Billy Eichner knows all things entertainment, whether he's keeping track of which celebrities have an Instagram page (for the record, Emma Stone still doesn't) or he's binge-watching all the best rom-coms.
The comedian skyrocketed to fame for being one of the world's biggest pop culture aficionados, but what makes Eichner's work so entertaining is that he illustrates the fact that most people, unlike him, wouldn't even recognize a celebrity if they saw them on the street.
That's what defines Eichner's viral Billy on the Street sketches, where he runs down New York City streets quizzing pedestrians on random pop culture facts. The series first aired on truTV before certain clips ended up circulating on YouTube, Twitter and now their latest home: TikTok. “I don’t even have a TikTok page, so that’s just fans posting clips,” Eichner said during his exclusive chat with PureWow. “And it seems that every couple of years, it gets discovered or rediscovered by a new audience because it ends up on a new platform. So, that’s been touching actually, it was really lovely to see that.”
But while Eichner's videos became a source of joy for people during quarantine, Billy on the Street isn't exactly a COVID-safe program to shoot. “Billy on the Street is the last type of thing you could shoot during COVID,” Eichner said. And although things are starting to open back up, he thinks he will take a break from the series. “I wanna let everyone [in New York City] get back to normal, you know, without me shouting at them on the streets,” he joked. “So, no plans at the moment, maybe down the road we’ll see.”