Robin Byrd went to the Supreme Court with her fight to host nude porn stars and strippers on her wild NYC talk show — and won

Before there was YouTube — or OnlyFans — there was Robin Byrd.

From 1977 to 1998, the sometime actress was the queen of New York City’s weirdest, wackiest late-night talk show, on public access’ Channel J. “The Robin Byrd Show,” which also ran in reruns for years later, welcomed porn stars, strippers and downtown deviants to let it all hang out, literally.

And when cable provider Time Warner tried to scramble the content, Byrd fought the company all the way to the Supreme Court — and won a free speech battle.

But Byrd, now 69, isn’t vengeful. The fact that Warner Bros. Discovery, the company that subsumed her old foe, is now distributing a documentary about her is, she told Page Six, “not revenge. It’s karma.” 

The doc even has the respectable sheen of Hollywood: It’s co-produced by Sarah Jessica Parker. Premiering Tuesday on HBO, it’s called “Bang My Box: The Robin Byrd Story” after the “Bang My Box” theme song that ended each episode of the show, along with a group dance and, often, a live striptease.

The movie, directed by Jyllian Gunther and Stephanie Schwam, is an affectionate look back at the Manhattan native’s life as a local icon who preached safe sex at a time when AIDS had the city scared.

Despite her bubbly personality, Bird did not have an easy start.

Raised on the Upper East Side, her adoptive father, an antiques dealer, died when she was eight years old, and the woman she refers to as her “Mommie Dearest” threw her out of the house when she was 13. Byrd — who cinematically refers to her adopted sister as “the bad seed” — spent a couple of days in Central Park before moving in with a friend and then a boyfriend, taking on sex work to support herself.

“It was the ’60s — peace, love and no war … and I’m a very trippy hippie,” she said.

She attended the School of Visual Arts, worked as a nude model for art classes, and appeared in some X-rated films — including the infamous “Debbie Does Dallas” as Mrs. Hardwick.

But Byrd’s real fame came in 1977 when she launched her show on Channel J, clad in her signature black crocheted bikini.

“I was the Damon Runyon of my time,” she said of the legendary Prohibition-era writer whose stories about Broadway hustlers and folly girls inspired “Guys and Dolls.”

“I would go to each [strip club] — each establishment had a choice of stars that I would take,” she said of booking guests.

Filmed on one of the lowest budget sets ever seen, the show was proudly goofy and never took itself too seriously.

“I go through life happy and spreading love to everybody,” Byrd said. “It’s easier to love — love is love, and it’s so much easier than hate.”

She may not have been known outside of New York City, but here she was a celebrity, photographed by Richard Avedon for The New Yorker and spoofed by Cheri Oteri on “Saturday Night Live.”

“We were filming on Fire Island and a man in his 70s approached us and said, ‘I’m so glad you’re making this film,'” co-director Schwam recalled, “‘because in the ’80s, when having sex was a death sentence, Robin made us feel less alone.'”

And when Time Warner made a move to scramble adult content unless subscribers wrote in to request otherwise, Byrd and Screw magazine publisher Al Goldstein, who also had an adult talk-show on Channel J, filed a lawsuit in response — eventually leading the Supreme Court to rule that the company’s demands were a First Amendment violation.

One thing viewers never saw, though, was Byrd’s improbable love story.

“Everybody has their own idea of who I am and what I do, and they really don’t,” she told Page Six.

Although describing herself as bisexual, she is married to a man named Shelley, whom she has been with since 1974 and calls the “love of my life.”

“He’s very soft and sensitive and caring and worrisome. He’s like my little Jewish mother,” Byrd said.

Now 86, Shelley suffers from dementia, and Byrd is his full-time caretaker at their home on Fire Island. She confesses that “it’s hard for me to see him the way he is now,” but shares that they are “always laughing and joking and fun.”

The couple’s love for each other is clearly evident throughout the film.

“We immediately fell in love with Shelley,” co-director Gunther told The Post. “You could feel his love for her and her love for him … For us, the love story was a gift from the universe. I think it turned a historical look-back into something with a lot of heart and soul.”