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.”
