Check out this week's edition of UPFRONT Inside the Entertainment Industry featuring writer and creator of The Upshaws, Regina Hicks along with POSE actor and Broadway icon Billy Porter.
The Upshaws is newest family sitcom from comedic stars Mike Epps and Wanda Sykes and debuted this past weekend on Netflix. The show features Epps as the head of a working class family in Indiana who struggles to make it work and make it right without a blueprint to do it. Sykes stars as his sister in-law along with TV icon Kim Fields as his wife. I caught up with the show’s co-creator Regina Hicks this week to chat about its success, the return of black sitcoms, COVID-19 and much more.
For my last segment I decided to reach back into the UPFRONT vault and re-air a portion of my exclusive interview with Tony, Grammy and Emmy winning actor of Pose——Billy Porter. The Broadway icon is currently on the cover of The Hollywood Reporterwhere he revealed his HIV positive status. Our conversation initially took place in July of 2018 after the first half of the Pose first season and Porter was excited to chat about his character 'Praytell'. He was also grateful that he’d survived the AIDS epidemic to tell the stories of his friends who were no longer here to speak for themselves.
Watch Billy Porter talk to Tamron Hall about The Hollywood Reporter cover and why he decided to go publc about his HIV status:
This week's UPFRONT show featured classic sounds from Marvin Gaye's "What's Going On" album which turned 50-years-old yesterday (Friday May 21). Catch Jamal Ahmad's commemorative special, Only Love Can Conquer Hatecelebrating the album TODAY at 5 p.m. EST.
