Robin Byrd made a career of exposing herself – literally.

The bisexual former porn actress earned fame and cult status for hosting “The Robyn Byrd Show,” a late-night adult-themed public access television talk show that ran in New York City from 1977 to 1998. The 30-minute episodes featured an array of guests, primarily a gaggle of barely or not-at-all dressed porn stars.

Full frontal female and male nudity was the rule more than the exception if you made it onto Byrd’s show.

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The show become an educational tool of sorts during the the AIDS epidemic when Byrd regularly urged her viewers to practice safer sex, often demonstrating how to use condoms and dental dams. She also became a free-speech advocate when she successfully sued the Reagan administration as well as Time Warner Cable from keeping them from scrambling adult content. In one case, in 1995, the Supreme Court ruled in her favor to keep public access unfiltered and uncensored.

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“I was an accidental activist,” Byrd says.

Now, at 71, Byrd is exposing herself again. This time, she’s the subject of “Bang My Box: The Robin Byrd Story,” a new  HBO documentary about her life as a New York cultural icon and the years following in which she’s caring for her husband of 50 years, Shelly, after his dementia diagnosis.

The doc chronicles Byrd’s efforts to organize her files and records – she has tapes of all of her show’s episodes piled from floor to ceiling in one room of her and Shelly’s New York City apartment– in hopes of donating them to an educational or cultural institution. At one point, as Byrd is rummaging through a storage unit, she comes across the show’s signature neon sign and says it has her thinking of rebooting the show.

But the thought was short-lived. “You’re as good as the last thing you’ve done. That’s what people remember,” Byrd tells me over Zoom from her apartment. “Everybody asks me, ‘What are you doing now?’ The only answer I have for them is I’m enjoying the life that I built. Why do you have to do more? Why does someone have to have more than one purpose?

“It’s not a race. I served my purpose,” she continues. “I have our house in Fire Island and for many years we were only there on weekends because the rest of the week we were in the city working. It feels good to be retired.”

But then she adds, “It’s not like I’m not doing anything. I’m still spreading the love and the joy, and having my tea dances at the Monster [a queer bar in Manhattan] in the wintertime and my tea dances in Fire Island in the summer.”

If anything, Byrd says her legacy could include OnlyFans. Not only did she host and produce the talk show for more than two decades, but she was an early phone sex line entrepreneur.

“OnlyFans is phone sex lines with video,” Byrd says. “People are lonely out there. We have OnlyFans and whatever because I’m not on the air anymore. If I were on the air maybe they wouldn’t be making as much money. I always say video killed the radio star, and the internet killed the video star, and Only Fans killed the rest.”

“Bang My Box” is a full circle moment for her and the doc’s producer Sarah Jessica Parker. Byrd remembers being invited to one of Parker’s early movie premiere. “They had called and asked me to gather up six or eight hot guys in Speedos and G-strings and jockstraps,” Byrd recalls.

She also remembers leaving thinking Parker wasn’t actually a fan. “It was a little rejection in my soul,” Byrd says.

Turns out, SJP had always been a Byrd fan. “While we were hugging on the red carpet [at the “Bang My Box”] premiere, I said, ‘You know, I always thought you hated me, that you didn’t like me because of what I did,’” Byrd says. “She said, ‘No!’ And then I told her, ‘I’m so grateful and happy that you’re producing this.’

Parker came on board after being introduced to co-directors Jyllian Gunther and Stephanie Schwam via FaceTime through their mutual agents. “They called us back and said, ‘[Parker] wants to do this. We’re gonna call HBO,’ Gunther says. “She called [HBO and Max Content chairman and CEO] Casey Bloys and Bloys, of course, is like, ‘We want to do this.’”

Schwam adds, “It happened very quickly. If you talk to Robin, she’ll say the universe said it was time. She leads with her gut.”

Could a scripted feature film or television series about Byrd’s life be next?

“When this came about I was talking to some people about a screenplay,” Byrd says. “They were sending paperwork for me to go over. It was like 20 pages. I’m no lawyer and it was this legal-speigal. It didn’t feel right so I put it off. But then this came along and it felt right because these were women telling my story from a women’s point of view. But, also, they were huge fans. They loved me and I raised them well, too.”

Byrd smiles, “I want my story to be told.”

“Bang My Box: The Robin Byrd Story” premieres June 30 on HBO at 9 p.m. ET/PT. It will also be available to stream on HBO Max.

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