Baby Billy Freeman

"Baby" Billy Freeman is one of the main characters in the T.V. series, The Righteous Gemstones. Billy is Eli's brother-in-law and a fellow televangelist. He is portrayed by Walton Goggins

Background
Aimee-Leigh's brother with whom she was a singing duo with as a child. In the present, he's the most outwardly manipulative member of the family who's desperately seeking to reclaim his former fame. He and Aimee-Leigh hail from Freeman's Gap, South Carolina, a community in the Appalachian foothills in Pickens County, SC. Freeman's Gap is nearby Pumpkintown, SC, a small Pickens County community not far from the Blue Ridge Mountains and the North Carolina border. When Aimee-Leigh goes to Freeman's Gap to confront Billy in 1989, she is seen passing through Pumpkintown by the Pumpkintown General Store. Baby Billy and his sister had been successful child artists, with their famous hit Misbehavin' depicting their childhood shenanigans. Baby Billy and his brother-in-law, Dr. Eli Gemstone always had a tense relationship, with things reaching climactic events both in 1989 and in 2019. Baby Billy has had multiple wives/girlfriends, most of which display certain characteristics of low-intelligence and featuring physical traits that most consider to be unattractive.

Plot
As of the beginning of Season 1, Baby Billy had been estranged from his late sister's family. In the episode "Interlude", this relationship is revealed. The episode portrays a flashback to 1989, when Aimee-Leigh was still alive. Both Baby Billy and Aimee-Leigh had stagnated in their musical career, and Aimee-Leigh had switched to participating in Eli's Gemstone Ministries televangelism show. She was still able to display her singing and musical talent alongside Eli, however, Baby Billy's career had hit a rough patch. Baby Billy had been left in Freeman's Gap with their family's ancestral home following their parents' deaths. Baby Billy had been dependent on he and his sisters' singing duo for income, and was in dire financial straits in 1989. Baby Billy's idea to both solve his financial issues and re-launch his and Aimee-Leigh's musical careers was to embark on a reunion tour. However, the plans for this tour were put on hiatus due to Aimee-Leigh's surprise pregnancy, later to be Kelvin Gemstone.

At first, Aimee-Leigh and Eli decided that it was best to not go on tour due to the pregnancy. Baby Billy was incredibly upset at this, and stormed off from the Gemstones' conference room. Later, Aimee-Leigh returns to Freeman's Gap to confront Baby Billy. Upon learning of how bad Baby Billy's financial situation was, Aimee-Leigh agreed to go on the tour to help her brother out and prevent him from selling off parcels of their land to developers.

After that, Baby Billy was present at a birthday party for Judy Gemstone. Baby Billy was set on causing internal conflict for Aimee-Leigh and Eli, having given Jesse Gemstone Coors Light beer even when Jesse was underage, as well as giving Judy a small electric car as a gift, which Eli and Aimee-Leigh deemed was inappropriate. This upset Judy greatly and led her to resent her parents and their gift, a locket necklace. Jesse then creates a scene while he's drunk at Baby Billy's suggestion, insulting his father and their church ministry. Upon sobering up, Jesse reveals to Eli that it was Baby Billy that gave him the beer.

Later, at a Gemstone family post-Sunday service lunch, Baby Billy gaslights his sister. Baby Billy states that he told Aimee-Leigh that he had already begun selling off parcels of their land, much to Aimee-Leigh's chagrin. Aimee-Leigh knew this was a lie given Baby Billy had just before told her he hadn't started selling the land yet. This leads Aimee-Leigh to cancel the tour, and she and Eli decide to cut Baby Billy out of their lives.

Flashing back forward to 2019/the present day 30 years later, Baby Billy still hasn't spoken to Eli even after the death of Aimee-Leigh. Eli had planned on opening a new church location in Locust Grove, Georgia, and needed a pastor to oversee this expansion. Eli then decides to extend an olive branch to Baby Billy, by way of offering him said pastor position. Baby Billy at first demurs, believing it to be a setup from Eli. However, Baby Billy does accept the position later.

Baby Billy flip flops yet again and decides to quit his post as the pastor in Locust Grove over another argument with Eli. However, as Baby Billy is packing his stuff up and getting ready to leave Locust Grove, a group of burglars associated with local pastor, John Wesley Seasons, breaks into the church location (located in a former Sears' mall anchor store). Eli, whom had wanted to apologize to Baby Billy and make amends, happens to arrive at the church just as the burglars are committing their break-in. As the burglars are about to confront and/or shoot Baby Billy, Eli arrives and forces the burglars to give up at gunpoint. Eli saves Baby Billy, and then orders the burglars to strip down naked. Eli also then orders the burglars to leave the church through the mall in the nude. This leads Eli and Baby Billy to making amends for the time being, but Baby Billy being a malignant schemer, only keeps this truce temporarily.

Baby Billy begins to groom his niece Judy to join his church location. Judy had been largely relegated to odd jobs and secretarial roles with no real responsibility at their flagship sanctuary in Charleston. Upset at always being relegated to a lower status, Judy then reaches out to Baby Billy about joining his location. Baby Billy has Judy "audition" by singing and clog dancing like her mother used to with Baby Billy. Upon being impressed with her abilities, Baby Billy hires Judy and starts calling her "Judy-Leigh". Eli realizes that Baby Billy doesn't actually believe in Judy's abilities, but is stealing his daughter away the same way that Baby Billy saw Eli stealing Aimee-Leigh from him.

This leads Judy to going back and forth between Locust Grove and Charleston to sing the Easter Sunday service, which Baby Billy took as an insult. Baby Billy then cuts Judy off from his ministry, stating that she wasn't actually that talented and he was using her as a way to get back at Eli. This leaves Judy with nothing, having lost her fiance Benjamin Jason "BJ" Barnes as well as her position in the main Gemstones location.

Having finally worked one over on Eli, Baby Billy quits his post and leaves the Locust Grove location rudderless. While receiving fellatio in a car from his wife, Tiffany, he runs a stop sign and gets T-Boned by a red van, driven by none other than his nephew Gideon's accomplice, Scotty. They assess the scene and go to the red van. Scotty was at first unconscious and believed to be dead, however, he awakens and Tiffany accidentally shoots Scotty through the temple. They review the vehicle and see that Scotty had stolen multiple giant bags of Gemstone cash, which the two then run off with back to Freeman's Gap, after pushing the red van with Scotty's corpse into a nearby swamp area.

Upon visiting the accident scene, Jesse has an epiphany about where the money had gone. Realizing that no one had heard from Baby Billy in weeks, Jesse deduces that Baby Billy was the one that hit Scotty and ran off with the money. All four Gemstones then drive up to Freeman's Gap to confront Baby Billy. At first, Tiffany lies and says that Baby Billy wasn't there, but the four see him running across a field away from the main house. They track Baby Billy down, whom is eventually struck by lightning. Baby Billy unloads on Eli, stating that he deserved the money because Eli prevented him from being able to earn income with his sister as their singing duo. However, the Gemstones take what's left of the cash (most of the $3 million minus some that Scotty and Baby Billy had spent) and leave Baby Billy.

Baby Billy is shown in the final season montage of the whole family as leading a Billy Graham-style tent revival. He and his wife Tiffany are shown selling paintings and other items in their tent as a source of income.

Quotes
"I'm beginning to see why your approach hasn't been working. You have elitist tendencies, which is not pretty. I know how to speak to the common man."