iO Tillett Wright (born September 2, 1985) is an American author, photographer, actor, TV and podcast host, and activist. After growing up in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

, he founded street art magazine ''

Overspray Overspray refers to the application of any form of paint, varnish, stain or other non-water-soluble airborne particulate material onto an unintended location. This concept is most commonly encountered in graffiti, auto detailing, and when commerc ...

'' and served as its

editor-in-chief An editor-in-chief (EIC), also known as lead editor or chief editor, is a publication's editorial leader who has final responsibility for its operations and policies. The highest-ranking editor of a publication may also be titled editor, managing ...

until 2009. From 2010 to 2012 he was a featured

columnist A columnist is a person who writes for publication in a series, creating an article that usually offers commentary and opinions. Columns appear in newspapers, magazines and other publications, including blogs. They take the form of a short essay ...

for '' T Magazine'' with two regular blogs. In 2016, he co-hosted

MTV MTV (Originally an initialism of Music Television) is an American cable channel that launched on August 1, 1981. Based in New York City, it serves as the flagship property of the MTV Entertainment Group, part of Paramount Media Networks, a di ...

show ''Suspect'' with

Nev Schulman Yaniv "Nev" Schulman ( ; born September 26, 1984) is an American TV host and producer. He is best known for the 2010 documentary film ''Catfish'' and the follow up TV series '' Catfish: The TV Show'' on MTV of which he is the host and executive ...

Early life

Wright grew up in

with his mother, Rebecca Wright, a poet and actress. He studied in Brockwood Park School in England, UK. Wright is a

transgender man A trans man is a man who was assigned female at birth. The label of transgender man is not always interchangeable with that of transsexual man, although the two labels are often used in this way. ''Transgender'' is an umbrella term that in ...

. He documented the struggles of his upbringing in his memoir ''Darling Days''.

Career

Editor

In 2002, at the age of 17, Wright founded and served as editor-in-chief of a street art magazine, ''

'', until 2009.

Blogger and writer

From 2010 to 2012, Wright was a featured columnist for '' T Magazine'', at ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'' where he had two blogs called ''Notes From The Underground''—for which iO reviewed underground performances—and ''The Lowdown''. Wright's first book, ''Darling Days, A Memoir'' was released on September 27, 2016, by Ecco Books, an imprint of

HarperCollins HarperCollins Publishers LLC is one of the Big Five English-language publishing companies, alongside Penguin Random House, Simon & Schuster, Hachette, and Macmillan. The company is headquartered in New York City and is a subsidiary of News C ...

. Wright's second book, ''Self Evident Truths: 10,000 Portraits of Queer America'', has been published on September 15, 2020, by

Prestel Prestel (abbrev. from press telephone), the brand name for the UK Post Office Telecommunications's Viewdata technology, was an interactive videotex system developed during the late 1970s and commercially launched in 1979. It achieved a maxim ...

. Wright's third book, ''Oasis: Modern Desert Homes Around The World'', has been published in November, 2020, by

Clarkson Potter Clarkson Potter (September 19, 1880 – October 4, 1953) was an American golfer. He competed in the men's individual event at the 1904 Summer Olympics The 1904 Summer Olympics (officially the Games of the III Olympiad and also known as ...

Speaker

In 2012, Wright delivered a talk at TEDxWomen in Washington, DC, called ''Fifty Shades Of Gay,'' discussing sexuality and gender as a spectrum. The talk has been viewed over 3 million times.

Photographer

Wright is a self-taught photographer, whose first camera was a

Pentax KX This article discusses the cameras – mainly 35 mm SLRs – manufactured by Ricoh Imaging Corp. and its predecessors, and . Pentax must not be confused with Pentax 6x7 or Pentax 67 which are 120 medium format 6x7cm film cameras. It c ...

. On September 22, 2010, Wright opened ''Breedings'', his first solo show of photographs, at Fuse Gallery in Manhattan. In August 2011, Wright debuted ''Camila'', his second solo show, and ''Act Like You're Fine'', a group show he curated at Tokyo's Vacant Gallery. Since 2010, Wright has been working on a project called ''Self Evident Truths'' that examines Americans, asking them whether they are "other than straight", and photographing respondents who self-evaluate themselves to be "anything other than 100% straight". To date, Wright has photographed 10,000 people in all 50 of the United States. On September 15, 2020, a monograph, called ''"Self Evident Truths: 10,000 Portraits of Queer America"'' that includes all ten thousand images, has been published by Prestel, with a foreword by

Black Lives Matter Black Lives Matter (abbreviated BLM) is a decentralized political and social movement that seeks to highlight racism, discrimination, and racial inequality experienced by black people. Its primary concerns are incidents of police bruta ...

co-founder Patrisse Cullors.

Actor

As an actor, Wright appeared in several independent films, including in a 2004 appearance as a McDonald's worker in ''

Sex and the City ''Sex and the City'' is an American romantic comedy-drama television series created by Darren Star for HBO. An adaptation of Candace Bushnell's newspaper column and 1996 book anthology of the same name, the series premiered in the United Stat ...

'', and after an over decade long hiatus, with a part in the feature film ''Holy New York'' (2020).

Television host

In 2016, Wright co-hosted the

show ''Suspect'' with

. In 2017, Wright was a co-host with Max Joseph, on Episode 6 of Season 6 of MTV's, '' Catfish: The TV Show''.

Podcaster

In 2019, Wright produced and hosted ''The Ballad Of Billy Balls'', a true crime investigation of the murder of the love of his mother's life.

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Wright, iO Tillett 1985 births Living people 21st-century American photographers American male artists LGBT people from New York (state) American LGBT photographers Photographers from New York City The New York Times writers LGBT media personalities Transgender men