Billy Porter was "incessantly bulled" at school

He said: "For the first five years of school, I was just bullied. I really, you know, daily, incessantly bullied. And, you know, because I was a little sissy, and, you know, and it was like, but when I opened up my mouth to sing, the bullying stopped, and I had this sort of power.

And I had this kind of respect. "

Billy went on to claim that his bad experience with playground bullies was what led him to choose performing as a career, noting that he had found what to "focus on" in life.

Speaking on the 'Table Manners' podcast, he told hosts Jessie and Lennie

Ware: "I had this kind of respect. And I was like, ‘Well, that's what I need to focus on.’ I couldn't play sports. But here the cast list goes up. And literally, hundreds of people are double cast and everything.

Ensemble roles are double cast. And I'm not "

For Billy - who went on to win a Tony Award for his performance as drag queen Lola in Broadway musical 'Kinky Boots - the after school club turned out to be the making of him.

He explained: "There were after school programmes that were government supported. So there were all of these programmes. It was amazing. And there was this, there was this programme called rising sign to school was called Rising and Shine. And there was this programme called Rising and Shine musical theatre. And I went, cuz I was musical. And I was like, well, maybe I can sing. And then they explained to us what a musical was. And they said, you're gonna come back next week, and sing in front of everybody."