Billy Eichner knows he has a reputation for being loud, brash and in-your-face.
When you find fame yelling questions at strangers on New York City streets as he did as the host of “Billy on the Street,” it’s bound to happen.
And that is why his new memoir, “Billy on Billy,” was only released as an audio-only book. “Sometimes people don’t know if [‘Billy on the Street’] is a persona or not,” Eichner tells me over Zoom from his New York City apartment. “I’m 47 years old, and you reach a point where you want people to know you’re a real person and get a sense of the real me and I thought this would be a good opportunity to do that, especially if people could hear it in my real voice.
“I didn’t want people to inadvertently hear me tell what I think are very sweet, heartwarming stories about my parents and about growing up and the pop culture I love, I didn’t want them to accidentally hear that in my shouting ‘Street’ voice,” he continues. “This is a different tone entirely, and it’s extremely personal.”
Eicher grew up in Queens, N.Y. He is the only child of Debbie and Jay Eichner. “I think you can divide people into two groups — those who were successful in spite of 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 in spite of being discouraged or their parents not being comfortable with something about them. I am very much a product of my parents’ love, and the book is just chock full of stories about how my parents supported me and always let me be me — their default mode — even when maybe they were confused by the intensity of my passion for entertainment.”
Eichner was only 20 years old when his mom died of a heart attack at age 54. His dad passed in 2011 just before “Billy on the “Street” took off. “Whenever I think about my mom, I’m mostly sad for her,” he says, his eyes tearing up. “I’m sorry I don’t get through an interview about the book without crying, even over Zoom. I’m mostly sad for her that she didn’t have a longer life, having nothing to do with my career…[But] it is a cruel and unfair fact about my life is that you could not have found two more supportive parents. My parents did everything that they could to make sure I had a shot at this dream coming true.”
In 2022, Eichner became a poster child of sorts for queer movies. “Bros,” a rom-com about an unlikely couple (Eichner and Luke Macfarlane) that he co-wrote and starred in, was heralded as the next big thing for LGBTQ storytelling. Not only was it directed by Nicholas Stoller and co-produced by Judd Apatow, but Universal Pictures poured up to $40 million into its marketing, predicting it would appeal to queer and straight moviegoers.
However, “Bros” was a box office failure. The $22 million feature grossed only $14 million. At the time, Eicher’s tweet blaming straight people for the gloomy outcome went viral. “Even with glowing reviews, great Rotten Tomatoes scores, an A CinemaScore, etc., straight people, especially in certain parts of the country, just didn’t show up for ‘Bros,’” Eichner wrote. “And that’s disappointing but it is what it is.”
“Obviously, from a commercial standpoint, we wanted a better opening weekend and all that. But hindsight is 20/20,” Eichner now says. “I will say for all the noise about the box office and all that, it’s almost four years since ‘Bros,’ people, not only gay men, but a lot of gay men, come up to me all the time and talk about ‘Bros’ in a very emotional way…Sometimes they really pour their hearts out. The things they say are not the types of things that anyone would say about ‘Billy on the Street.’
“’Billy on the Street’ makes people laugh a lot, and I appreciate that, but for the people who saw ‘Bros’ and understood ‘Bros,’ I think it really moved them and that moves me, and so I’m proud of it,” he continues. “And that’s that.”
“Billy on the Street” may return one day. “It’s something that we always talk about,” Eichner says. “I really can’t believe how popular it still is. I mean, the clips are everywhere.”
Meryl Steep is his dream guest. “The internet being usually such a toxic, negative place, the comments under ‘Billy on the Street’ videos are so positive, and it’s just people begging me to bring it back,” Eichner says. “I don’t exactly know what shape that takes, but part of me does want to honor that.”
Then there’s his years-in-the-making biopic about the late comic actor and “Bewitched” and “Hollywood Squares” icon Paul Lynde. “I’ve been working on the script for a long time on and off,” Eichner says. “I started to get into it again last year. I have a take on it now that I didn’t have before.”
He says there could be a “Billy on Billy” movie. “I’ve had real conversations about adapting it,” Eichner says, before cracking, “Connor Storrie is going to play my mom, Hudson Williams as my dad and the barista (Robbie G.K.) will play my 10-year-old self. That’s the only way we’re going to get financing for it.”
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