Joel Kim Booster reacts to Billy Eichner's comments about LGBTQ+ films
Joel Kim Booster has reacted to Billy Eichner's controversial comments about LGBTQ+ films.
In a recent interview for Variety to promote his new movie Bros, the first gay romantic comedy from a major studio featuring an almost entirely LGBTQ+ cast, Billy claimed the release of the feature in cinemas later this month will be "a historic moment".
The comedian also noted that Bros is not an indie movie or "some streaming thing which feels disposable", and later, fans accused him of shading gay romcom Fire Island - which was released on Hulu in June.
On Sunday, Fire Island writer/star Joel took to Twitter to insist that he wasn't upset by Billy's statements.
"It seems like he was pretty inarticulate in his excitement about his movie getting a theatrical release, which is really f**king cool and something I'm sure the studio and his publicist is making him constantly talk about," he wrote. "God knows I've said plenty of dumb s**t without a publicist's help. I'm so proud of my movie and all the people who helped make it happen and am so grateful it was accessible to so many people on streaming, and don't see it as any less valuable because of that."
Joel went on to note that he has cleared the air with Billy and is looking forward to watching Bros.
"I truly hope you can enjoy both or neither of our movies without pitting them against each other (even though that is obviously a very fun thing to do and basically what gay Twitter was created for). I've spoken to Billy and we're cool, and I'm way too busy reading my 769 unread text messages and writing jokes about (festival) Burning Man to focus on this, so that's a wrap for me. Thank you to everyone for being so supportive, that's really cool," the star continued.
Following backlash online last week, Billy offered an apology to anyone he offended.
"Being an openly gay man and a loud and proud part of the LGBTQ+ community is one of the things I am most proud of in my whole damn life," the 43-year-old wrote on Twitter "And from the bottom of my heart, I truly am so sorry if I inadvertently offended or insulted anyone. I really am. Thank you."
Bros, starring Luke Macfarlane, Ts Madison, and Monica Raymund, is set to open in U.S. cinemas on 30 September.
