Drag Superstar, BenDeLaCreme

Published Jun 19, 2023, 7:01 AM

On this episode of Hello Isaac, Isaac Mizrahi chats with BenDeLaCreme about the politics and joy of drag, RuPaul and puppets!

Follow Hello Isaac on @helloisaacpodcast on Instagram and TikTok and catch up with BenDeLaCreme on Instagram @bendelacreme.

Is drag forever. You think drag is going to be forever in your life, ever and ever and ever.

Oh in my life, absolutely, I think Drag will be forever everywhere.

So you think, Benda Lacrem at eighty are you going to be doing?

Yes?

I want my skin falling off my bones on stage.

You're listening to Hello, Isaac, my podcast about the idea of success and how failure affects it. I'm Isaac Musrahi, and in this episode we're going to talk to Benda Lacrem, who is the actual epitome of what I'm talking about. We all remember this iconic moment of him, or if we don't, let me tell you. He was on RuPaul Drag Race. I swear to you he was a favorite, he was destined to win that season, and at some point he shocked the entire world, including RuPaul, by voting himself off the show. It was this crazy, legendary, historic moment on television. And boy, if there isn't like what an illustration of how you succeed through failing better than that example, I don't know one, Okay, I mean that is truly like the essence of what the show is about. The first time I ever saw a drag show was when I was in high school and I went to see John Epperson perform at the Red Parrot. I would say I was roughly like fifteen or sixteen, and John was maybe eighteen or twenty or something, And it was before he created the character of Lipsynca. I would say he did that about ten years later. But I went to performing arts high school and I had a million friends who were like these incredible ballerinas. And John used to play rehearsal piano for American Ballet Theater, right, And that's how I met him. In other words, he would literally go and play reductions of Swan Lake all day long in these rehearsal rooms where these you know, ballerinas were dancing, and then he would go and do these amazing drag shows. By the way, this was before he LIPSYNCD. Right. He would just do these incredible shows where he would sing and accompany himself on the piano, all whilst wearing you know, like amazing makeup wigs, sort of dresses, high heels, et cetera. And I will go to the map to say that before John Epperson, before lip Synca Darling, I had not seen any of this kind of thing, you know, I'd seen a little bit of lip syncing and here and there, but he did this kind of amazing thing where he spliced together all of this hilarious kind of like you know, breakneck speed sort of stuff that he lip sync and it was art Darling. So John Eperson became a really big star. I mean, I remember when fashion designers like Claude Montana and Terry Mugler would fly John Eperson to Paris to open their fashion shows. You know, this was like in the eighties and the nineties. And it wasn't exactly through my friendship with John that I was bound to the whole subject of drag. I was really good friends with Rue Paul as well, and a lot of other drag queens, and they were all so incredibly talented and so fabulous and risky and edgy, you know. And since then, I've been a big fan of drag everything to do with drag. I've seen about a million drag shows, and of course Darling's I became a huge fan of RuPaul Drag Race from the first minute, right, I mean, I swear to you have seen every single episode, and I've met a lot of those drag queens, and I know a lot of the people who judged the show, etc. It's just part of my DNA at this point, and so I was thrilled to interview my guest today, who is Benda Lacrem. Well. Ben is an award winning drag queen obviously, but also a writer, a director, a producer. She's best known for her appearances, I would say, on season six of RuPaul Drag Race, but also she was on season three of RuPaul Drag Race All Stars. And she combines this incredible background she has in performing with visual arts and this love of spectacle and glamour and Saturday morning cartoons. Let's talk to her, Benda Lacrem, Is it really you?

It is? Is it really you?

I am so excited to talk to you. Have no idea.

I'm just honored to be here. Thank you so much for anvising Sidney.

Darling from being a huge fan of yours. I think you like puppets a lot, Yes right, yes, tell me about I think you kind of like found puppets at a young age, is that right?

I had a major heart on for Jim Henson as a young person, and we share a birthday, So that was like something that as a kid, you know, when you have a birthday in common with a celebrity, it's like a really big deal. And my mom was an artist who loved Jim Henson, and so I grew up watching them, Muppet Show and all of that stuff. And I was also a lonely queer kid in the middle of the woods in Connecticut. So you know, at some point you start talking to yourself through your stuffed animals, and that was kind of that.

Okay, you were in connect you were you born in Connecticut? Right, You moved to Seattle and you began to do drag in Seattle? Is that right? Tell us a little bit about okay.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

There was a step in between, which is that I went to school in Chicago. So I went to the school at the Art Institute of Chicago. And when I was, you know, young and living in Connecticut, I knew that I was a drag queen, even though I didn't know what a drag queen was, right, I would. I would literally steal makeup from the drug store, go home, lock myself in the bathroom, put on makeup, wash it off, and leave the bathroom like that's how I grew up, you know.

And there were I think.

My last two halloweens of high school I dared to go in drag and because you know, I was already being like beat up and made fun of anyway, so what did I have to lose? And so by the time I got to Chicago and went to school, I had discovered more of what drag was, and I was like, oh, this is this is who I am, this is the path that is out there for me. So, you know, and I was studying fine arts, and I started really kind of trying to bring drag into the stuff I was doing. Right, So the art institute has sort of like a great first year where you have to take every discipline, right, So I was doing like painting and sculpture and photography and performance art and video and and any in any way that I could work drag into that I did. And and you know, I must say I think very effectively. I the fine art kind of mentality and development process makes sense to me, Like my brain works that way, you know. So but my teachers would be like, your work is great, but this thing you're trying to pull into it isn't fine art. Meanwhile, I started going out and h entering amateur contests in the gay clubs on the weekends, and I sort of like was immediately well received, and I think it was you know, I was young and pretty and had a lot of energy, but it was a lot of people sort of you know, lip syncing to share and stuff, which is great and has a lot of value, but didn't I was like, I want to. I don't know, I want something different. So on this one end, I was getting this great education in the arts that I loved, but it wasn't allowing drag in. On the other end, I was doing drag, but it wasn't sort of like intellectually stimulating me, and.

That was a real.

Push and pull that I didn't quite know what to do with. And actually this pulls back a little bit to something you asked before, which is I was also like a kind of angry punk rock queen. My name at the time was Tina Angst, and I did like all riot girl music, and I was very It was very much an expression of my frustration with not finding a place in this way that I just described, but also feeling really out of place with gay men. You know, at the time, it was a very mask for mask, a grinder, white sort of muscle community. And I wasn't any of that. And so a lot of my anger around not fitting in that way came out in my drag. And I found that the more angry I got, the more bad everything felt. And then there was this queen who still is rattling around Chicago named Miss Foozy, who was a little bit older than me, and she just kind of like wore like smudged on blue eyeshadow and a moom and like a crazy wig, right, and but.

She would go out.

All she did was she showed up to clubs and this she would have little wrapped candies and this is like before everyone was afraid of that. And she would walk around and she would give candy to everyone in the club and she would call everyone pineapple and she said, hello, Pineapple, it's so good to see you tonight.

Here have this.

She was so set, sort of like the it's sort of like possum, you know, if you were Barry Humphries, if you were Dame Edne, you called everyone possible yes.

And it was so maternal and gentle, and it was like I watched all these kind of bitchy gay men who I fell adversarial with melt and turned sweet and I was like, Oh, that's how you diffuse this. It's not the angry thing, it's this other thing.

Wow, that's a life lesson, darling.

Oh yeah, no, I'm so grateful for that.

And after that, I moved to Seattle and I and I put this new character into practice that I called bendla krem and Uh. Seattle was an amazing place. I suddenly I moved there this I mean time in two thousand and six, where just the cabaret scene was thriving. I got a job immediately as an MC at this cabaret in the pipe Place market that had but they had burlesque, they had circus arts, they had contemporary dancers, they had stand up comedians, they had everyone. And I got to learn from all of them. And that's really where what I do now started to take shape. And that's what I sort of credit my like I use it all. I use my fine arts background, I use the angst and I use that.

You know, by the.

Way, I'm thrilled that you didn't wear drag to this interview. I love them. I love your your regular look. I love your look. You know, very good look. You have wonderful eyebrows. Do you do that to your eyebrows or did they just grow that way?

Oh god, no, no.

I plucked my eyebrows to high heaven when I was like in junior high. I was I'm so glad that they're not as thin as I made them then. But they just don't grow under here anymore.

I just so the darling I have, Honestly, like you, I can't say this, but I have like faint little eyebrows, and that does not come from years of plucking. That just was. I was never really endowed with fantastic eyebrows. I never really had great eye Well.

I'm grateful for the eyebrows I have in day to day life, but I will tell you gluing them down is a wrestling match.

All right. Well, so now that you're not in drag, I like this because you can talk about bend de la Krem. And by the way, your pronouns are she her? Is that right?

In drag?

I go by she her. Out of drag, I go by he him. But you can always call me. I will never be offended by it.

Well me either me either, honestly and It's funny because like my generation we were, we loved being called she. She was like this kind of joke pronoun that we use to describe each other. And then it became like serious business, like do not refer to me as anything but she, or I'll cut you, you know. But anyway, Darling, describe your drag described to us exactly who Ben is, even though a lot of people listening, no, I want to know who you think she is.

Yeah, I mean, Dala is a character that I've been doing drag for twenty years at this point, but I think I started developing her more in earnest, around like two thousand and seven, when I moved to Seattle, and.

Right, yeah, I mean, she's really I.

Love the school of drag, where you really develop a character who.

Is not you.

You know, there are plenty of queens who are sort of the same person dressed or not dressed, and that's wonderful and lovely. But I, you know, sort of fell in love with folks like Varley, Jean Merman and Jackie Bead and well, Jackie's Jackie all the time, but she's more Jackie when she's in Dragon. You know, folks who really Charles Bush, these kind of more old school queens who really do character work. And growing up on Pee Wee Herman and Alvira, these people who were like always embodied their characters in this way where you like believed in this larger than life character. All that stuff really inspired me. So Dala I think of as She's not to me a woman. You know, I'm not like doing a female illusion. She's like a cartoon. She's like a puppet, you know, She's like she is a muppet. She's a Hanna Barbaria cartoon. And I love that because she's larger than life and kind of more over the top, and it feels somewhat magical to me. But she's also you know, I really have She embodies kind of like positivity, and you know, when I was a young drag queen, I kind of fell into that, I think, the bitchy kind of thing that most drag queens fall into immediately.

Yes, which I'm hoping to talk about sometime during this conversation, because I feel like, you know, that's a big part of drag and I always think that it's so fascinating on RuPaul those episodes where they do the roasts, you know, and somehow again genetically is supposed to be born with this the sense of what is vicious versus what is really funny? Or what is this perfect combination between vicious and funny and what is too vicious right and what's not funny? You know what I mean. So it's a really good subject to talk about. I'm not sure. Let's just tell me about it. How do you justify yourself in this world of drag which is kind of a wash with vicious comedy, you know, because I don't find delight to be this vicious.

Yeah, I think that that sense of balance that you're talking about around vicious versus funny, I mean that's something that it like people have to work to hone over many years. And you know, they throw these young girls into it on drag race and then they, you know, get mad at them for seeing something nasty and it's like, well, come on.

Come on, you're encouraging us to be nasty and they we're nasty. Is there this kind of like disconnect or societal kind of hierarchy between people like you who are a men who practice this thing in address and you said she's not some what you just said, benda la creme is not a woman, right, yeah, so but you go by she her is there this kind of like because there are drag queens who are incredible and they're queer and they're transitioning and they are and it's all about drag, you know, And so tell me a little bit about that, because that is to me, that's a little dangerous, you know. And I walk in a room and I get bombarded with all the different.

Yeah, well man, it's a it's a it's a you know, that's a big bite we're gonna chew on.

But I'm ready, so they go on. Yes, I mean, first of.

All, you know, to talk about like how I think of my character as not a woman. It's not that I think of her as like a man. It's that I just think of her as something sort of like larger than life and ethereal and like beyond human, you know what I mean. So, like like cisgendered, straight women will come up a lot and be like, oh my god, I wish I were as pretty a woman as you. It's crazy that you're such a beautiful woman. I'm like, well, the fact that if you did this for three hours you could look at exactly like me. You know if you if you cultivated this skill face exactly, and the fact that like I identify as a man, but I still look like this, I mean to me, that is just all of that should just point to the idea that none of these trappings have anything to do with male or female. Like if anybody can do it, then then the high heels and the lashes and the wigs are not are not inherently female, you know what I mean, Like, nobody's born like that. So they're tools that we all get to play with in the same way, they're just crayons in the box that like anyone has access to. But I think in the scope of drag there's I mean, obviously, as you're saying, we have cis gendered men who are drag queens. We have trans women who are drag queens. We have CIS women who are drag queens. And we have non binary people who are drag queens. And I'm sure there's trans men who are Oh of course there are. There's got mich you know, and there's plenty of others. And so I think now that drag has become of safer for people to experiment with. When I was young, I didn't get to play with it in the same way, and I do think it can.

Sort of be.

A doore for some people to access more information to kind of play and be like, oh, this is something that sort of gives me more knowledge about who I am and my own gender.

Oftentimes.

I've talked to many trains women who sort of like found their identity through drag, and I don't know what to necessarily make of it other than I think it's just the fact that drag is something that helps us to kind of deconstruct and realize that we can construct whoever we are and whatever we want to be, whether that's just when we're on stage or whether that's.

You know, in our larger life.

I mean, I identify as male, but I am not a masculine person. I mean I switch through the world every day, and that is that's a power I found through drag. You know, I was much less comfortable with that, and then I drag sort of introduced me the idea that there is power in that and that I don't have to sort of present myself in a specific, guarded way. And I really do feel like, as much as drag is my job and it's my art, form. I identify with it strongly. I mean, I identify deeply as a drag queen. It feels like something I was really born to do and a big part.

Of me, you know, right, Yes, I do understand. And what I like so much about you is that you're so eloquent. You know, you can speak and I will and I'm not kidding. Let's talk about this because in a minute I want to get into like who you are and your career and your trajectory. But while we're here, you know, and it's sort of organic, and we're speaking about this. Recently, I've been seeing you on like, you know, the Daily Show. I think, I say you on the Daily Show. I saw a few clips of you like in Drag, which was such a treat to be seeing this kooky puppet, you know, this mad kind of cartoon speaking these incredibly serious words about you know, how gender, how it all deserves our attention culturally, and how drag is not dangerous, et cetera, et cetera. You're talking about when you were a kid and drag, right, and you're talking about how it wasn't everywhere, it was not yet brought into the light the way it is now. Darling, Darling, Darling Darling. Okay, when I was a kid, there were literally like five drag queens and you had to go you have to be frisked before you went into I'm not kidding. I used to. There were most of the clubs that you went to see. For instance, ly Squalita, there was a place where you literally got frisked before you go down went downstairs, and it was downstairs and it was all drag and it was something unbelievable, you know, was a dangerous, dangerous and kind of edgy. Listen, that's how That's how it was being gay. Forget about being a drag queen. And you know, now you have all these crazy people in Tennessee and you know, going right. But somewhere, the word danger does come into it, you know what I mean. Somewhere the essence of what it is is supposed to be transgressive. It's supposed to be naughty, it's supposed to be vicious a little bit, you know what I mean. Yeah, And though we're not going to make young children into drag queens because we tell them bedtime stories, I'm hoping that we can maintain an element of this, you know, I mean it.

I one hundred percent agree with that, as much as the character that I utilize has this sort of optimistic, trilly thing. I mean, I really use her as a way to sort of express more cynical ideas, right Like, That's how I use her as a as a device in my shows, you know, because I think very differently from her, and that dissonance is part of it. Right, So I very much value exactly what you're talking about. And I do think that drag is inherently transgressive. I do think that it's kind of a fuck you to all of the the assumptions that people make culturally, right Like, it throws it back at them, like, well, what you think you know is not necessarily what is true, and we show that. I don't think that danger is ever going to go away. I think it's great that the ways in which it's broadened and that there are shows that are appropriate for young people, because I know that really would have helped me to know that there were drag queens in the world, other peoples exactly.

So I love that.

But I can't fathom why we can't allow for texture within this art form the way we do in others. I mean, we understand that you know, Eddie Murphy can do raw and then he can do daddy daycare, and we aren't afraid that he's going to, like, you know, tell one of those jokes to these children in the audience. And it just feels like such an obvious comparison that it is wild to me that all these people assume that because we sometimes have an adult sensibility in front of other adults, that we are not capable of adjusting.

It's so offensive, right, it's so offensive, it's like.

And it's not even that I don't even think they really believe we can't, right, Like this is just groomers, just the new faggot, right, Like, it's just it's just get get away from us. We don't want you and all of this. You know, we see you know, those old black and white films about like be careful of like your friend's uncle or whatever. It's going to get you after school.

Be it's all a faint so that we're not thinking about the bigger issues like gun control or something you know that's coming for us. So they're not good, right, that's throwing us off the scent.

I mean, I think it's all true, Like they are absolutely trying to distract from gun control. And I think that they absolutely want laws to go pre stonewall again. Right, we just overturned Row versus Wade, and like people were very surprised when that happened, but it worked its way through the court system for a decade, you know, and it's and this is the same thing, right, I mean, they're shipping away at.

It bit by bit.

It's you know, it's reproductive rights, it's LGBTQ I A plus rights, it's and who knows who's next. I mean, obviously people of color are under attack, but it's all it's all happening, and it's a distraction and there. I mean, it's terrifying how this is so snowballing.

I'm going to kind of change this topic a little bit and make it more about you, Okay, about like personally about you, Okay, Like we started by talking about who And by the way, I don't know if you can take this as a compliment or not. What I love about Benda la creme is it's almost this ethel mermany kind of thing. It's not exactly so like, it's not exactly that she's so optimistic. It's that she's so like fucking in it, you know what I mean that she's not going to allow any bad thing to come in. And also, by the way, you don't not look like ethel Merman a little bit. And it's not the furthest thing from like a pretty young like I'm not kidding, all right, but anyway, I would like to know what is vulnerable about one a drag queen, but more importantly Bendela.

Oh yeah, no, I mean I very much again use her as like kind of a device to get more vulnerable. Because she's so big and cartoony and sparkly, it's really easy for people to be like, oh, this is accessible, this is fun, I'm going to come to it. But all of my shows, especially my solo shows, are really about like darker topics. Like literally my last show it's is called Ready to be Committed and Bendel kram is looking for a husband, right, and it's and it's all you know, campy in a lot of like ridiculous like dick jokes and like characters and colors and songs, but at its heart and people don't know this because I didn't put this actual text in there, it's about you know, it's about Dela looking for partnership, and then within that has to face the idea that is something I struggle with, which is that commitment inherently ends in tragedy, because either your relationship ends or the per's gone. And when my mother died when I was twelve, and I watched my dad's morning process, and he really lost himself for many years, and that is and that has stuck with me, seeing this really loving relationship and and this person's life derailed, and that is what brought that show about. So within the show, I do go you know, I mean, I sort of have a you know, ninety percent comedy ten percent tragedy ratio that I like to do in my shows. And so the culmination of it really is her kind of struggling with the realities. And and I do allow myself to go really vulnerable, and there's a safety to the character that allows me to do that and have it still be a little bit mine. But yeah, I mean I I I always do that. I think, you know, the holiday show I do with Jinks, which I've seen, Oh yeah, yeah, I'm grateful.

You saw that.

It's oh thank you. It's it's that one is a is less kind of in tense than a lot of my solo shows in terms of how far it goes in that regard. But that show is about I mean, I started doing Christmas content in like two thousand and eight as a way to process the fact that I did not feel close to my family. I felt very alienated during a time of year that was about family and was about homecoming. And at the time, I was still going home for Christmas, and I was like, I'm going to make a Christmas show so that I don't have to go home and so other people who don't want to be there can come be here on Christmas Eve. And so it did, you know, and that show is still again can't be goofy, but at its heart about hey, you don't have to do any of this stuff that doesn't feel good. You can choose the people you want to be around, and you can choose the stuff you want to do.

Oh my god, you know that's what That's the big lesson that I think needs to I mean, darling, don't we have to go out there and just completely because I also was an alien. I feel like I was born from another planet into my family, and you know, I did my best to get along and it was okay. And I read a lot of stuff about you and how you were bullied and all that, and you know, and me too. I was fat, and I was effeminate and I wasn't and I was in this crazy religious Jewish school and I didn't like it. And I wasn't bullied just by my peers. I was bullied by rabbis, by adults. Adults, you know, sort of abuse me a little bit. And so I completely understand when you talk about going back to that idea about like your mom and losing your mom. I never lost a relative like that, but I have very very close people in one of my best friend's mom moms committed suicide when we were like, you know, roughly around the age that you lost your mother, and I like the echoes of it, the reverberations of it, like affected my life to such an extent, and honestly, I don't really think my friend ever recovered from that, you know, And possibly that's because it was a suicide, but that's a whole other subject. And then of course, Darling, like I mean, this is gonna sound so whatever, pluck, but but when you get a dog like I don't know about you do you have dogs?

Yes, we have a dog in two cats.

Yes, Well the minute I get a puppy dog, I go, Darling, you're gonna die before me? And how am I going to deal with it? You know? It's like, so you're always coming to terms with that idea of death, you.

Know, absolutely.

I mean it's and I think that people don't know. I mean I agree, and I think it's a thing that we all kind of know, but don't just actively talk about that thing of connecting to anyone is scary. It's it you are risking, you are risking feeling bad later, yes, right, And that can hold us back and we don't. And it's a very simple kind of guttural kind of I think, primal thing that we that we just sort of gloss over it. And it's you know, we're gonna like we're gonna make that decision anyway, But why aren't we just talking about that, like it's hard to be vulnerable.

You know, Yes, so I want you to take it wrong. But you know, like I have a history with drag too, not in it, but watching it right, And I often say that I don't know if I were living, if I were younger today, if I were like a teenager today, I don't know if I would be trans or if I would be something else. I swear I think I am a product of my time, you know, But I remember, I remember, like you know. For instance, I've known Rue Paul for a thousand years. RuPaul and I literally a thousand years, darling. I mean, there was a dinner that Vague gave for this fabulous person called Leo Lherman, and I hired RuPaul to stand in front and do talking heads, right. And then actually, once I listened to this story, I hired RuPaul to go to Paris with me because I was commissioned by Louis Wuiton to design a bag for their hundredth whatever it was. And this is literally in nineteen ninety six. Wait, no, the story gets better. So she comes. She did we stant to be? I think forgot what the thing she was lip syncing inside? They made a giant purse. It was this whole thing at some palace and in Paris, and at the dress rehearsal, a light fell on her head. I promise you this happened, and she was rushed to the hospital, right, and I thought, oh, now, what was she at least in a wig. She was no, no, because the rehearsal anyway, and of course all I thought was, oh shit, that who's going to do this? Who's gonna do this lipstick? Oh? Poor Rue? You know. But anyway, she made it back. She like did it. She came back, she did the lipstick. It was unbelievable. But I want to talk for a minute bit of for a minute about what you're talking. You're you're talking about something that's so kind of like almost inherently political, but you know, like drag though it was transgressive and it was sometimes very political, like you're saying the punkier side of it, or some drag queens were in your face, like Bunny Darling, Bunny, We'll just right. But Rue Paul, for instance, is not the most political person we know. You know, she's very elegant about that. She wants people to like live and let live. And what she will say is, hey, everybody vote. You know. That is about as political as she gets usually, you know, And of course I admire that because I I am not the most political artist, do you know what I mean? But it seems like you are, you know, it seems like you are motivated very much by politics.

Yeah, I am.

And I don't you know that didn't necessarily that feels like it just sort of like was a natural progression out of necessity and feeling oppressed right like it's and I mean the reality is I have less to lose than Rue, so like I can totally appreciate her stance and why she needs to come from where except Darling's.

If there was if anyone was repressed in this world, you know, it was Madame Rue Paul. Oh, absolutely, my god, and she had every reason in the world. But I don't I think it was like her way. I mean, this is of course me speaking for RuPaul, but it was her way of ascending into a whole other like that is who that is, who that person is. It's a diva who looks down and goes you are my subjects. I am queen. You know that's that's kind of what That's what I remember about, even like even Lipsynca something you know, lipsinco is a good friend of mine too. It's a funny thing. And so talk to me about like this generation of of of drag and queer and how mobilized and political it is. And by the way, I don't think it's better or worse. I just think it's something I am acknowledging and I and and absolutely it's better, you know what I mean, And absolutely it's worse, you know, So go on.

I just okay, I would just I would say that whether or not you're like speaking specifically on these topics, drag is super political, and everyone who's doing it is doing something super political. I mean, like rou might not be talking about these specific things, but Rue is a black queer man from the South who grew up like and that that is political. Her existence is political and aggressively. So and you know, and I've been talking about this a lot because I really think that drag is something super kind of sacred in the queer community and I think it has been and I think it is our art form, it's our communication style. Every culture has their own kind of styles of music and performance that they passed along the information and the spirit of their community down and that's the one that we use. And that in itself is hugely political because we have passed down through the generations for centuries and decades, we have passed down the spirit of our community that was hidden that people didn't want anybody to know about.

And that might not.

Be as literal as let me tell you about Stonewall, but every piece of it I think is valid. And one of the things that I've been thinking about a lot with the kind of attacks on drag right now and how people are talking about how it's sort of inherently adult and it's prurient and all these things. You know, one thing I think about. I was actually at Sherry Vines show like a couple of weeks ago, and she's just filthy and she's just telling these you know, I mean, she's telling jokes about how she was singing a song about like getting poop on your dick, right, like it was like that. That's that is Sherry Vines.

But I'm watching nothing new, Darling, nothing new, right. If you've been watching Bunny for all these years, this is nothing new.

But God, but I'm watching this and I'm thinking this is political and the reason is and this is beautiful and it's a part of our history because at one point, gay men, we're not getting to talk to anyone about what anal sex is like, they weren't allowed to speak of it. They if they had something like that happen, and it felt shameful. Who were they going to share it with? Who were they going to ask if this is normal, if it's happened to anyone else? Am I a freak?

Is this?

You know?

And they would go to a drag club, a queen would sing about something filthy, everybody would laugh, and in everyone laughing, you get to go, I'm not alone. This is a common enough experience that people are laughing at it, and it sounds silly, and to people right now, they're like, oh, drag queens are just filthy and that's who they are, and how either like oh, how fun and wacky or how disgusting. But that is it's there's a historical context for why that is, and that is abolutal. So a poop on the dick joke is politics, you know. Yes, I feel really blessed to be sort of like that millennial zone of drag where I get to like, I got to be a part of the drag world for many years before drag race existed, and then I also get to sort of benefit from the drag race situation. But I feel a great deal of mourning for the pre drag race days of drags, you know, like there was something so special, and I think a big part of it to me was that you had to if you were going to be a drag queen. You were never going to be rich, you were never going to be famous, and no one would ever want to sleep with you, And so you had to do it in spite of that. You had to want it so badly that you did it even though those things were true, And that meant.

That those drag queens were passionate as hell.

And now it's a thing where drag can be seen as a.

Path to fame, fortune and people wanting to sleep with you.

So it's you know it, really it's.

Changed who's doing dragon.

I do think that there's value in that, and I see the benefits of that. But you know, when drag has its inevitable dip in whatever form it takes from popular culture, there will be queens like me and many others who are like I am going to perform in a dumpster until the day I die for Nichols, And there will be queens who are like, Okay, this is no longer my career path.

I'm moving on to something else. And that is.

Something that I think is both again and a loss.

I do think this is to fascinating, this idea that you know there there is this subculture that is coming into the light right now. And one thing I have to tell you, Like I remember in New York in the nineteen eighties when I was coming about and coming out. I'm from New York, so I wasn't you know. It wasn't like I came to New York and discover the big city. I was from here, So it was both like easier in some ways and rougher because you know, I had my family right in Brooklyn. So this I'm under the scrutiny. I'm under the gun a little bit. But I remember going to gay bars, right that would be a specifically gay bar, right to meet other men, to like fucking sleep with, Okay, Like I'm sorry, but that's what you did, or to meet and to be romantically involved with other gentlemen, right, And it was this incredible, incredible bonding thing, you know, like you just bond with these people to such an extent, and you walk in that room and you just feel so incredibly wonderful and so incredibly safe. And by the way, that's another whole thing, like right now, we're not that safe in those clubs, which is really like something that is also extremely terrifying. But now I feel like, you know, first of all, are the clubs more mixed? Now? Are they gay? And are they queer? And are they you know, right? And like I'm not kidding, I'm asking this because I want to know. What I wish you could talk about is the trade off? Like what are we trading off here? You know, as we enter into the light, you know, we're giving away a kind of a mystique, a kind of a you know, a solidarity that we had in these clubs all those years, you.

Know, for you know, you talking about like going out to the bars to meet people, to get laid or whatever. I mean, like that was my experience too, and that was great because you bond with people. That's how you meet friends. You know, so many of my friends are people who I tried to sleep with at one point and right, and that and that was great. And then I do remember that shift sort of I think early two thousands where at the clubs I worked at, you would see more and more kind of people looking at their phone. And whenever those apps started to be more popular, whenever grinder kind of exploded, it did you know, I know, just from knowing a lot of people who work in and own and manage clubs that it super shifted. I mean people were not had no reason to go out two clubs to meet people. They could order them like a pizza from their couch.

Fancy thing. I was talking to a Yeah, I was talking to a young assistant of mine and she was I was saying, Oh, do you go out to clubs? And she was saying, not really, there's no really, there's no real clubs anymore, you know, darling. It was amazing. This was an amazing world when clubs kind of ran the world. You know, that was amazing. And I was saying to her, like before the Internet, my DearS, like if Suzanne barsh decided to have a party on the Brooklyn Bridge, which she did, Okay, only that's only one of the location that I remember. Somehow I heard about I don't know who the hell came over and told me about this party, but you can believe that I was at that party that night, you know, and I knew about it. And what about Gus? Is that working? Is that? Are you happy about? Is that something wonderful? Is your husband? Are you guys married?

We're not married.

We are married.

No, we have sin.

We're living in Sin. But yeah, no, we've been together eight years. He and I met on scruff app in Seattle. At the time, I was touring so much that I was like, I don't know how to date, Like.

I can't meet anyone, you know.

So it turned out he only lived like two blocks for me and Seattle, and he had for years and we had all the same friends. We were at all the same parties for many years, but just never met. And but yeah, no, I mean he and I have been together for a long time. And for at first I really was cautious. I was like, you know, we shouldn't work together. A lot of queens jumped straight into working with their partner because then you can tour together. But I was like, you know, we're just not going to see each other for months on end, and that's how we're going to do this, because I don't want to mix these two things.

Here's my final question to you, Darling, is drag forever? You think drag is going to be forever in your life, ever and ever and ever?

Oh in my life, absolutely, I think.

You think can be forever.

Every year, like Jane Fonda. You know, she gets up, she goes to the set, they do her hair, she does fix her line, she does it. She'd been doing that for a few years now, Jane Fonder, you know. And so you think Benda La Creme at eighty might be doing it.

Yes, I want to be.

I want my skin falling off my bones on stage, you know. And the But the other thing is that I'm at this point I'm getting doing like a lot more writing, directing, production stuff. And even if so, I haven't done a lot where I'm not on stage for it, but we're on camera for it. But I am as I get more excited about these behind the scenes things. It is something that I that is a path that I'm actively pursuing as well as.

My life performance career.

But it's a thing where at some point, you know, I mean, my hips are already bad, like I you know, at some point I may have to transition more into being the person behind.

The show, behind the wig.

But to me, it will the product will always be drag, and therefore I will always be doing drag.

You know.

That is a great, great answer. I love that answer. Is there something you'd like to promote on our show? Oh gosh.

Well yeah, well, you know, last year, one of the things that I got to do was sort of speaking of production, was I got to work as a producer on my first TV show. It's called Drag Me to Dinner. It's Neil Patrick Harris's drag sort of. It's like a surrealist drag competition game show. It's hosted by Marie Hill.

Tonight, I get my favorite people in the world, my favorite people in the world. All right, well, Darling, I mean, you know one thing we learned from what was it season? The last season of Drag Race? Was it fifteen? Season fifteen? Right when they added the half hour back? They added a half hour back, remember, and the show got better? Okay, And I said to myself, what show in the world benefits by adding half an hour? You know, I would add two hours to this interview, but unfortunately we are out of time. And so thank you so much to you, Darling, Benda Lacren.

Thank you so much for having me. This was truly a pleasure. And listen, when we're I know that we both have Christmas shows, but I hope that we can cross paths during that time. Maybe we'll be in the same place. At the same time, Yes we will. I'll look into it excellently.

Topa Bye, thank you.

I have to say I was a little scared approaching this interview with Benda La Creme because there were a lot of things I don't know about her, and a lot of things that I don't really know about the etiquette or the protocol of drag and boy. I think I learned a lot. And also I just love her even more than I did before I did this interview. I didn't think I could love Benda lacrem Moore. But guess what I do. And I hope you do, and I hope you go see her if she's in your town. This is Isaac Msrahi saying thank you and I love you. I never thought i'd say this, darlings, but goodbye Isaac. Hello Isaac. Is produced by Imagine Audio Awfully Nice and I AM Entertainment for iHeartMedia. The series is hosted by me Isaac Musrahi. Hello Isaac is produced by Robin gelfenby The senior producers are Jesse Burton and John Assanti. It is executive produced by Ron Howard, Brian Grazer, Kara Welker, and Nathan Cloke and Imagine Audio production management from Katie Hodgeles, sound design and mixing by Cedric Wilson. Original music composed by Ben Waltzer. A special thanks to Neil Phelps and Sarah Katomac at im Entertainment.

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Hello Isaac with Isaac Mizrahi

Isaac Mizrahi is an expert -  at almost everything! He’s an iconic fashion designer, actor, singer,  
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