After being banned from Tinder not once, but twice, Billy Eichner says he’s now learned his lesson and has vowed never to return to the platform no matter how desperate he gets for a date.
Back in 2019, the comedian made an appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live to promote his role voicing Timon in live action version of The Lion King, during which he revealed that he has a bit of a love-hate relationship with the dating app. When asked if he was in a relationship at the time, Eichner confided to Kimmel, “I’m not, I’ve been single for a long time and something terrible happened to be recently. No joke, this is true, I was banned from Tinder. You’re laughing, but I’m going to die alone!” He explained, “I’ve been on Tinder for, like, seven years and I’m very nice. I don’t do anything naughty or weird, I’m a normal person. They banned me all of a sudden. And I say, ‘Why?’ They didn’t give me an explanation, they just said, ‘You violated the terms of use.’ And I said, ‘I’ve been single for seven years, you violated the terms of use!’ I didn’t violate anything!”
“I was furious,” the Bros star went on to say. “I guess because I’m a public person maybe people thought it was a fake profile, which actually happened to my friend Andy Cohen, they kicked him off. Or maybe they just don’t like gay people, I don’t know! No, they don’t, they’re very nice to gay people, it had nothing to do with that. I guess someone reported me as being fake, but that is really me. Why not? Why can’t I be on there?” The situation was eventually resolved, however, and Eichner’s account was reinstated. Tinder even sent over a care package as a way to apologize filled with t-shirts and mugs printed with slogans such as “World’s Hottest Single” and “Happy Valentine’s Day…to Me.”
While the actor thought his struggles with the dating app were all behind him, in a new interview with Variety published this week to promote his new film, Bros, he revealed he was once again been booted from Tinder. After he said his account had been deleted again last year, Eichner told the outlet, “I was like, ‘Fuck it. I’m not going through this again.’”
“I can’t book a late-night talk show appearance just to get reinstated on Tinder,” he said. “I’ll stick to Hinge and Grindr and everything else. I do not need another mug telling me it’s OK to be alone.”