know, without it being interrupted by kind of bad faith takes. But like the finished product is you don't feel it was compromise in any way. You are proud of what it was.

You made the movie you wanted to make. Yeah, especially because we made that movie R-rated gay comedy with a major studio. Yeah, I mean, anything I've done, I will look back and say like, oh, I would tweak that. I would tweak that. I mean, that's part for the course. But no, I mean, it was important to me that. if I was going to have that opportunity. I mean, there were a few things that were important to me.

I wanted my gay friends, or at least the... You know, there's a big generation gap in the gay community, right? I'm not going to get into all of that right now. But, like, but, you know, I can only write from my experience and my generation, you know. And not that I speak from my generation of gay people. I don't. Social media, calm down. I can already see the comments.

But I can only speak from my experience and my experience. my vantage point. And what I wanted was for my gay friends to see that movie and think, okay, like he didn't sell us out. Like he's telling our story. Like this is honest and it's complicated and it's layered and it's not really on the street. It has depth and it has thought. And I wanted I wanted to have a gay character at the center of a gay story that was not in the closet. I did not want the storytelling to hinge on being in the closet. I think we We get a lot of that. And I wanted a character that led with his intellect, right?

And not with his body. And I just wanted it to be honest. And we did that. You know, we did that. And I think it's a smart, funny, heartwarming movie. And I'm proud of it. As you should be. Absolutely.

But next time I will play a tortured, beautiful closet at hockey player. I've learned my lesson. Yeah, did bros walk so he just Rivalry could run? No, I don't think so. No. Did you like heated rivalry? I enjoyed heated rivalry.

I mean, I'm gay. I like those guys. It's a good show. But very different. You know what's funny? You know, yeah, it's funny. Like, the first thing I said to Nick Stoller, who was the directed bros, and we co-wrote it,

before I even knew what the movie was going to be about, I said, I have no idea what this movie is going to be about. but the characters are not going to be in the closet. It's not about that. But people like when the characters are in the closet. You know? I don't know if you want to reveal what you're working on in terms of writing, but I mean, I remember when we were talking way back when,

there was a Christmas movie, there was the Paul Lynn biopic for a while. Yes. There's a Paul Lynn biopic. I'm still working on it. I had a hard time. I did a ton of research on Paul Lind during COVID and talked to Bruce Valanche for hours and hours who wrote for Paul Lind on Hollywood,

squares, Bruce Valanche's legendary comedy writer, Bruce Valanche. His first job in Hollywood was writing Paul Lynn Zingers on Hollywood Squares. And I did a ton of research on Paul, and then it took me a minute to find my angle. And then last year I thought of my angle. And so I'm still working on that. There's a Christmas project which has evolved from its original version and is now something much crazier that, but it's very, very early. so I don't want to talk about it, but there is a serious Christmas thing. And, yeah, I don't know. I'm always writing and thinking about things.

I think that's a good note to end on. I just want to say, I mean, I think you've gotten a sense from the conversation tonight. This really encapsulates what this book is, which is obviously... I forgot there was a book. A ton of fun stories, but at the end of the day, it is a beautiful and moving tribute to your parents. I know they'd be very proud of you, and we're all thrilled that you shared your night with us tonight. Billy on Billy comes out as we tape this, I think just like 48 hours. So spread the good word, enjoy your audiobook, and give it up one more time for Billy Eichler.

Thank you, Josh. Thank you, guys. Thank you. Thank you. And so ends another edition of Happy, Sad, Confused. Remember to review, rate, and subscribe to this show on iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm a big podcast person. I'm Daisy Ridley, and I definitely wasn't pushed to do this by Josh.

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