If it’s one thing Lady Bunny is never short on, it’s opinions. Whether it’s Pamela Anderson, drag queen story hour or who could play her in a biopic, Bunny’s opinions remain directly pointed and raucously hilarious. As Bunny prepares to take on the Sunshine State (she is at FTL Improv on March 24), we sat down to chat about the state of drag today and what Lady Bunny could possibly still have left to do in her career.
Tell me about the new show "Don’t Bring The Kids!" You are coming to Fort Lauderdale to the FTL Improv on March 24!
This is a show that actually, I’ve been touring with for three years, which I never expected to last that long. A lot of it is my twisted comedy, there are a couple of original songs in there also. One bashing Elon Musk, another about my experience with Ozempic. What I really wanted to, to do with this show is to have a discussion from the stage, with the audience, about Drag Queen Story Hours. It’s just insane that Republicans are claiming that drag queens who read kids story hours are “grooming.”
First of all, these story hours are in libraries-with fluorescent lighting. With their parents, right? You are in charge of your own; so if you don’t want to see a drag queen, then you don’t go into that room at noon, in the public library. You go the following week when they have the macrame. The other thing that I don't think everyone is aware of, because this has become such a wedge issue, is that none of these story hours are mandatory so they're very easily avoided if you don't care for them.
Like drag performers, the trans community remains such a polarizing topic and an easy mark for the extremists as well…
I don't think that the Republicans really have the nerve at this point to attack gay people, so they’re attacking a tiny group. I picked a job where I'm more likely to work with trans people than in any other job than a brothel or a strip club, I mean it’s a nightclub. I think some of these wedge issues are because neither party has a great record on the economy so we can fight over these issues. It’s like the bathroom issue; I saw this in a Chinese restaurant at Times Square the other day; two doors, two restrooms, and on each door, it has a male and a female; anyone can use it. So, honey, single occupancy bathrooms are the answer to the whole debate.
You bring up a good point. You have worked in nightclubs for decades. What is one nightlife space that you truly miss in New York City?
Oh, there's many. The Pyramid Club, The World, Limelight, Building, Palladium, absolutely, loads of them. It was such a different time.
When you see the issues the community is facing today as opposed to the ones that you faced, are the differences very striking?
When I was coming up, the issues were AIDS and how to stay alive and how to get treatment. The next issue was gays in the military, and then the next one was marriage equality. Everybody is qualified to weigh in on that, if they want to get married, if they don't want to get married, but everyone is not qualified to say what children should be exposed to and when. It definitely hits a little differently from my age group because coming up in the sixties and seventies in a liberal household during the sexual liberation, gays started to be accepted more because of the sexual liberation. One thing I heard a lot was from straight people back then, a common attitude was, “Well, you could be gay, but just don't shove it in our face.”So today, growing up hearing that makes me a little bit sensitive.
The reasons you talk about are exactly why what you do is so important. In polarizing times like today, laughing is absolutely crucial. Speaking of, you tried Ozempic?
Well it went well. I have diabetes so my doctor just prescribed it. Then the Kardashians and the Hollywood celebs found out about it, and the diabetics couldn't even get it because they were all using it for weight loss, even though they weren't even fat. It does work well and I can't give away the punch line for the song, but it was just my experience with Ozempic, which does work...if you don’t mind bad breath and jittering (laughs)!
Drag seems to be taking another shift and the grittiness of drag is coming back a bit, with some of it coming out of Brooklyn NY. What do you think of the outerboro resurgence?
It is wild, but it is true. Brooklyn is the main place that I work in New York City. When all of us used to live in the East Village and go to the Pyramid, Boy Bar, all that stuff. We would get dressed up on like a Tuesday night and we weren't working and would just go out and drag for fun. There were like, five or six different parties on a Tuesday night. Now there's five or six on a weekend night!
There are a handful of performers from “RuPaul’s Drag Race” that you worked with, like Bianca Del Rio and Bob The Drag Queen, that have also gone on to great success. Are you still close with them?
Bob and I weren't really working the same scene before he did “Drag Race,” but he was more, you know, Brooklyn and Hell’s Kitchen. I am definitely still in touch with Bianca, Monét (X Change) and loads of them.
You are also not shy about calling out “Drag Race” and the impact you think it has had on drag as a whole. Is it hard to do that despite the internet perhaps not agreeing with you?
Let me take my friendship with RuPaul, who I always love bumping into and who I've had so many good times with. Performing with Ru, living with Ru in Atlanta and New York, and just being part of that same scene. That doesn't mean that I can't say that the Rusicals on “Drag Race” are horrible. The writer's strike in LA was over two years ago, Ru; hire a writer!. I do a bit where I make fun of Ru’s dancing and people like that. Honey, we’re both in our sixties, it’s not like I’m being ageist.
What is one thing left that Lady Bunny wants to accomplish in her career?
I mean, I look so much like Pamela Anderson, I think playing her in a biopic would be great (laughs)! I have another show that I’m working on, the other one called Bunny Butcher's Broadway. So I'm gonna do Don't Bring The Kids everywhere I can, and then Bunny Butcher's Broadway. I grew up playing little parts in Chattanooga, Tennessee so I always have a little bit of the theater in my blood. When I started going out to clubs with drag, I realized I could pick out my own costumes, I don’t need a director, I pick my own music and do my own choreograph and write my own material. For me, that is, that was much more satisfying than just being an actor.
I was hoping you were going to tell me you were going to do a memoir because I think it's still in you…
Oh I am! I have spoken with a couple publishers, I would love to do that. I would love that.
We would have to see who would play you in the big screen adaption though. Maybe Pamela Anderson?
JoJo Siwa! (Laughs)!
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