In short
Billy Eichner discusses how his parents, Jay and Debbie Eichner, fostered his identity and ambitions with unconditional love—leading to his “audacity” to pursue performing arts as a gay Jewish kid in Queens during the AIDS crisis era. He contrasts his love-based upbringing with “tough love” and argues that emotional safety can enable resilience and creativity.
Guest backgrounds
Billy Eichner is an actor, comedian, writer, and producer. He became famous for Billy on the Street (starting in 2011), later starring in and co-writing/producing Bros (2022), noted as the first major studio film with all major roles played by openly LGBTQ+ actors. He has also appeared in projects including The Lion King, Parks and Rec, American Horror Story, and American Crime Story.
Key claims
His parents “let him be him” (including being gay, loving show tunes, Madonna, and Barbara Streisand) without shame; they immersed themselves in his interests; they supported his education and career despite financial limits; and his confidence came from that foundation rather than trauma.
Notable examples
His parents took him to Madonna’s Blonde Ambition tour (1990/1991) and defended his Madonna obsession; they let him art-direct his bar mitzvah as a “show”; his father supported his Northwestern acceptance via student loans and attended performances; and Billy on the Street grew from a stage character after early audition rejections.
Written by AI. May contain mistakes. Listen to the episode to check what was said.
Chapters
Tap a time to open that second in VOThe Impact of Supportive Parenting
3:00 to 6:00
Discussion on how Billy Eichner's parents provided unconditional love and support, fostering his confidence.
“We're Kristen and Dina, child behavior experts, moms, and co-founders of Big Little Feelings.”
Billy's Childhood and Early Influences
6:00 to 9:00
Billy shares stories from his childhood, focusing on his passion for performing and how his parents encouraged it.
“more and hear more and feel good and feel like the buzzy vibes.”
Navigating Identity and Acceptance
9:00 to 12:00
Exploration of Billy's journey with his identity as a gay man, including his parents' support during a challenging time.
“I did not come from a show business family.”
Legacy of Love and Confidence
12:00 to 14:00
Billy reflects on the lasting impact of his parents on his life and career, emphasizing the importance of love and support.
“their default mode was always to make sure I was happy.”
The Influence of Parents on Artistic Passion
14:00 to 18:52
Billy Eichner discusses how his parents nurtured his passion for performance and culture.
“parents did go see theater before I came around and they went to concerts.”
Memorable Moments: Concerts and Cultural Impact
18:52 to 23:48
Eichner shares anecdotes about attending concerts and how they shaped his identity.
“I also need to take a segue about your Bar Mitzvah.”
Reflections on Support and Sacrifices
23:48 to 28:01
He reflects on the sacrifices his parents made to support his dreams and the impact it had on his life.
“So if you talked about gay men, the first thing that people thought of was AIDS, right?”
The Impact of Parental Support
28:01 to 29:22
Explore how parental encouragement shaped Billy's childhood and creativity.
“And the book's been out for months now and it still happens every day.”
The Impact of Parental Support
29:23 to 31:04
Explore how parental encouragement shaped Billy's childhood and creativity.
“Naturepedic certified organic crib mattresses are designed around the things parents actually care about.”
The Impact of Parental Support
31:14 to 32:51
Explore how parental encouragement shaped Billy's childhood and creativity.
“And now I'm making sure I really just slow down while I do it.”
Show all 25 chapters
The Impact of Parental Support
32:57 to 33:59
Explore how parental encouragement shaped Billy's childhood and creativity.
“Okay, we do screens in our house, but sometimes we got to pivot away from them.”
The Impact of Parental Support
34:03 to 34:15
Explore how parental encouragement shaped Billy's childhood and creativity.
“BigLittleFeelings to save 10 % off all eligible items.”
The Impact of Parental Support
34:16 to 35:43
Explore how parental encouragement shaped Billy's childhood and creativity.
“Can we all just agree that by the time dinner rolls around, we are already burnt out?”
Finding Your Own Path in Show Business
35:57 to 42:07
Billy discusses the challenges he faced in pursuing his career in entertainment.
“And so there were so many gems that came about.”
Navigating New York City Culture
42:07 to 44:25
Explore how growing up in New York shaped Billy's confidence and approach to people.
“You know, other people, it's like frightens them.”
The Impact of Comedy and Family
44:25 to 47:15
Discusses the evolution of Billy's comedy and his father's pride in his performances.
“what was sometimes a 90-minute sketch comedy show with all kinds of sketches.”
Parental Influence on Success
47:15 to 49:48
Billy shares insights on how his parents' support shaped his resilience and career.
“But that's why I think maybe in ways that I truly am not being humble.”
The Myth of Tough Love
49:48 to 52:42
Billy critiques the concept of tough love and discusses the importance of unconditional support.
“You know, but I say in the book, I think that you can divide people into two categories.”
Self-Expression Through Fashion
52:42 to 56:00
Reflections on self-identity during childhood and the role of clothing in expressing individuality.
“You know, I went to this theater program at Northwestern, which has a really big, popular, prestigious theater program.”
Back-to-School Style Reflections
56:00 to 57:15
Explore the transformation of children’s identities through fashion.
“Can we talk about how absolutely unhinged the concept of back-to-school style felt when we were kids?”
Back-to-School Style Reflections
57:52 to 59:09
Explore the transformation of children’s identities through fashion.
“I have a new theory that one of the biggest scams of adulthood is that apparently you have to plan an entire vacation just to feel like you went on vacation.”
Connection to Barbra Streisand and Critique
1:01:11 to 1:10:05
Discussing personal connections to Barbra Streisand and navigating criticism.
“But you make this connection with Barbra Streisand in her audiobook, where she talks a lot about her critics.”
The Impact of Personal Experience on Art
1:10:05 to 1:13:35
Explore how personal experiences shape an artist's work and public perception.
“And so right away, I was drawing a connection between kind of a bitterness there or an envy or something.”
The Reality Behind 'Bros' and Cultural Impact
1:13:35 to 1:17:15
Discuss the challenges faced by the film 'Bros' and its cultural significance over time.
“you kind of have to just accept that in exchange for this amazing life that i get to have that because it is public, my work is public, that you're going to be on the receiving end of a lot of different opinions.”
Parental Support and Self-Expression
1:17:15 to 1:19:59
Learn about the importance of parental support in fostering self-expression in children.
“Again, I don't have kids, but all the parents I know were so excited that I was talking to you.”
Transcript
Automatic transcript. May contain errors.0:00Big Little Feelings:The following podcast is a Dear Media production. Welcome to After Bedtime. Today's guest is such a treat and today's episode is such a treat. We have Billy Eichner on the pod. And if you don't know who Billy Eichner is, my God, please Google Billy on the street. He's an actor, a comedian, a writer and producer. He burst onto the scene with his now viral thing where he runs up to people in New York City and kind of screams in their faces about pop culture. Just look it up if you don't know who he is. I had the best time sitting down with him. Billy and I talk about everything, but the biggest thing that we talk about actually is his parents.
0:43Big Little Feelings:And that's a plot twist. I am obsessed with Billy on the street, But now I am obsessed with Jay and Debbie Eichner. Y 'all, these two were big little feelings. Their little son, Billy Eichner, back in the 70s, the 80s, the 90s, before it was even a thing. So if you are here because you love Billy Eichner, or if you don't know who he is, but you just want to be a parent that fosters and celebrates your child, this episode is going to light you up. We get to sit down with him and talk about what it is like to have parents who not only believed in you unconditionally, also loved you unconditionally, didn't punish you for your mistakes.
1:25Big Little Feelings:When I say they BLF'd him, they BLF'd him. They fully supported his dreams. They totally treated him like a respected member of the family. And I think it's always so interesting because we sit down and we talk to a lot of people who didn't come from that. We talk to a lot of people who are breaking generational cycles. And the thing that really stood out to me with Billy in today's conversation is seeing what happens when you love a child and a child who in the end turned out to be an amazing queer icon in the space. We're talking somebody who loved show tunes at the age of five, six, seven, 13 years old, loved Madonna, loved Barbara Streisand as this little Jewish boy in Queens.
2:14Big Little Feelings:and they fully supported exactly who he was at the time and all of his dreams and all of his aspirations. And so give this episode a listen if you're curious what happens if you lead with love, if you lead with respect, if you lead with fostering your child and you throw away those old school tough love concepts that Billy talks about that he thinks is bullshit. It's so cool to see a person succeed because they were fostered and enveloped in love rather than this sort of deep-seated hole of trauma. This might be one of my favorite episodes ever. Let's talk to Billy. Welcome to After Bedtime, where the house is finally quiet, but the real noise begins.
2:59Big Little Feelings:The thoughts, the questions, the wondering if you're doing any of this right. We're Kristen and Dina, child behavior experts, moms, and co-founders of Big Little Feelings. and we're not here to give you more pressure or perfect parenting energy. Nope, we're here to tell the truth, the unfiltered, beautiful, brutal truth about what it means to raise kids and re-raise ourselves in the process. Because parenting isn't just about sleep schedules and snack hacks. It's about healing. It's about breaking cycles. It's about becoming the kind of adult you want your kids to grow up to be. This is the place where we say the quiet parts out loud and we're so glad that you're here.
3:38Big Little Feelings:Billy Eichner is in the After Bedtime studio, y 'all. He is actor, comedian. He burst onto the scene with Billy on the street in 2011. And then the show gained a massive fan base for Emmy nominations, much critical acclaim, and even experienced a rebirth on TikTok more than a decade later. That's where I discovered it, by the way. That's how young I am, okay? I'm not to brag. The show is iconic. We don't need to even say anymore. And 2022, Billy co-wrote, starred in, and produced the movie Bros, making him the first openly gay man to star in, write, and produce his own major film. It was the first major studio film where all major roles were played by openly LGBTQ plus actors, which I can't wait to talk to you about, Billy.
4:25Big Little Feelings:And today, Billy continues to delight audiences online and on screen in shows and movies ranging from The Lion King, Parks and Rec, American Horror Story, American Crime Story, No Big Deal, and many more. I am so excited to welcome you to the show. Thank you. Thanks for having me. It's an honor. An honor. I mean, I am a big, big fan. My husband nearly shit himself when I said, because I forgot. We're so busy. We have three kids. And I, you know, sometimes I mention huge things and sometimes I don't. And so I was like, oh, I'm hopping on with Billy in 15. Just make sure the kids, you know, wherever.
5:06Big Little Feelings:He's like, Billy, Billy, who's Billy? And I'm like, Billy, Billy Eichner. He's like, what? Oh, I mean, when I say shit himself, he shit himself. Wow. Good. I like having that impact. Yeah. Well, thank you. I'm happy to be here. I'm so happy that you're here. we're gonna go a little bit of a more traditional route today i normally don't like to do the whole like let's start at the beginning and then you know we go here but your story when i listened to your audiobook billy on billy first of all i ate it up in a day less than a day and i have three kids so that says a lot i just could not put it down it was like listening to your most entertaining friend in the best way.
5:56Big Little Feelings:You know, it was just, you just wanted to keep going and hear more and hear more and feel good and feel like the buzzy vibes. Oh, thanks. Yeah. And so I want us to kind of actually go in chronological order because so much of what I learned about you through your audio book has to do with the beginning. It actually has to do with you, not only as a kid, but what's applicable to everybody listening is your parents. And I had absolutely no idea. I obviously know you from Billy on the Street. We all know you, Billy on the Street. We know you from Bros. I want to start as little Billy. You're in New Jersey.
6:35In Queens.
6:37Big Little Feelings:I'm sorry. That's so offensive. That's all right. No, it's okay. But I am proudly a native New York City boy. So yes, Forest Hills, Queens is where I grew up. That was really offensive. I'm going to think about it for the next 30 years. It's fine. Go keep me up. So you're born into this family of mom and dad and your parents. Can you describe how the way in which they supported you in your quirks, in your just just blind support and unconditional love? I think is how I would describe it. That's right. Yeah. And, you know, when I sat down to write the book, because obviously we had to write it down before I went into a recording booth to record the audio book, and I had reasons for making it exclusively an audio book, which we can go into later, but I really didn't know what it would be.
7:38All the publisher wanted was something personal, but that could go in any number of directions. And, you know, I'd like to think I'm a fairly well-adjusted person, at least by Hollywood standards, where we're all a bit insane. But I knew kind of broadly I had a great childhood and that I was very lucky to have two loving, supportive parents. But although I've had a therapist for years, we don't really, we don't talk about my childhood. We don't go back in time. We usually deal with whatever I'm stressed out about in the moment. It's often career stuff or work stuff. We don't talk about my parents.
8:14Also, my mother's been gone since I was 20 years old. She died in 1999, when she was 54. My dad died when I was 32, so about 15 years ago, right before my career took off and Billy on the Street became a TV show. He was 80 years old already, so he was older than my mom. But still, they haven't been around for a while. And I knew they were great, but I don't sit around and and think about the past. But what the book forced me to do is to sit around and think about the past. And I did have to ask myself, you know, what led to me being able to create a character like Billy on the street? What led to me, what allowed me to pursue show business as a performer in the first place?
9:01I did not come from a show business family. We were a middle-class family in Queens. And, you know, my mom worked for the phone company. My dad was a tax auditor. They took the subway to work every day in Manhattan and Brooklyn from Queens. And yet I had the confidence to tackle a very cutthroat business. I also, and this is very rare, I understand now, I never carried around much shame about being gay, even as a kid. And I think all of that led to me having the confidence to at least try to succeed as an actor, comedian, writer, you know, and do it as myself. I was never closeted publicly or privately.
9:43You know, I think my parents knew I was gay from a young age. And when I sat down to think about what gave me the confidence and what made me feel like I could at least try, I immediately started to think about my parents and my childhood and the answer was that from a very early age my parents let me be me always whether that was as a young boy who was most likely gay based on my behavior and my interests whether that was someone who wanted to be in the performing arts and try to make it in hollywood which felt like a complete different hollywood felt like it was on another planet. Famous people felt like they were living on another planet.
10:25Like we were, we had no connections. We had no major wealth. We weren't poor and I wasn't only child. So I got to really use whatever resources they had, but you know, we were living in a tiny apartment, you know, just the three of us and our cat Jovi, who was named after Bon Jovi because I love pop culture and MTV and all of that. And so the answer was all of this confidence and self-possession and quote unquote fearlessness, which sometimes people say that I have based on my work, which of course isn't true. I'm a human. I have plenty of things I'm scared and insecure about. But I will say I tackled my work with a certain level of fearlessness, I think.
11:05Billy on the street and other things I've done requires that. So where did that come from? And it came from my parents always making me feel like I had a shot. And I realized that any success that I have had, you can draw a line directly back from my success to just my parents loving the hell out of me and loving me unconditionally not making me ever feel weird about being gay about wanting to get on stage and sing about loving broadway about loving madonna and barbara streisand about about any of it and i know that's very rare especially for lgbtq kids especially we're going i grew up in the 80s.
11:48You know, the backdrop for gay men at that time is the peak of the AIDS crisis, especially in New York City, where I grew up. And yet, in spite of all of that, my parents just always, their default mode was always to make sure I was happy. And strangely, as it seems also, because I was a kid, you know, creatively fulfilled, because they could sense how much that meant to me. And so that's really the book became a love letter to them. And the whole takeaway from the book, which people might pick up because they like Billy on the Street or they think it's going to be funny about pop culture. And there is some of that.
12:23But really, at the heart of the book is a love letter to my parents, Jay and Debbie Eichner, who, you know, did not live long enough to see my success, but are really the reason for it.
12:34Big Little Feelings:And I think what really struck me as not only a parent, but as a kid who, like, yearned to have that kind of a childhood, like most people reading will be like, first of all, holy shit, what is that like? Tell us later. What stood out to me, not only did they wildly support you and, you know, maybe you were gay and you were into show tunes and you were into Madonna and you were into Broadway. But what really struck me is they immersed into your world. So it wasn't just your world. It was your combined world, like your mom and your dad and you would go to Broadway and go to these ridiculous shows that were perhaps too expensive or at the drop of a hat or or something unfeasible or not a lot of parents would do or right to adult mountains to make sure the thing you were obsessed with at the time that could have been maybe dismissed by other parents they were going to make sure you were going to see it you were going to do it but they were going to be right next to you they were going to go to braver streisand with you they were going to go to the concerts with you.
13:39Big Little Feelings:I mean, well, I think one way I lucked out is that they loved it, too. Maybe I was leading the charge. You know, maybe they wouldn't have gone on their own volition. But I think it sparked something in them. My passion made them passionate. It was exciting to them. You know, it gave it energized us. It invigorated us as a family, you know, and my parents did go see theater before I came around and they went to concerts. They had a few albums in the house you know but i think i again i kind of sparked this interest that in that we all had i kind of took it to another level right because i just didn't want to sit back and watch shows i knew secretly i wanted to be on stage and another thing that happened when i was very young maybe maybe five or six years old i would start singing along in our small apartment to barbara streis and albums or whatever was on the radio, Whitney Houston or other pop songs or Broadway, whatever it was.
14:39And I could sing really well. I had a really good singing voice as a kid in kind of the Broadway legit style. And my dad was from the Bronx and he was older and he was a very no bullshit kind of guy. He did secretly love show business. I read the gossip columns with my dad in the New York Post, not with my mom. We would read page six together and Liz Smith and Cindy Adams, all the gossip columnists who would write about celebrities on Broadway. So kind of from a, you know, without acknowledging it too much until I came along, I think my dad liked Hollywood. You know, he was the one that took me to auditions when I wanted to be a child actor.
15:15Now, practically, that was because he had an easier time getting off work than my mom. But I also think he enjoyed it. You know, he wanted to see what that world was about a little bit. So again, I think I sparked this kind of dormant interests that they both had. And I just think that I energized all of us. Like the three of us, we were like a little, we really were like this funny, unconventional, very New York family. But I kind of lit that match a little bit. And then they followed. And so even if, you know, now at the same time, my dad would freak out about how much things cost, you know, and things that dads, middle class dads freak out about, you know.
15:56And yet he always ended up indulging it because I think, A, he wanted me to be happy and they could just feel like this was not a little hobby, you know. This was something that meant a lot to me. Like going to see Madonna, they took me to see Madonna, like a concert in 1991, the Blonde ambition tour like an iconic show or is it 1990 i'm getting old you know and and by the way i am in sixth grade and everyone knew already in this concert madonna was surrounded by out gay men she was simulating masturbation on stage all the dancers were androgynous the men were wearing bras i mean this was very creatively adventurous especially i mean it was provocative for adults at the time, let alone kids.
16:44And my, it's such a funny story. I love, love, love Madonna. And I still do. And I, there's a deep dive on Madonna in the book, but not so much. It's not about fangirling. I do talk about why I loved her as an artist, but it's also about how my parents learned about me by watching what, how much I love Madonna and why, you know, and art really bonded us culture bonded us and they it taught them about me and there's so many funny stories in the book about how my parents had to like navigate my Madonna obsession but one of the things was there's a moment I remember this little throwaway moment what felt like a throwaway moment from when I was a kid my aunt Joyce who was an also influential figure in my life but she was a bit more elevated in her cultural taste and she wanted me to watch foreign films what we used to call foreign films.
17:37Now we call them international films. Non-English language films. And she wanted me to watch indie movies. And she was telling me to watch, you know, queer movies. I mean, I was like a closeted 10-year-old kid, but we would read The New Yorker together. So she wanted me to be more sophisticated. She didn't understand my love for Madonna, who was very mainstream at the time. And once my parents told her, and I was sitting in the living room, that we were going to see Madonna in concert. And my Aunt Joyce in kind of a snobby way was like, why are you taking him to see Madonna? He's so smart. She can't sing.
18:09She can't dance. And before I could even say anything, my father, my straight father from the Bronx spoke up to defend me and he cut her off and said, she's a great performer. Right. And I was like, oh, my God, I don't need to defend Madonna, you know because my dad understands how much it means to me and that little moment there tells you about my dad and my mom and again like it made me not feel shame about who I was and what I was interested and I really do think I've carried that into my work and into my adult life in general even in their absence. Those feelings have remained.
18:56Big Little Feelings:So, first of all, the Madonna kills me. I also need to take a segue about your Bar Mitzvah. I call it the Rebecca bit. And the listener who's listening, first of all, you just have to listen to it. But there's a DJ at your Bar Mitzvah, as there always is. She's the manager of the two DJs. She's like the boss of the DJs, you know, and she came to the party with them. Your parents put everything they had, I mean, financially, spiritually, emotionally into your bat mitzvah because this was like your first performance. This was your first Broadway. This was your first show. It felt like I was putting on a show.
19:40Big Little Feelings:Yeah. And it was for you and not necessarily for them where a lot of probably New York bat mitzvahs was, you know, it's like a wedding. It's like, this is for me. These are for my, you know, my friends and your parents probably wouldn't have really given a shit or done something humongous like this, but they let you have this show. And then long story short, because I won't give it away because it's one of the funniest parts of the books. Rebecca shits the bed and Billy will never let her forget it. Do you when you feel your parents going that far to give you a show at 13 years old, like, does it feel different than your other friends who have different kinds of parents?
20:19Big Little Feelings:Or you're just like, this is normal because this is what I have. I have the most supportive, wildly awesome parents. Or you're just like, this is normal. At the time, I didn't know that it was special. Now looking back, and that's why the book, again, even in their absence, because they both passed away a long time ago, that's why the book is so meaningful to me because it gave me a reason as an adult who now has a bird's eye view on them and my childhood that I didn't have obviously when I was just a little kid in the thick of it it gave me a perspective and just a an indescribable amount of gratitude and appreciation for how much they you could say indulged me supported me encouraged me all of that stuff so at the time did i know no i was just a little kid who had a vision for a party you know i was just like a gay kid who thought he was like you know truman capote throwing the black and white ball at the plaza you know like that's how much and by the way we weren't religious people, right?
21:27They kind of made me go to Hebrew school and get bar mitzvahed because every Jewish kid in the neighborhood did. And my mom had relatives who were more religious than we were. It was one of the only things they've ever forced me to do was it meant a lot for them for me to get bar mitzvahed and have the ceremony. And I really fought against it. I was like, I don't, I told my rabbi, Rabbi Shlomo Blickstein at the Regal Park Jewish Center in Queens. I said, I don't believe in God. I believe in Madonna. And, and you know what, to his credit, he kind of understood where I was coming from you know but he was like but look kid your parents where do you get bar mitzvah so what are we going to do here and so you know I went to Hebrew school on the weekends which made me want to pull my hair out but the what but the reason and they knew this like the reason I was willing to do all of this was to throw a party and they let me and you know I also insisted but they let me I always insisted and they let me that was like what our partnership was you know because they could feel my passion and they let me art direct this party which looking back now it just kind of looks like you know a semi-extravagant par mitzvah party but i've i went to par mitzvahs of way richer people which were much more extravagant than mine but in my head it was the oscars it was the met gala like i wanted people to have that experience and and yeah i think that Yet looking back now, I realize how rare it is that my parents let me run the show like literally and figuratively.
22:58But again, I think that gave me an uncommon amount of self-respect, like by taking my interests and my passion seriously and not rolling their eyes and saying, ah, you know, we're middle class people. you can't be you're not going to be like a famous actor you know you're not going to be on Broadway you know why don't you date a girl try dating a girl you know like you know being gay is going to be too hard like you know I hear that a lot from parents who say like I didn't care that my kid was gay but I just I didn't want their life to be hard you know what my parents never said that it was like you know be gay be happy be who you are you know my mother's boss at work Jim was gay when I was in high school and she would maybe I said this already she would come home and say like oh, Jim said the funniest thing today.
23:45And Jim said the funniest thing about his boyfriend today. Now, we are in the background of this. This is the late 80s and early 90s. So if you talked about gay men, the first thing that people thought of was AIDS, right? Especially in New York City, where we were. It was like ground zero for the AIDS crisis, along with San Francisco and America, right? So most people were scared to be in a room with a gay man. And at this time, my mother would come home and brag about her gay boss and how much she loved him. Right now, we didn't sit down and have this like touchy feely conversation, you know, about what it means to be gay.
24:24And if you're gay, it's OK. But it was just simply by them being them and living our lives. And everything was taken in such a matter of fact way. You know, it was like you're straight, you're gay. Just be happy. It's all the same. it doesn't matter. Like, you know, you're talented. Good. Now, maybe if they didn't think I was talented, they would have tried to talk me out of pursuing this dream. But I think my father and my mother genuinely thought I had some talent and they didn't want me to get in the they didn't want to get in the way of me pursuing that they wanted. I don't actually think their own parents had encouraged them as much as they encouraged me.
25:00I think maybe they were even licking their wounds about that because they were middle aged at the time. I don't know. They didn't live long enough for me to have conversations about that with them as an adult. But I can sort of, I can kind of infer that now. But even so, I think they made a conscious or subconscious decision to not do what their parents did. And to say like, he's talented, let him try. Why not? Someone's got to make it. Why not him? And my father, I know I'm rambling a bit here, but my father was particularly driven by this feeling that you know he would read in the new york post and he would see on entertainment tonight and all these shows he would watch about entertainment like what all these rich people were doing right he wasn't rich and i think it it was very important to him that i had the same opportunities that a rich father son would have if they had talent that was important to him he didn't want to let his lack of financial means or lack of connections get in my way so he went instead of doing what some parents would have done and especially what some stoic older fathers you know my dad was in the korean war just to give you a sense of age here right so like a lot of a lot of dads like that would have rolled their eyes and said like Go get a real job.
26:25You're smart. Go to law school. And he did tell me sometimes he would be like, you know, you'd make a great lawyer. You know, he was still, you know, a dad worried about his kid on some level. But that but when I said, no, I don't want to be a lawyer, he said, OK, then let's try to make this happen for you. You know, and when I got into Northwestern, a very prestigious school with a great theater program, which we could not afford. my plan was always to go to a local college in New York and but I surprisingly got into Northwestern and my dad went my dad took me on a trip to visit Northwestern after I got in and we sat in on an acting class and that moment like changed my life I immediately knew I had taken singing lessons I had taken singing lessons as a kid but never acting class and now I wanted to be a serious actor now it wasn't about like oh let me get on stage and sing to hear applause like I wanted to be good and I turned to my dad and I said I really need to go here and I'm gonna get emotional now myself and then when we got back to Queens Queens not New Jersey when we got back to Queens my dad said if you want to go you'll go and we'll figure it out right and you know he took out every student loan loans for them loans for me i was paying off my northwestern tuition until i got until i got my own tv show when i was 32 that's the truth which is says something up about our education system that you need a tv show to pay for northwestern but like be that as it may that's what happened but he made it happen he wasn't gonna let his lack or his own fear get in my way and that I knew at the time was great you know but now as an adult I realize how extraordinary that was and what a sacrifice it was and so I'm so happy to put the book out into the world so that people hear about them even though they're no longer around and one of the reactions I keep getting, we get so many messages sent from parents, like parents DMing me on Instagram and leaving comments.
28:41I mean, every day, every single day. And the book's been out for months now and it still happens every day. And parents telling me either they had a childhood like mine and their parents were great or they didn't. But the book is a reminder to give their kids more of the type of childhood that I had. And these strangers who I don't even know keep saying, I want to be, my parents were Jay and Debbie Eichner, right? These two random middle class people that no one knew. And now strangers are writing me every day saying, I want to be Jay and Debbie for my kid. That's really amazing. And it's very meaningful.
29:22Sorry, I just talked for a half hour.
29:24Big Little Feelings:That's great. That's how the podcast is. you're the guest you're supposed to talk you talk i don't okay it can feel like nobody is sleeping in your house i have been there but babies actually spend a huge portion of their lives in bed up to 16 hours a day knowing what's inside the mattress matters especially when you consider there are more than 80 000 chemicals legally in use today even though very few have been tested in terms of health impact. Naturepedic certified organic crib mattresses are designed around the things parents actually care about. Firm support, easier cleanup, breathable design, and safer materials.
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30:41I use the pillows myself because let's be honest, sometimes my kids
30:45Big Little Feelings:crawl into my bed and you know it makes me feel good about what I'm sleeping on makes me feel good about what they're sleeping on it's one less thing I have to worry about I know I can just check it off I truly just have like a list of worries in my head and this one is something I don't have to worry about anymore if you're looking to make bedtime a little easier for everyone in your house visit naturepedic.com and use code feelings for 20 % off site-wide that's feelings at naturepedic.com My baby has really sensitive dry skin, so moisturizing him is a critical part of our day. And now I'm making sure I really just slow down while I do it.
31:23Big Little Feelings:I'm not multitasking. I'm just taking him in. Like, that is our time together. I rub the lotion onto his legs. I squeeze his little baby thighs. I talk to him and he smiles and I kiss his little belly about 14 times and he tries to grab the lotion out of my hand. It's maybe like 60 seconds total. But it's 60 seconds where I'm not trying to accomplish motherhood. And if your baby has dry or sensitive skin like we've battled for so long, I cannot recommend Aqua4 Baby Sensitive Lotion enough. It is a lightweight formula that instantly soothes and gently moisturizes their skin. And it's so crazy to realize that someday I'm not going to be sitting on the floor putting lotion on his little tiny body anymore.
32:05Big Little Feelings:And I know, I know how annoying it can feel when people tell you, enjoy every second. It goes so fast. You're like actively drowning in bottles and laundry and sleep deprivation. I'm not saying to enjoy every second. I'm just saying that maybe we don't need to manufacture these huge, perfect bonding moments with our babies. Maybe it's really just about noticing a few of those ordinary moments like bath time and pajamas and putting lotion on those cute little legs that things we're already doing anyways. Parenting is a lot. There's never enough time in the day. So I really love anything that takes something already on my list and turns it into an opportunity to just slow down even for a minute and just be together.
32:46Big Little Feelings:Find the new Aquaphor Baby Sensitive Lotion now at Walmart, Amazon, and Target. Visit aquaphorus.com to learn more. Okay, y 'all know that I am not anti-screen time. Okay, we do screens in our house, but sometimes we got to pivot away from them. And yet I still need to get dinner on the table or need to just finish a quick email. And that is where Yoto, a screen-free audio player, has come in so key in my house. It's a screen-free audio player for kids aged 3 to 12 that bring stories, music, learning, and imagination together in one simple device. The kids just pop in an audio card and take the lead themselves.
33:29Big Little Feelings:There's more than 1 ,300 audio cards, including stories in Spanish and French. It's been a bigger win for us than I ever expected. And I love that it introduces learning in a way that feels fun. Sometimes they're listening to storybooks or music or science or dinosaurs. They sometimes are practicing a new language. My older kids love the brain bots ones. And then my younger loves first 100 words. The reason Yoto has become such a big part of our routine isn't just because they're screen free. It's because my kids genuinely love it. If you're looking for a gift they'll actually use and enjoy, head to YodoPlay.com.
34:02Big Little Feelings:That's Y-O-T-O and use my code BigLittleFeelings to save 10 % off all eligible items. Terms apply. Add a little more imagination and a little less screen time to your family's day with Yodo. Thank you, Yodo, for sponsoring this episode. My kids really do love your stuff. Can we all just agree that by the time dinner rolls around, we are already burnt out? The family calendar has already eaten my brain alive before I've even thought about what I'm going to eat. Oh my lord. Which is why I've been loving having Egg Life egg white wraps as a fridge staple. The best part is that these wraps are made from egg whites, not flour.
34:39Big Little Feelings:So it's a total game changer because they are packed with protein. They're low in carbs and I love the clean ingredients. Who does not love an easy wrap for lunch? They're available in six versatile flavors. I use Egg Life as an easy swap from bread, tortillas, or any carb heavy meals, savory or sweet. I'm going to be honest. I'm just throwing like a slice of turkey. I'm throwing some lettuce on there. I'm throwing like a mayo mustard situation with a pickle and I'm eating it. You know, egg life, egg white wraps make it easy to sneak high quality protein into your favorite meals and snacks. And that's where I'm at in my life.
35:15Big Little Feelings:I need just quick. I need easy. And I kind of just eat the same thing every single day. But now I actually feel good in the middle of the day. I would like try to eat a bar or something sad in the middle of the day. And now I actually feel good and have energy to get through my day. They have seriously become our staples for busy mornings, quick lunches, and those nights when life just does not go according to plan. Find Egg Life chilling in the refrigerated section at Aldi, Whole Foods, Kroger, Target, Walmart, and more. Visit egglifefoods.com to find a retailer near you and tag us so we can see how you use Egg Life.
35:52Big Little Feelings:That is certainly even what I pulled from the book. I mean, also other little tidbits because I do love you. And so there were so many gems that came about. But I was very surprised at that being a core, like it really shook me. And I'm a parenting quote unquote expert. You know, I do this every day. But I think when you have young kids and you are a parent and you want to parent differently than you were parented, there's always a voice in the back of your head that's like, well, am I being too indulgent? Do I need to have a middle road here? You know, there's always going to be. And I'm sure your parents felt the same way.
36:30Big Little Feelings:Of course. Of course. You know, I'm sure at some point they were like, you know, is this or should I or none of us know what we're doing. But I think it was a real permission slip to, I don't know, just kind of go fucking wild and just kind of love your kid exactly how they are. And maybe you can't afford the big bar mitzvah and that's okay because that wasn't really the point. even if they would, you know, the point was you being with them day in, day out, you watching what you were watching, them going and getting, standing in line to get you tickets for the thing that was important to you. And what I really love and want to touch on too is, so you have this sort of story about how a lot of artists come from trauma.
37:16Big Little Feelings:And yours actually, your success story, if you will, comes from actually just deep, unconditional love, which is rare. And it gave you, the word I like that I pulled from it was audacity. because then after Northwestern or perhaps during or after in the book, we watch you get rejected a lot. And you have this feeling not only in your childhood, but also after Northwestern where you're like, I actually, yes, I love theater. Yes, I am obsessed. Yes, I know more than anyone else. I mean, nobody knows more on pop culture, Broadway, blah, blah, blah. But I don't fit in. I am not nailing auditions. I am not your typical...
38:01Big Little Feelings:I go in and I am auditioning for the Jewish character. I'm not Jewish enough. I'm going in and I'm auditioning for this character and I'm not that enough. I am just an anomaly and I'm not fitting in, which then leads you to create by hand Billy on the Street, which at that time, this is not the internet age. This is not like today where you can just rise overnight. This is maybe like Funny or Die era where it is rare to just pop yourself onto the internet and become sensational overnight. But essentially, what I picked up is that because of the way you were raised, you had this audacity inside of you that you did not give up and you didn't need to fit into whatever box Hollywood needed you to fit into and you were going to make your own box.
38:52Big Little Feelings:And then you did. Yeah. You know, that is a word that I love that I don't think has been used. And I think that's such an appropriate word. I mean, if I do say so myself, you said it. So I'll just jump on that bandwagon. But yeah, you're right. And that love, that emotional, creative safety net that my parents gave me, you know, metaphorically speaking, I still had that under me through my 20s, even though my mom died, you know, now it's just like me and my dad, and he's not a rich guy. And of course, as time goes on, you know, I wasn't it wasn't until my early 30s when I started to work a lot in show business, and I got Billy on the Street became a TV show, but that's like 12 or 13 years between graduating Northwestern with all that student debt, you know, and actually having what looked like it could be a sustainable career.
39:51That's a long time. And my dad's in his 70s because he was older. So he knows that he's not going to be around forever. And he's worried about me. But even in spite of his own fears, he kind of sat on those for the most part and kept telling me to keep going. You know, he would come to every show. The Billy on the Street videos started. The first one I made was as part of a live sketch comedy show I was doing on small comedy stages and cabaret stages in New York with my best friend, Robin Lord Taylor, who's also an actor. And we were both we went to Northwestern together. We We became very close friends there.
40:33We were roommates in New York when we moved to New York to start our careers. And because we didn't have much to do, I didn't even think of myself as a writer. I knew I had some skills for comedy. I had dabbled in improv and stuff in high school. But I really thought of myself as an actor. But then out of sheer desperation, because I couldn't even get an agent. Robin had an agent, at least. I couldn't get an agent. I couldn't get a manager. I didn't have anything. I would go to an audition and open call to be in the ensemble of Brigadoon at the Delaware Summer Theater. And they didn't want me.
41:05And to be honest, I didn't want them, but I wanted them to want me. And they didn't. And so, you know, I was like, OK, I got to do something here. You know, I got to take matters into my own hands. It wasn't because I woke up with a burning desire to write. It was just out of necessity to try to get an agent. That's all I wanted at the time. So I start writing the sketch comedy show and make a long story short. It's all in the book. I, over time, start to develop this character on stage who becomes increasingly angry and frantic about Hollywood and pop culture and his opinions about actors and entertainment.
41:43And it started on stage. And then I said to my friend who was directing the show, just a friend of mine who also went to Northwestern with us. You know, we were just a bunch of theater kids trying to, like, find our way in to the business. And I said to him, I have this weird idea. Like, what if we go on the street and I do this character that I'm doing on stage, which is very over the top and in your face and loud and confrontational. But I actually get in people's faces because growing up in New York City, I knew, you know, I was I'm such a New Yorker and I'm so comfortable on the street in New York.
42:15You know, other people, it's like frightens them. New York City. To me, I'm frightened by the suburbs. I'm frightened by the country. I only feel comfortable in a city. I need the people. I need the energy. I need the noise. Otherwise, I get freaked out. And so I'm very comfortable on the streets. And I also know that in order to survive in New York, everyone, you know, you have hundreds, thousands of people walking around with blinders on. They're on the same block, but they're just looking straight ahead. Or nowadays, they look at their phone and you have your AirPods in and you're just going to the subway.
42:46You're going to pick up your kid. You're going to school. You're going to your job, whatever it might be. You're going to the gym, whatever it might be. But you kind of just you almost pretend there's no one walking around you, even though there are so many people. But that's how the city has to move to function. That's how people have to move. So I thought, what if I break that rule and I actually approach people that don't know me and I don't know them with this intensity of this character? and I make them stop whatever they're doing and talk to me about whether or not Kate Winslet is going to win the Oscar, you know, or whether Meryl Streep is better than Glenn Close or all of these ridiculous, absurd pop culture questions, which we ended up coming up with.
43:26And we shot that video to just project onto a small screen in the cabaret theater that we were performing. And this is 2004. YouTube doesn't come along until the next year. The internet at this point is just like, written status updates on Facebook and email, basically, you know, maybe MySpace or something like that. But like, I don't even know what that was, really. And so that's how that started. And from the minute we played one of those videos from the very first time, I stood backstage and I watched to see what the audience's reaction would be. And they were falling out of their chairs from the very first one.
44:05There was just something about it. People loved. And I thought to myself oh shit I'm gonna have to keep doing this meaning meaning go out on the street and talk to strangers because I'm a New Yorker it didn't come naturally to me either you're not supposed to do that right you know but it worked people liked it and so that was the very beginning but even so and I have to tell you there were you know this was that was one five minute segment of what was sometimes a 90-minute sketch comedy show with all kinds of sketches. And I was very out and very open about, you know, there were sketches about gay sex and how much I loved it.
44:48There were sketches about gay culture. There were sketches about everything that I, and pop culture. And my father, who was now in his 70s, would come to every single show. Now, there is a segment in this show called Sex Talk where I am shouting about how much I love gay sex. Okay. Right. And also, this is not 2026. This is 2004, 2005. Things have gotten, you know, a bit more liberal since then i mean you know with the pendulous back and forth i was in high school then and and and there
45:25Big Little Feelings:was not one openly gay person in my class and i went to school in los angeles in a progressive you know exactly it was a different time i went to school and i went to high school in manhattan and there was one bisexual boy i mean that's as far as it went and that felt very provocative at the time crazy so the world was very different now if you're over a certain age you understand that and if you're not you don't but you're probably not right but so think about that and then think about my 70 year old father coming to every show and being not uncomfortable so delighted it thrilled him he would and now the show started to take off we got a lot of press i got i went from having no agent to having one of the biggest agents in hollywood like this show really took off.
46:15Something about it, people liked what I was doing in the show. And it really launched my career, although it would take another seven years to actually get on TV and start getting paid regularly, which was a big bumpy ride, as you've heard, big roller coaster, a lot of close calls that didn't work out and things like that. But this was my first, the first sign that maybe this could work out for me, right? And my father in this show where I could not be more outrageous, could not be more gay, could not be more everything, right? My father was so proud that he would walk around the audience, I'm not kidding, with my baby picture before the show started.
46:57And he would go up to complete strangers in the audience and he would say, you see that? That's Billy, I'm the father, right? This is a show where I am shouting about how much I love gay and all sex.
47:10Big Little Feelings:And he's 80, you know, he's 70. Close to 80. This man was in the Korean War. OK, so that I don't know what more you need to hear. And I know how rare that is. I know how unusual it is. But that's why I think maybe in ways that I truly am not being humble. I never expected people to listen to this book and say, wow, what an amazing guide for parents. Never because I don't have kids. But by me simply telling my story and relaying these stories about how Jay and Debbie Eichner parented me, it's having an impact I could never have predicted. and it's just me telling stories like that and this is not a self-help book you know this is not like a chat chapters full of like here's 10 things to do to reinvent yourself at 45 you know like that's all over instagram and that's lovely and you know that's just not i'm not an expert like that i'm just telling my story and i think maybe because i'm not an expert and i'm simply just telling stories, it's hitting parents, especially really hard because it feels very real.
48:22It doesn't feel like I'm an expert preaching from on high about how to raise your kid. I don't know how to raise your frigging kid. I don't have any kids. I'm just like telling you what my parents did and how it gave me this foundation to build a, you know, mostly very happy life on.
48:41Big Little Feelings:And I think all of us as parents, the biggest thing that we want is a happy kid. And your kid can't be happy forever. You've obviously had highs and lows and you talk all about it in your career. But we want a kid who follows their heart, listens to their intuition. But again, I really think what I took away from it is the resiliency. We are obsessed with not giving up and not giving up on yourself. And that is, I think, the biggest thing that I took from, again, your book. You're saying all these things like seven years between this period, 13 years between Northwestern and a little snippet of somebody saying like, this might maybe work.
49:24Big Little Feelings:And then seven more years before you even get paid or even get close to TV. I mean, do you think obvious would you have, if you did not have those kinds of parents and that, that when I say sturdy foundation, It's the sturdiest fucking foundation in the world. I mean, there's nothing more. Would you have given up? Would you have, you know? You know, I don't know. Right. You'll never know. I'll never know. And I'm really lucky that I'll never know. Yeah. You know, but I say in the book, I think that you can divide people into two categories. People who are successful in spite of their parents and people who are successful because of their parents.
50:02And I am someone who very gratefully belongs in the category of people who are successful because of their parents. And I am, if nothing else, you can like my work. You cannot like my work. You cannot even know who the hell I am. But if nothing else, I am a symbol of someone who can succeed out of love and not trauma. and there are so many memoirs i've listened to especially from entertainers that i loved i mean i talk about my love for barbara streisand in the book right i listened to every second of her 48 hour audiobook that came out and i cried at the end i wish it was longer right like but her whole book and she was in her 60s and 70s when she wrote this book her whole book is about she had how she to this day is still having to overcome how bitter and jealous her mother was of her success.
51:03Mariah Carey, who was on Billy on the Street and is someone that I strangely, shockingly have a bit of a friendship with, like her whole memoir, which is a really beautiful and unbelievably honest memoir about her brutal childhood, was about overcoming parents who did not believe, who were sometimes family members that were downright abusive. And there are so many, I mean, so many memoirs of people who really made it big in show business, who seem to be driven by a need to overcome so much discouragement and sometimes even actual abuse, emotional abuse, sometimes more than that. And I listen to those memoirs and these are people I love and I want to adore and want to emulate in certain ways.
51:51but I also sat back and said, that's not my story. Like, and I, you know what? I think tough love is bullshit. I fucking hate tough love. I hate it. I hate tough love, you know, and my book, if nothing else, and my success or whatever amount of success I've had is just an example of what can happen if you just really love your kid, let them. And look, does that mean that every kid who wants to be famous if you love them enough is going to grow up and be a success in Hollywood? No. But you don't want to be the reason why they didn't try. You don't want to be the reason. Let the world be cruel to them.
52:31There's enough tough love in the fucking world. You don't need to be like the one who delivers it to your child. Like I've always fucking hated that. I hate tough love. You know, I went to this theater program at Northwestern, which has a really big, popular, prestigious theater program. A lot of successful actors have come out of Northwestern and just entertainment people in general, right? You could choose your acting teacher at Northwestern. You sat in on a bunch of different classes when you were a freshman. At the end of freshman year, you wrote down who you wanted your acting teacher to be.
53:03You didn't always get your top choice, but they tried as much as they could to give you your top choice. And I write a lot about my acting teacher at Northwestern. There's a whole chapter because I'm in her class when my mother dies. And she was also like a incredibly foundational figure to me. She really changed my life. She put me in touch with my vulnerability in a way that my parents really couldn't. You know, they just couldn't quite go there. They were very loving people. They weren't open about their insecurities and things, you know, and my acting is about being able to be in front of people and show all of it, the good, the bad and the ugly, the sadness, vulnerability.
53:41Right. She taught me how to do that. And she taught me many things, but she was notorious for being very loving and empathetic towards her students. Right. And I said it on her class and I said, I want that. I think I'm going to thrive in that environment. It was more of what I was used to. But there was another acting teacher who a lot of my friends put down as their first choice. I won't say her name. She's still around. Her philosophy was to break you down, break you down so that she could build you back up again, which I ultimately think is an ego trip for the teacher. Right. That. But when you're a kid, you look at that and you're like, oh, I want that.
54:21Like, that's the real shit. Like, I want to be able to be that I want to be broken down because that's like tough. Like, tell me, tell me I suck and then build me back up again. You know, a lot of my friends wanted that. And now 25 years since we've graduated all of my friends who had that teacher they look at each other and they're like wow she was abusive she was like and they say to each other god thinking thinking about it now i i worshiped that woman at the time and now i fucking hate her i wonder how long her her words
54:57Big Little Feelings:stuck in their head and how early they gave up and you know some of them actually you know some of them gave up and some of them didn't you know some of them you know some of them have actually had success i'm not saying like it was they're talented right but but they looking back they're like god i why did i let that happen that wasn't productive that didn't make me a better actor that just made me an insecure wreck right at a very at an age which is very tender anyway when you're like still a teenager really and i look back and i'm so i'm still in touch with my acting teacher, Mary Poole at Northwestern, who just retired.
55:34I gave a commencement speech at Northwestern to the theater kids a couple of years ago, the graduates, and she came and like, she was always so it's not that she was completely soft all the time. You know, if I was late to class, she would let me know that that's not acceptable. You know, she wasn't a pushover, but like, she guided you with empathy, you know, and with real care and love for where you were in your life, in your process. I mean, you're still a young kid. And I just, you know, fuck tough love. Like, I hate that shit. Life's too short for that, personally.
56:11Big Little Feelings:And life is already hard. I mean, you're preaching to the choir.
56:17Big Little Feelings:Can we talk about how absolutely unhinged the concept of back-to-school style felt when we were kids? Like, you would leave school in June as one person, have approximately three formative experiences over the summer, and roll back in September like, this is who I am now. Like, I'm different. And then you had to convince your mom that, yes, actually, you do need an entirely different wardrobe because the person who left school three months ago no longer exists. And now I'm watching my own kids start to develop their opinions about what they wear and what they love and what they're interested in.
56:51Big Little Feelings:And I kind of love it. And clothes are one of the first really low stakes ways to get kids to say, this is me. And that, my friends, is why I love Ross. It is so fun for back to school shopping. I'm happy because Ross has everything from clothes to school supplies to dorm room decor if you need it at 20 to 60 % off other retailers prices. This was a tradition I started with my mom when I was a kid. I love frost. I have the best memories just combing through the racks. You never know what you're going to find. It feels like you're treasure hunting. And it does not break the bank, best of all. So whether your kid is walking into the school year as sporty kid, or maybe sparkly kid, only wears one color kid, or apparently has very strong opinions now, kid, let them cook.
57:40Big Little Feelings:New year, new classroom, maybe a completely new vibe. For every kid searching for their own style, Ross makes it easy to find it. Find your nearest Ross at rossstores.com. I have a new theory that one of the biggest scams of adulthood is that apparently you have to plan an entire vacation just to feel like you went on vacation. I'm about to bust that myth for you, okay? there is something called Resort Pass that lets you go have the vacation experience for a day wherever you want. In your town, somewhere else, you get to just go use all the amenities, have that pull day that we all love, where we splash around, we soak up the sun, we order the french fries and the chicken tendies, and we just chill without having to stay at the hotel.
58:31Big Little Feelings:You can book a day at a luxury hotel pool, a spa, or a cabana without actually staying overnight. And no overnight stay means no membership fees. You literally pick where you want to go. You book it in under five minutes, passes start at$25, and suddenly you have a vacation day. And ResortPass partnered with more than 2 ,500 luxury hotels and resorts across the U.S., Caribbean, and Mexico. and they even have same day booking, which I love. So if you need like a girl's day or just a family adventure or a spontaneous, I need to get out of my house immediately day. Visit resortpass.com slash BLF to get$20 off your first booking of$100 or more.
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1:00:43Big Little Feelings:So if your current body care routine is approximately whatever lotion has been sitting under my sink since 2022, I get it. No judgment. This is your upgrade. And right now we have a special discount for you. Get 10 % off your first order sitewide with code BLF at OseaMalibu.com. That's B-L-F at O-S-E-A Malibu dot com. before we wrap up i have because we barely even we barely even got i have to talk to you about the moment you realized when you're reading barbara streisand or listening to barbara streisand about this connection that you have to this is a you're you're not going to expect where i'm going with this probably there's a connection you're in your career you're successful You have lots of fans.
1:01:35Big Little Feelings:You also have a lot of hate. And that just comes with the territory. But you make this connection with Barbra Streisand in her audiobook, where she talks a lot about her critics. And she sort of not obsesses over it. And then you also make a connection between even your mom and your aunt and how they are a similar age to Barbra. They are similar Jewish women. And yet they're the ones who are shitting on Barbra. You make this connection that... A, even Barbara Streisand is just riddled by her critics. And in your mind, she's a saint. Like, Barbara can do no wrong. Like, how could Barbara wake up in the morning and think she's anything other than, you know, an angel?
1:02:17Big Little Feelings:Yeah, she's Barbara Streisand. She's Barbara Streisand. Like, one person says a bad, like, how, first of all, who could even, they're mentally ill, you know? I mean, we're not taking that seriously. And then you also make the connection where it's the people who are the most similar to her who didn't get to have what she had because your critics, weirdly, tended to also be your age gay males critics. I just want to touch on that it was such a mind-blowing moment for me somebody who was also online who has it but the connection between letting sort of the critics get into your head realizing even barbara streisand has critics talk to me about that yeah well there's a lot you could go into there and you know I think for me any piece of work a screenplay a book whatever you're writing like for me honesty you've got to put it all in there like the good the bad and the ugly.
1:03:15You know, you got to be vulnerable. That's what affects people. That's what comforts people. That's what inspires people. And so I'm honest about it. You know, it's not, I'm very, very, very, very lucky and grateful and blessed. I have an amazing life. You know, I had dreams come true. There's still a lot of things artistically I want to accomplish that I haven't, that I'm still working on and I'm talking about that in the book too, you know, but, but I know I am very, very lucky. And what happened to me is kind of like a frigging miracle, right? And so just to have any success in this business at all, to get to pay my bills doing whatever it is I do is really a miracle.
1:03:56And that's not lost on me. But of course, there's a downside to anything. And the more successful you get, if you are in a business that requires you to be in the public eye, you are going to have a lot of incoming everything. Good, bad, great. You're a genius. You're awful. You're the best. I'm obsessed with you. You're the worst person. You know, you're a gay icon. You've dragged the gay movement back 25 years. I mean, I've heard everything and sometimes in the same moment, you know, back when I was on Twitter, which was a horribly toxic place to be, although conversely helped launch my career also.
1:04:32So life is complicated. you know it got worse over the years we all know why but you would see in one in you know i would scroll looking at my name and literally there'd be a tweet being like you know billy on the streets like the funniest thing i've ever seen in my life billy eichner's a genius and a groundbreaking person and then the next tweet being like i he billy eichner is the most unlikable insufferable person i've ever seen and i'm gay and i hate him you know i mean you know and you would see all of this good and bad. I've been told everything about myself. And, you know, it's a lot to absorb.
1:05:06And that's something you have to learn how to navigate. Also, I didn't grow up with social media. We're all kind of learning in real time how to be famous in the era or not even famous because like anyone with like 3000 followers considers themselves like to be a media personality. Totally. And so now everyone is kind of like famous in their head. Not everyone, but a lot lot more people than there used to be. And anyone who has any type of public profile is dealing with incoming good and bad. So this has been, and of course, with what I do, it's very amplified because the numbers are higher. And so, yes, I'm honest about what that is like to deal with.
1:05:46And, but again, getting back to Barbara, it all goes back to Barbara.
1:05:50Big Little Feelings:It all goes back to Barbara. You know, Now, for me, she's been such a North Star. I mean, I'm a New Yorker. I'm Jewish. I'm not religious, but I'm Jewish. I'm proud to be Jewish. I was Burmesef, like I said. I also have always loved being part of the tradition of Jewish show business entertainers from New York City. You feel a solidarity there. It has nothing to do with religion. Like I said, I'm not a big God, spirituality type of person. But I like the connection there, you know, culturally. and it was Barbara and Bette Midler and Billy Crystal and all these people I grew up Mel Brooks and Joan Rivers and you know Woody Allen at the time and like all these people I grew up watching but Barbara I mean she did it all and she was like the definition she's like the poster child for an unconventional looking acting behaving person from the outer boroughs of New York who didn't have much money who grew up without a father who made it big based on talent originality and just this like preternatural drive to make it in spite of in spite of many things right that she was up against and i just always loved her you know and i also just love her style like i love you know i like the way she interprets a song i loved how romantic her movies were but they didn't have happy endings you know like they were always very bittersweet and i just was really swept away by all things Barbara from a young age.
1:07:22And then I read her memoir. I listened to her memoir. And it literally starts with her quoting her bad reviews from her early cabaret shows in New York, which were the shows that launched her career. I mean, she gets famous when she's 19 or something and so but that's still in her head those quotes critics saying she looks like an anteater all these horribly snarky things or that her voice was shrill and loud and out of control and like all these things she talks too much she does this she does that those quotes were still in her head in spite of having literally as much success as one could possibly she's not just successful she she shifted culture she's a historic figure right and so whether you like her or not she's a historic figure and so to know that this woman this human this artist who like succeeded in such high fashion in so many areas that she still is grappling with what's with what critics said about her 50 or 60 years ago.
1:08:38I was stunned, actually. But I was also really comforted by it because it's just like a human thing to do. You kind of gravitate towards the people who don't get it, who don't get you. And I also noticed, and she talked about this, that the more ambitious she got, you know, when she was a singer, okay, she's a singer. All right. Oh, now she's singing in movies all right well she's a really good singer everyone pretty much agreed on that at some point but then she wanted to act without singing then she wanted to produce then she wanted to direct then she wanted to write then she wanted to star write produce direct things that men are always lauded for right and she got so much shit for it right and everything was a vanity project and think you know she got criticism for just wanting a lot of control for wanting to be a visionary the way we would often like support men in being right and she got a lot of criticism in particular from female film critics which i thought was very interesting and you know i think the psychology there is pretty obvious you know and yeah going back to my childhood my mom loved barbara she did but i could always sense she couldn't quite quite you know she wasn't quite as devoted to her as like me and strangely enough my like older straight father was and my aunt joyce really took issue with barbara you know and because it was too oh she moved to malibu she's like this jewish girl from brooklyn this homely jewish girl but she made herself a movie
1:10:23Big Little Feelings:star and like blah blah blah you would move to malibu tomorrow well there was a bitterness there there was a bitterness there because they had all grown up in brooklyn my my mother i think went to the same maybe went to the same high school that barbara went to or high school nearby erasmus like you know jewish girls similar generation but barbara had through through talent and will and desire and a lot of hard work created this enormously glamorous life for herself and my aunt and my mother didn't, having come from the same place. And so right away, I was drawing a connection between kind of a bitterness there or an envy or something.
1:11:04And, you know, and I guess I have my own version of that. You know, but also, I don't want to generalize either. You know, my gay male fans tend to be like my most passionate fans. Like they're, and I hear from them all the time, They come up to me, they talk to me, you know, about how much their work, my work has meant to them, especially younger gay men and older gay men, too, who know because they have context for it, how rare someone like me is in the industry. There's way more of us now than there was when I started out, but still fairly rare. Also, my work is very about very blatantly about the out gay male experience.
1:11:47So I'm not writing about closeted hockey players who don't want to be gay. Grows, by the way. Yeah. And so my stuff is very honest. And so my gay male fans are very, very appreciative. And yes, then there is a segment probably of the gay male population that seems to be a bit uncomfortable. Or they're just simply not fans. And look, I'm not here to say, oh, that's because they're jealous. maybe they're not jealous maybe you know someone once asked barbara do you think it's misogyny or or some sort of self-loathing among female critics or or envy that leads them to writing these negative reviews and she answered very honestly and i always loved her answer she said look i can't she's like maybe they just don't like me like maybe they just don't like my work like i don't know i can't sit here i don't know them personally like i'm not gonna sit here and be like oh it's internalized homophobia or you're envious or whatever and again like a lot some of my most passionate devoted fans are gay men from younger ones older ones and they mean a lot to me you know and i make a lot of my work so that they can see themselves and their sensibility reflected honestly you know i i don't i don't write about closeted guys you know i wouldn't know that life you know and so it's it's it's complicated but like certainly hearing about you know how barbara and other entertainers who are have been so i mean way way way more successful than me and so accomplished that they had that that they still grapple with the negative feedback it's interesting and it's also comforting it's just you have to learn how to roll with that you know and and you you have to what's the word that i'm looking for yeah i'm missing the word that i want but you know you kind of have to just accept that in exchange for this amazing life that i get to have that because it is public, my work is public, that you're going to be on the receiving end of a lot of different opinions.
1:13:48And that's just part of it. And you just have to learn how to deal with that. Yeah.
1:13:54Big Little Feelings:And you're going to disappoint some people. I just imagine it might be a little easier for you to disappoint people because you had support. But I don't know. We don't have more time. We are at time. I could literally ask you like three more hours about I'm sorry, I talk a lot. It's bad. I have like half hour answers to simple questions. It's not bad. It's first of all, what a podcast is. And second of all, it's exactly what we wanted to get. We got to almost everything except for bros, which I will just mention because I remember bros coming out. I loved bros. And I didn't know that that was not an instant success.
1:14:31Big Little Feelings:And so that almost to me was like the Barbara of it all, where people's perception is so different than what is actual reality. Because to me, in my head, I was like, he's this cultural icon. He had this hit success. He was the first person to have a hit success, openly LGBTQ, two male actors who are just normal. They're just normal two men, just having a love story. And it was a wild success and everybody. And then I was like, I read the book and was like, wait, it wasn't necessarily a smashing success. And obviously it is in the long run. You know, you can know and you talk about how many people's lives it impacted.
1:15:09Big Little Feelings:But it's so interesting. That's the only thing we ran out of time for because it's just so interesting to see into somebody's world and be like, oh, wait, I had no idea that that's how... Right. Totally. And that we're also nowadays, we're all at the will of our algorithms. Right. So like one algorithm might, you know, play. My algorithm is like bros was the, you know, I caught bros was Barbra Streisand algorithm and then cats, you know, like. Yeah, exactly. So it's funny. It's funny. Like we're all at the will of what the algorithm tells us is important. So what's going on? That's that's funny, too.
1:15:47But yeah, no, I mean, bros was like a big critical success. And I think, especially in the long term, and I feel this even now, four years later, I think culturally really did have an impact. You know, it wasn't it didn't make as much money as we wanted it to make that opening weekend at the box office. So I think now we're realizing, especially even compared to 2022, you know, comedies, they're barely even making them and releasing them in theaters, you know, and there's a reason for that. It's just, you know, and romantic comedies, especially. And then you put on top of that, that it's an R-rated gay male comedy.
1:16:22You know, there was a lot, there was many obstacles there to it being like this instant commercial success. And especially considering what people's moviegoing habits are now, you know, and so, but I put a lot of pressure on myself and, you know, I wanted it to, you know, immediately connect and maybe it didn't immediately connect, but I am, but I do think. in the long run it has connected i mean people talk about it to me straight people gay people lgbtq people so many people i'm always shocked because it didn't have a big box office opening weekend i'm always shocked by how many people still to this day come up to me all the time and talk about bros you know now maybe they saw it in the theater maybe they eventually saw it streaming it's it's on netflix now for the first time and which is cool but yeah i'm really proud of it and again just to go back to my parents like the bluntness of my character in bros the fact that he's just not afraid to express himself and he says things that some people might agree with gay men might agree with them gay men not agree might not straight people might agree straight people might not some people might not even know what the fuck he's talking about you know or why he feels so strongly but again for me art a book a movie a song is interesting if someone really puts their heart on the line and lets you know how they're feeling in an interesting, layered, vulnerable way.
1:17:52And so I try to do that in bros. I try to do it in the book. And again, I think, you know, whether things succeed commercially or not instantly, you know, that's neither here nor there, but it all comes back to my parents, like just telling me that, that that was okay, that I could that I could put my ideas out into the world and maybe they would work and maybe they wouldn't, but it would all be OK and that it was worth trying.
1:18:22Big Little Feelings:Billy, thank you for being here. I could talk to you all day. And thank you. Likewise, you're so great. And thank you. And people were so excited. Again, I don't have kids, but all the parents I know were so excited that I was talking to you. So thank you for having me. Oh, my God. I'm just I again, I'm pinching myself that we even got to talk. And I know that this conversation and your book is actually going to change a lot of parents' lives, a lot of kids' lives. And really, you know, if you're listening and, you know, I mean, I know there's a lot of parents who slide into our DMs and wonder, you know, if my child is starting, you know, to wear a dress, what should I do?
1:18:58Big Little Feelings:Or it could be LGBTQ or it could be just them wanting to express yourself. But I highly recommend your book because it even again and i mean this it really transformed and gave me permission to parent the way that actually feels really good for me and maybe not worry so much about you know your mother-in-law is gonna be like you gotta be a little tough on them you gotta roughen them up sometimes you gotta hold whatever you're like you know what like i'm gonna let him wear a fucking tutu like if you want to wear a tutu at four or 14 i'm gonna let him wear a fucking do too. It works for Carrie Bradshaw.
1:19:34It'll work for your son. It works for Carrie Bradshaw.
1:19:38Big Little Feelings:Well, let's all tattoo it to our bodies. Exactly. That's the mantra. Not everything worked for Carrie Bradshaw, but that's who too sure did. But, you know, that's all right. We can have an alt ending. Thank you, Billy, so much for being here. And if people want the book, because it's an audiobook only, I like to just tell people it's on Audible, it's on Spotify, Apple Books. If you want an independent bookstore where you can get an audio book, you can go to LibroFM.com. You could rent it from your library. It's digital space, which is Libby, I believe, L-I-B-B-Y.com, I hope. You can Google that.
1:20:14But yeah, check it out. And thank you again for having me.
1:20:16Big Little Feelings:Thank you.
1:20:49Big Little Feelings:Thank you.
From the publisher
If you've ever worried that loving your kid too much, supporting them too much, or NOT giving them enough "tough love" is going to leave them completely unprepared for the real world, you need to hear this episode.
Because Billy Eichner’s story might be the best evidence I've ever seen that the opposite of "tough love" is what actually makes a kid strong.
Billy's parents loved the absolute hell out of him. They celebrated exactly who he was, and when he grew up and faced more than a decade of rejection, that endless love from his parents didn't make him soft, it gave him the audacity to keep believing in himself. He went from not being able to get an agent to creating Billy on the Street, earning four Emmy nominations, and making history with the film Bros.
And THAT is where this conversation completely changed something for me. What if the way we prepare our kids for a hard world isn't by toughening them up, but by loving them so deeply that the world can't convince them to abandon themselves?
We talk about rejection, resilience, success, why even wildly successful people still fixate on the people who don't like them, and what Billy believes his parents gave him that made everything else possible. And then Billy says something every parent needs to hear: there is enough tough love waiting for our kids in the world. We don't have to be the ones who give it to them.
Whether you already love Billy Eichner or have no idea who he is, you will walk away from this episode knowing exactly how to raise an emotionally healthy, resilient, “strong” kid, and what they need most from us.
This episode may contain paid endorsements and advertisements for products and services. Individuals on the show may have a direct, or indirect financial interest in products, or services referred to in this episode.
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