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<\/p>\nNew York\u00a0\u2014\u00a0\n <\/p>\n
\n It\u2019s a hot summer afternoon in Greenwich Village, and Billy Eichner is coming face-to-face with the nuisance he created.\n <\/p>\n
\n To his right, a young man is shooting on his iPhone while his friend interviews a bemused passerby. Behind him, a woman is holding up a whiteboard and asking New Yorkers about their lives. These days, walking through the center of a major city means fielding interview requests from would-be influencers. And it might be this man\u2019s fault.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cI\u2019m so proud of what I\u2019ve spawned,\u201d Eichner jokes as he sidesteps one content creator. \u201cWhere\u2019s my Mark Twain Award for American Comedy?\u201d\n <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Back on the street with Billy Eichner — for one last time?\n <\/p>\n
![\"billy](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/billy-eichner-thumb-10.jpg&q=w_860,c_fill\")
<\/p>\n
Back on the street with Billy Eichner — for one last time?<\/p>\n
3:29<\/p>\n
\n Eichner became one of the internet\u2019s most recognizable comedians after his breakout creation, \u201cBilly on the Street,\u201d became a sensation on TV, then on YouTube, and then again on TikTok. The show is an exaggeration of Eichner\u2019s younger self: It features his overheated quizzing and yelling<\/a> at New Yorkers about popular culture, often ending with him imploding in a ball of mock fury. And it has lived a thousand lives online, clipped and meme-ified to smithereens.\n <\/p>\n \n That wave of popularity helped Eichner land subsequent roles in \u201cParks and Recreation,\u201d \u201cAmerican Horror Story\u201d and as the voice of Timon on \u201cThe Lion King\u201d movie reboot. But Eichner has a complicated relationship with the show that made him a star. He has become an actor trapped within the confines of his own invention, a tension he discusses candidly.\n <\/p>\n \n CNN interviewed Eichner, 47, on a recent New York afternoon. We walked the same streets that made him, meeting on Broadway and then taking a cab to Washington Square Park, the first place he shot \u201cBilly on the Street.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n During the walk, he dodged content creators and influencers that Eichner\u2019s show inspired \u2013 with several mobbing him as we went. One dubbed him \u201cthe Christopher Columbus of street interviews\u201d while another conducted an interview with Eichner before suddenly realizing who he was. \u201cOh my god, Billy!\u201d she screamed, loud enough to make Eichner jump.\n <\/p>\n \n He also discussed his history-making 2022 romantic comedy \u201cBros\u201d \u2013 the first gay rom-com<\/a> to be produced and distributed widely by a major studio, and the first to feature an entirely LGBTQ+ cast \u2013 as well as the heated online debate that followed its release.\n <\/p>\n \n And we talked about his new audiobook memoir, \u201cBilly on Billy<\/a>,\u201d which is part life story and part attempt to redefine how the world sees him. \u201cI wasn\u2019t always Billy on the Steet,\u201d he tells us. \u201cThis is a character \u2013 it\u2019s not the real me.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n The questions and answers below have been edited for brevity and clarity.\n <\/p>\n CNN: Your career has been sculpted by New York. As a pop culture-obsessed kid growing up in Queens, what did it mean to you when you came into the city and saw the skyline?<\/p>\n \n Eichner: It was magical. I actually just got chills as you said that. It felt so romantic to make that drive across the 59th Street Bridge. Whenever I land at JFK or LaGuardia and I take that drive back into Manhattan, I still feel that way. New York is the center of everything, and there\u2019s a certain electricity that you just don\u2019t get anywhere else.\n <\/p>\n \n I\u2019ve always thought \u201cBilly on the Street\u201d is this twisted Valentine to New Yorkers, essentially. They\u2019re my co-stars on the show. They\u2019re honest, there\u2019s a bluntness, there\u2019s a nonchalance about celebrity. It\u2019s not the easiest place to live. It\u2019s chaotic, no one\u2019s in a huge apartment \u2013 but you still choose to be here because you need the energy of the city.\n <\/p>\n In your audiobook, we hear you laugh and we hear you sing. But we also hear the emotion in your voice, especially when you talk about your mother.<\/p>\n \n Yes, my mother died when I was 20, completely out of the blue. Like a lot of young gay boys, I was very close with my mother. My mom loved gay men. These little conversations you have, things that might seem like they\u2019re not very meaningful when you\u2019re a kid, have really stuck with me.\n <\/p>\n \n My dad died a month before we sold \u201cBilly on the Street\u201d as a TV show. So yes, they missed (my success), and that is obviously sad and painful and something I think about. (But) I can feel how much they love me still, and feel how much they wanted me to succeed.\n <\/p>\n \n The reaction from parents who have been listening to the book has really touched me. They keep writing to me: \u2018I want to be Jay and Debby (Eichner) for my kid.\u2019 \u2018I have a kid who\u2019s into the arts, I have a creative kid, I have a gay kid, I have a trans kid.\u2019 A lot of parents have an expectation or a dream for who their kid is going to be. You\u2019re not necessarily going to get that kid. Your child is going to have their own interests. They might differ from yours. They might scare you. You might be a little uncomfortable with who they are at first, but it\u2019s their life. It\u2019s who they are.\n <\/p>\n \n I didn\u2019t set out to be a comedian. I went to Northwestern \u2014 I was a theater major. Even people who thought I was talented in my 20s never knew where to put me. I didn\u2019t comfortably fit into any one Hollywood category of actor. I wasn\u2019t quite the leading man. I was gay, but I wasn\u2019t a stereotypical, wacky gay neighbor.\n <\/p>\n \n For sure. What often happens is if you have a persona people like (as with \u201cBilly on the Street\u201d), they want you to just keep doing that, or variations on that. I really have had to draw a line in the sand and say: \u2018No. You wanted to be a theater actor, you were a serious actor in college, you were doing Chekhov and Shakespeare and \u201cAngels in America.\u2019\u2019 I can\u2019t really control what other people do. But I had to remind myself: Don\u2019t stereotype yourself.\n <\/p>\n \n Yes, but it\u2019s a champagne problem \u2026 I\u2019m proud of it. I created it. No one cast me on that show. I ended the show, but it\u2019s only gotten more popular since, because the clips online haven\u2019t stopped circulating for 15 years. That\u2019s very rare, and I want to honor it.\n <\/p>\n \n Did it give people a very specific idea of who I am and what I do? Yes. Has that been limiting at times? Yes. But I had to break through some way. I broke through, and my whole process since then has been about telling the world, and also reminding myself, who I really am.\n <\/p>\n \n Compared to now \u2014 when social media gives everyone so much anxiety, and we\u2019re all doom-scrolling, and (there is) an avalanche of content \u2014 it felt a little bit more quaint. A lot of people my age miss a monolithic culture. Social media is a double-edged sword. There are great things about it. There are horrible things about it. I don\u2019t know if I would have a career without it, truthfully, because it democratized culture.\n <\/p>\n And nowadays, you have content creators clogging the streets of New York around you.<\/p>\n \n I know. I\u2019m probably somewhat responsible for that!\n <\/p>\n The man-on-the street interview is its own subgenre on TikTok, and in a way, you\u2019re the godfather of that brand of comedy.<\/p>\n \n I guess that\u2019s true. That\u2019s flattering. I certainly did not invent man-on-the-street. But I guess I reinvented it for the digital age, although I didn\u2019t know I was doing that. It just happened by accident.\n <\/p>\n \n I also think what I do is a little different. I\u2019m doing it in character. It was a satire. I think there was a very strong comedic point of view behind \u2018Billy on the Street.\u2019 It\u2019s not just asking someone, \u2018What are you wearing\u2019 or \u2018How much do you pay in rent?\u2019 \u2026 It had more context and dimension to it which has gotten lost along the way. That\u2019s the nature of the social media world that we live in.\n <\/p>\n \n I was trying to reflect adult gay male life in an honest way. A lot of stories about gay men, especially stories that connect with the masses, hinge on being in the closet. \u2018Love, Simon,\u2019 \u2018Brokeback Mountain,\u2019 even \u2018Heated Rivalry\u2019 \u2013 I love every project I just mentioned, and yet a lot of the storytelling hinges around characters who are struggling with being gay, (or) the act of telling the world, \u2018I\u2019m gay.\u2019 That\u2019s not my story, you know? And most gay men that I know \u2013 we\u2019re not coming out anymore. We\u2019ve been out a long time.\n <\/p>\n It connected with a lot of people, and it was well-reviewed. But at the box office, it didn\u2019t have the effect you had hoped for.<\/p>\n \n There was no blueprint for how to sell a movie like \u2018Bros.\u2019 To do an R-rated gay rom-com and release it in 3,000 movie theaters, which is what Universal did, was very admirable, but also challenging. But I\u2019m proud of it. I\u2019m glad it played on all those screens, but what I cared most about was the movie itself.\n <\/p>\n The conversation online after the movie got a little heated<\/a>, and you tweeted that straight audiences didn\u2019t show up for \u2018Bros.\u2019 Do you regret that for some people, a social media frenzy<\/a> overshadowed the movie?<\/p>\n \n I\u2019m not really sure. We\u2019re in this period where things come down to soundbites or tweets. \u2018Bros\u2019 was a complicated movie from the beginning, and you can\u2019t really talk about it in a tweet.\n <\/p>\n \n But it\u2019s kind of par for the course. People are going to have their hot take, and they\u2019re entitled to have their hot take. For better or worse, I built my life online.\n <\/p>\n \n I think the movie, from a creative standpoint, has staying power. And I want to do things that have depth, that are more mature, that are more complex than \u2018Billy on the Street.\u2019 I love \u2018Billy on The Street\u2019 \u2013 that\u2019s there to make people laugh, to give people a little bit of escape from their day. But I also want people to relate to other characters that I play that have more sophistication or dimension or emotional intelligence.\n <\/p>\n \n I moved back to New York (from Los Angeles) last year, and part of the reason is that I really want to get back to being a theater actor, which is what I set out to do when I was a kid going all those Broadway shows. That\u2019s very important to me, that I get to have that experience. It could be Broadway or off-Broadway. I\u2019m very focused on finding a play or musical to do in New York.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"New York\u00a0\u2014\u00a0 It\u2019s a hot summer afternoon in Greenwich Village, and Billy Eichner is coming face-to-face with the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":299360,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[21881,9,11,10],"class_list":["post-299359","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-enterprise","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299359","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=299359"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/299359\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/299360"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=299359"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=299359"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=299359"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}