Tituss Burgess Airs His Laundry

Death, Sex & Money

• Episode: Tituss Burgess Airs His Laundry
• Website: Death, Sex & Money
• Feed URL: http://feeds.wnyc.org/deathsexmoney
• Duration: 00:23:39
• Published: 2016-06-29 18:00

Tituss Burgess says there isn't much that he won't talk about. "I'm comfortable airing my laundry," he says. "I don't think one thing's dirty or clean. It's just what I wear."

It's taken him years to get to that place. Raised by his mom in Georgia, the actor and singer says he knew that he was gay from a very young age. But it wasn't until his freshman year in college that he mustered the courage to come out to her. "She handled it very well," he said. But as his career has taken off, first on Broadway and more recently as Titus Andromedon on "The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt,"  Tituss has become an increasingly vocal LGBT activist—something he says his mom struggles with. "She feels uncomfortable with it," he said. "It means that there's a chance that she might have to come out and be vocal about a position."

Despite not always seeing eye to eye, Tituss says he and his mom are still very close. But he acknowledges that he's had to be strategic about their relationship. "Because of what is growing increasingly important to me, almost becoming a part of my DNA, I've had to assist us both in redefining what our relationship is," he said. "Taking greater, more strategic steps towards protecting us. For fear that the very different thinking will dismantle what's left." 

Tituss moved to New York more than a decade ago. Now, at 37, says the city feels like where he belongs. But he's not sure that the close-knit feeling of family that he felt as a kid, surrounded by his mother and grandparents, is one that he'll find again. "I feel most at home when I'm alone," he told me. "That's not sad. It's just I feel closest to source and connection when I'm by myself." 

Watch Tituss performing his song "Comfortable" here: