D.J. “Shangela” Pierce

Published Oct 7, 2021, 7:30 AM

On tough conversations and hustling during difficult times

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I've been getting a lot of great comments about the rants. It's really funny. I think everyone's been locked up and they're just like hearing people drone on and just get aggravated about things that I guess maybe you're getting aggravated about, or maybe because I say them, then you get aggravated about it. But I read your comments and it makes me laugh. And they don't always have to be just me being aggravated, although that is what I am a lot um but I want to talk about. I don't even know that this isn't necessarily a ramp, but it's a discussion about bucket lists. And the summer is over. It is on life support. I have been hanging onto it by a thread, like I will not pull the plug on the summer I just kicked in. Late last summer didn't even exist because of the pandemic. This summer, it felt weird for it to exist, but we sort of The weather was weird, and and then the anxiety about the fact that the summer was halfway over set in and it was a weird summer. It took a while to ease into it, and we were still wearing masks. Some people weren't wearing masks, were vaccinated. Some people weren't vaccinated. We were vaccinated and thought we were home free. Some people were getting COVID. So I have a lot of rituals with my daughter and she's really caught on to this, not just philosophy but practice. So every year we go to the Radio City Christmas Show, and this year, or the last two years, I think we missed it. It It was definitely the last year. UM. I think it was the last year because the year before we went UM, so it was weird to miss that. And we have things that we do out in the Hamptons. It's just come to be that I'm a door I'm a doer mom. I just because I had a challenging childhood, because I had a child later in life. I think I just intuitively new to be in moment to be present as a parent. I wasn't put your kid in front of the TV parent, even though that was really hard because you just wanted to sort of lay around at six thirty in the morning instead of be up with your kid. But I just had a discipline with it. I'm diligent about it. And so in the summer, we've gone wakeboarding, We've gone clamming, We do s'mores, we see the sun set. We you know, if we go to the beach, which isn't always it's not like we're the beach every day, but we'll say, let's go be in the ocean. So I have a very keen appreciation of seasons for what they are as maybe as you get older, and because I'm fifty, you just think about more, think more about the value of time, the meaning of time. It's a great thing too instill into your kids, because my daughter really has it, and most kids so don't care and nothing means anything and they could be home all day on their devices because it doesn't matter. They have so many days in their lives. But because I'm like this, my daughter is really like this. And I guess it was like three weeks ago that my daughter started saying, Mommy, let's really complete our wish list. And so in the last two weeks it was a really fun adventure. We made it a point on the cloudy day to go picking, you know, so we could get the last of the summer fruits, but still get the apples. And it's really just like a thirty minute, forty minute experience. You get muddy, you get dirty, but it's just it's just a present thing. You can't be on your phone. You're just talking to each other. It's the hunt of the blueberry, the BlackBerry, the raspberries, the tomatoes, and there's just something really special about it. It's so easy to do. Um, any everybody has access to that. You don't have to have money to go vegetable picking. It could literally be your picking for your dinner, which we ended up. I've just literally made the last of my tomatoes. Um. And then we made it a point to go surfing. And it had been a weird weather and the weather had been choppy and the hurricane or it was flat and you know, it's the pain sometimes to get all the stuff on and get the board and do it all. But we did it. And we went into the water and it was chilly and we were shivering for an hour, but we went surfing and we went wakeboarding. We did just check the box. We were checking boxes, you know, but having such a good time and it meant something to us. We had such a fun time checking the boxes and UM. For Labor Day, we went and jumped, made sure to jump in the ocean on that day. And take a nap on the beach, and we made a fire on the beach one night, and we did dinner on the beach one night. It was It's funny because maybe it's because of the pandemic. Things had more meaning because we've done things in the summer, but we've never really done all of these things. Um, spending more time in the pools, you know. I know I'm lucky enough to have a pool, or if you can go to a pool, but just even if you're running in a sprinkler or going we we had we didn't have a pool in Connecticut. Uh and um, we were using a slip and slide and we had I bought one of those baby sprinklers and my daughter enjoyed it. I even bought a big kittie pool for her on the beginning of the summer, and we were in the kiddie pool. So it's just making meaningful memories is really important. Doing the s'mores, as I mentioned, um and I just really ended up having a great summer. I don't take a ton of time for myself. And the only thing that really I don't exercise. I'm not a big exercise or I'll do yoga, when I can, and not in the summer, because I feel that in the summer I should do things you could do outside. So I make it a point when the weather is nice to walk on the beach, and really made that a commitment where my daughter knew that every day I was going to take a walk on the beach, where the people that I work with knew the same thing. So it's sort of a lot of I allotted time for you to have a walk on the beach tomorrow. And even brent Um on the day after Labor Day, Tumbaweed Tuesday was saying to me, no, Mommy, go take a walk on the beach. I want you to have it. You're not going to do that year round because she appreciates the meaning. And then Tumbaweed Tuesday, sure enough, Brian and I decided to do the thing we've been talking about for months. Get on the little cube bicycles we have with our helmets and go ride into town and go to lunch. And these are all very very impall provincial things. Again, I don't know if it's the time that we've all been through that make them more meaningful, but I just encourage you to just think about the little special things, whether it's pumpkin picking, whether it's doing the whatever it is for Halloween, for Thanksgiving, holidays, are you know Hallmark eyes, even if it's Valentine's Day. But I think they're great because they give you a sort of not just deadline. I don't like that word. They give you like a touch point, if that's even a word to to just say, Okay, it's that time of year, so let's do that thing. And it could be making cookies, it could be making a popcorn ball. It's the little things that these kids remember, and honestly us too. There's no there are no greater memories that we have than those memories with our kids and our families of just doing something special. So that's been my summer bucket list. And I would love to hear your rituals, not even just summer rituals, but just year round rituals. Today I'm talking with DJ Pierce, a k a. The Fabulous Angela, a three time RuPaul Drag Race contestant, Emmy nominated host, actor, comedian, philanthropist, business owner. They are a lesson in taking an opportunity and running with it. On top of it all, last year they started the nonprofit Feed the Queen's which raised over one hundred thousand dollars to help out of work performers during the pandemic. This conversation left me inspired, and I know it will do the same for you. Give it a listen. How are you? I am lovely. I am at my grandmother's house right now in Paris, Texas the Big Times, So luckily i'm inside. We're in this sweater, but honey, I think I could step outside with it. So it's lovely. It's really hot, it's Texas, and oh I love her accents. So um. We found each other a while ago on Instagram. It's interesting because people have asked me before why I follow certain people or what the sort of pattern is, and and there's no rhyme or reason necessarily. Someone just sort of jumps off the page to me or says something to me that, you know, piques my interest, and then I follow them and then I'm sort of peeking into their lives not knowing much about them. So I was sort of just aware of you and your name. The name, well, the name ch Angela sort of just stands out, and I didn't know much about you at all. And we had message on Instagram and I think you reached out to me to be on the podcast, and so here you are. And how what's your perception of our sort of relationship on Instagram or how we know each other that we have a longstanding love affair love we really do that. You might not know it. Let me here, but it's because I, um have such a great love for you, being someone who is such a hard work or someone who is so creative, someone who is so intelligent, someone who has come from UM I mean, you had a whole world before reality television, but being someone who was put on a spotlight or under a spotlight with reality TV, and then being able to segue your amazing knowledge with regard to your business and your business acumen and put that into creating brands and being such an awesome business person and being so like direct and opinionated, but also just like, here's me, here's what you get. Now, let's keep it moving. Boom boom boom. And I'm like, oh, I like her. I've never met you in person, we've never been in the same room together, but I did totally um starts I want to say, stalking, but following very religiously uh to you online and especially with your Instagram, and you also have such great heart, and that to me just jumps out and I am like, oh my gosh, I want to I tell everybody. You can ask any of my friends if they say, like, who do schedul love and she wants to be like and they asked me, and I'll be like, I really love Jennifer Lewis. She's like my number one RuPaul Bethany Frankl Wow, amazing. Okay, So I'm excited to have you on and hear about you because in reading about you, you are doing so many different things. I want to hear about them. I want to hear about the path, about the brand, about the goal, about the trajectory. And if you follow me on Instagram, I'll want to get into your opinion of the crazy, not the craziness, your opinion of what's been going on with me lately in the media and UH of recent podcast I had UH and for people listening we booked this podcast. What a couple of weeks ago? How long ago did you reach out right? Because I would think that people might think that all of a sudden, because you are a drag queen that I put you on the podcast now because of the stuff that's been going on in the trans world with me. So we had this book for a long time, and you're the perfect guest for me to have right now because I like to face things and have conversations versus everybody be sort of screaming into their computer, you know, one way, sort of just talking to a wall versus real conversations that you right, and you're exactly right. This interview has been on the books because you know, with the kind of real resurgence of our show and coming back of We're Here the season two on HBO Max, my publicist and I were like, Okay, where do we want to go? Who do you want to chat with? Him? One of my top list people was you, for sure, And so without any knowledge of anything else that would happen to the kind of be make us even more relevant in the news today. So I'm excited to chat with you. Okay, good, and we'll have that conversation, which people probably that I work with want me to maybe not necessarily have a conversation because it's a hot topic, but um, I think it's important to have conversations and learn. But the first thing is so related to to the recent conversation and reading print did press all over the internet about you. In the same paragraph, they will say he and she. Now I understand that you're being referred to as he wanted to d J. Pierce and ch Angela she wanted ch Angela. But even in the press there's sometimes they'll say, he referring to Angela are right now? You are my interviewing you as ch Angela or as d J Pierce. Well, you know, that's always a great question because I go on lots of sets as well, working either on our show We're Here, or like working in other script and stuff, and they're like, how do we refer to you? And I jokingly jokingly always say, honey, you can call me and thinks that prostitute. Jokingly I always say that, But in actuality, out of drag, I prefer he him, and in drag it's nice she her. But if anyone makes a mistake, I always kind of will understand what the feeling on the motivation is behind it and know that it's not being made in a lot of times, not in a derogatory type way and not on purpose to to discriminate or making me feel less than it's just sometimes people don't know. So I always would say, you know, I'll never forget. I was on set with we were Feeling the Stars Born, and I was on with Lady Gaga, and we were in this room and there was another drag queen here behind, and she turned around and she said, oh steph Beni and Gaga goes, oh honey, please in a sweet way. She goes lg Gaga, any of those, but only Stephanie if we're a family, are in between the sheets, because it's all about how people expect other people to refer to them or would like to to make them feel comfortable. And for me, out of drag, usually is he him? And in drag if it's my preferences, she heard, because you know I feel the doll when I'm in drag right. Well, so, so short of you just energetically knowing someone's being insulting or ignorant, it's like someone's spelling your name wrong. It's annoying, but you just want to correct them and hope the day will get it right there next time. Yeah, And most times it's my little southern chime that comes in there and kind of kindly does it like, oh baby, no, no, no, no no, Hola, it's ch Angela because they call me shang Ela, shangry law, sha la, all of the above. But with regard to pronouns, I think it's about how people feel they are being respected and heard and recognized in that moment. And for me, out of drag he him because as I'm a gay mail that dresses in drag for my entertainment or for my character my show. Um, but usually my family everyone calls me DJ and I am he him okay, so um. And it's in that conversation we had the other day, I talked about the fact that my daughter didn't know her her pronouns and um, not that she didn't know. You know, it's sort of like one sometimes you know something, but you don't You get nervous that you might not be saying it right. And this is all a new conversation in history, I think. I mean, the truth is, there are so many things to know. That's why so many people have gotten into trouble for things that they've done ten years ago, because people literally just don't know. Well, it could be very much so a new thing in that person's or your particular circle in your world. It's a new conversation, and that's you know, to be heard and respected and understood because this gives us an open opportunity to have a communication about it. Because in my world, we could have been having this conversation for the last two years. You know. Great, as a child, did you know that you had two different people inside of you, like that you were literally authentically two different people. Well, I honestly don't. For my being a young gay boy growing up, I never felt like I had two people. I definitely felt like I had a lot of mannerisms, uh activities, things that I did, the way I talked, the way I walked that would be considered stereotypically female. Okay, he's walking like a girl, he sounds like a girl, he twists like a girl. And so that kind of let me know that I was a different than a lot of people around me, especially a lot of the boys around me. And I'm an only child. I grew up in a family with a lot of women. My parents force when I was very young, so I was my mom was in the military. She raised me for a portion of my life and then went off to fight wars, and I was raised in the house with my grandma and by my aunt, so I was raised by a lot of women, So I saw a lot of those manners, and I thought, maybe it's just something that I'm learning from the people around me. What age are you when you're saying this, Probably i'd say like nine. Nine is around when you're in the fourth grade, Like you weren't sure if it was nature versus nurture. You didn't know what was real. You weren't sure what was going on yet. Right, I wasn't having any like you know, sexual desires or attraction in that way to anyone of the same sex at that time, probably around the age of nine. It probably waited to like eleven twelve, And I was like, Oh, that's hot. Should I be thinking that? Should I be saying that? Um? To realize almost puberty preteen is when you're starting to really question versus just have like sort of underneath feelings, right for me because it's different people, but for me. And also I was raised um in a small southern town Paris, Texas, and a lot of times we thinks we just didn't talk about And I think I was a little sheltered as well because I was an only child. I was raised in a very Southern Baptist home with my grandparents, so I didn't have a lot of interactions or see a lot of things that maybe a lot of other people at that age did see. So but I knew around the leventh whether I was totally different, and that that was something that a lot of times I didn't feel comfortable embracing and being because I was gonna be made fun of, whether it was a school or even in my own family. So I tried to press it down. But there are certain things that are in it about you, honey, that you just can't press down. So I decided to flourish. So if you had been asked, um, what your pronouns were at nine, would you have wanted to not talk about it? Or would you have wanted to say what it was like? What would you have wanted as a child, Because it's hard for us as adults to know what. She'll en one m And that's a great thing. You're exactly right, um, if I can remember correctly, at that age, I wasn't. There wasn't a lot of conversation about naming your particular pronouns. However, if people call Canjim and said, oh, referring to me and said he is going to be going over there. He did this, I would know they were talking about me because I knew that I was he in him. Those are the pronouns that I identified with at that time until do out of Drag. I didn't create create Channgela and become a drag entertainer until about ten years ago. So it's always when he him, Oh, interesting, okay, so do you um? And I wanted this is just a side side conversation. I want to get into them, like if you about success, so just give me two more minutes about this because I want to understand you better. Also, do you feel more? Do you feel equally? You as ch Angela as DJ Pierce? Is there a percentage? Are you seventy p d J Pierce? And you know I always say body and five percent lunatic? So are you? Are you seventy p d J Piers and thirty Channgelo or it just is always moving? Well, you know, it depends on the day, it depends on the gig. But also I'm no mathematician, but I like to say I'm a hundred percent DJ Pierce and I'm a hundred percent ch Angela because I don't really change my voice. I don't change my character. I change my exterior to take on ch Angela. But if you met ch Angela and dragged, you would still be like, all right, come on the changel And you may even make the mistake like my mom does a lot and can call me DJ when I'm in dragging ch Angela, because you really feel it, and you really feel the difference. It's the same energy, it's the same soul. But a lot of times, especially for so Angela, I started out ch Angela as a performance character. I was on stage performing. I did lipstick numbers like Beyonce and Sierra and j Lo, but I did it as ch Angela. So the wig and the makeup and all of that is what made ch Angela. As I continue to grow and evolved and learned who I was as a dragon entertainer and started to do it not just on stage but in commercials or just in meeting people, in meeting greets, I realized that power as a dragon entertainer that you have when you have that different exterior, but it's still the same meat on the end. But do you just what if I just asked, what if you and I were to go out to lunch. Would you just be like I might want to go as Angela today or it's too much work. Can ch Angela be casual? Can ch Angela be in pajamas? It's different for every girl. For me, Angela is a show girl. She's on stage. Honey, it's glamorous and it's the doll. If it's an interview, it's fabulous and it's fashion. But you wouldn't usually unless I have a stand up comedy character called a Cuifa, that she might wear the pajamas. But I'm not just going to the grocery store at the wig on for the fun of it, because it's a stage principle for me. And do you like putting on all the makeup and all the hair as a person who really hates hair and makeup more than anyone you've ever met, do you like doing it? Or it's sometimes no pun intended to feel like a drag to do it? When good fun? Good? Fine? You quite pinty, sister, that's quite party? I would you know? When I first started dragging two thousand nine, I did it because it was so exciting from me. It was so different than what I usually do. I came from the corporate world. I was working in PR at the time. I was working at PR Agency in Los Angeles, and everything was like button up shirts and khakis and belts and you know, choosing socks and all that gig occasionally a tie and yeah, and ch Angela was this artistic expression of who I was on the inside that felt even more free. You know, I could be in a leotard or I could be in address and I could twirl and turn in. Ryan says, busting on it. Now do I love it? I'm grateful now that I work on like, for example, a show like We're Here, where we have a whole team that creates the costumes, creates the hair. I sit down, they put the makeup on. It takes about three and a half to four hours from start to finish to be in full glam and drag to walk out the door. So what I love to have that. I'm back girl, yes, ma'am. But it's the part of the job. It's you're part. You're working while you're sitting in glam. That's just like part of the hours on the job. I get it, and I would think, but I would think it affects your skin. I would think it. You could write a book in glam You could write a book. Yeah, I would think it affects your skin. I just it's it's so that that part to me, But that's you know, that's that's maybe you wouldn't like doing half the things I do. If I can just say this as well, I think that you know, and I did listen to the conversation that you had on the interview, um and when you were just having your solo conversation the beginning about this, and I think that it gives a great opportunity for parents to have the conversation with their kids because a lot of kids are already having these conversations about pronouns, even amongst themselves, and sometimes even at a very young age like nine and ten. So a lot of times parents and I'm no parent, but I do have nieces and nephew that I'm very close to, and their range from like age five right now to twelve, and it's in that time where they're having a lot of conversations that I'm like, well, we never had that conversation as a kid, but it forces me to have that combo with them. And I think that's the most important thing is that they're able to come to you. And I think just by following you on Instagram, I know you and your daughter have a very close relationship. And the fact that she can share things with you when she is confused and open that opportunity for you to have that conversation with her, that's a real thing. And I think both of us agree that it's so important to have inclusivity with regard to the trans community, and it's just a greater conversation. I think that needs to continue to having conversations like these need to continue to happen because there are so many people that are either a uncomfortable with it, be don't understand it, or don't support it. Trust me. On our show we go to small conservative times across America. But it's not just in conservative spaces that people have difficult feelings or conversations about all of our g B, t Q I plus right. But the more that we can here listen and then be able to educate and everybody is different, but for me, I think that's the way that we can get to a greater place of understanding because we ain't going nowhere. No. Because sexuality is one thing, gender is another thing, Like there's an education, there's a language, and that's happening with race, that's happening with gender and sexuality, that's happening with the workplace. That's happening with me too. There's a lot to learn. And I didn't get a script because I don't work like that. I'm having a conversation. I'm not exerting some opinion. I'm I'm learning too, but I'm also learning, you know, I'm also learning. I grew up in the South with a different community at times, in a different period, and so I think it's important for me to also be educated. So I think the good thing is that we're going to keep the conversation going. I and I feel truly that you're open to listening and learning as we all do as we continue to grow, and also being a great parent. And also I think what's what was more important to me was not to be like so many celebrities that I know that I know personally that are terrified twenty four hours a day because they're public and there. They can't make a step, they can't do anything. They would never do this podcast, they would never choose to have these conversations, They would never flirt with cancelation daily. But what was more important to me than anything was to not just be terrified back down, give some fakes saccarin apology to for fear of cancelation. That's why I was saying, no, like, let's have the conversation and that's okay, but you don't want me to be some filtered water down. There's so many people that are on Instagram every day just bullshitting everybody because it's what they think that the public wants to hear. But secretly, behind the scenes, they're saying what they really feel. That's not healthy. When we have like a great platform like you talk incredibly do with this, I think we both understand that there's a certain responsibility that we have not to be able to just say anything because I didn't forgive me. I don't want to paraphrase or say the wrong thing. But there was a statement in that conversation where you said, well, maybe I'll just send my daughter to a different place, and I think in my listening to it, it was more along the lines of the kind of sexual experience, not sex, but people showing their own genitalia at a girl's camp or just at a camp in general. Because I don't know. It was a counselor. By the way, that wasn't the camper. There was a counselor. It was a counselor that that that showed their genitalia. This wasn't even my child. But I send my daughter to a specific school because it's or I don't want to say with school, because it's artsy versus very competitive academically. So that's a place where I think that she's going to thrive. So if my daughter, um, if my daughter identified as being male, I might want her to be surrounded with other people who had that same experience to have that conversation and not bet with kids that have know what you know that are going to have that kind of reaction. It is important to have that visibility, I think for anyone's community that you feel they are in to be able to like I loved being able to see, even as a kid, if I got glimpses of gay people or drag queens on television, or just know about their existence. I think it is important to be around like people. However, we don't have the choice to pick and choose where we're gonna go to be in those communities. I grew up I went to public school, Honey, there was no we're gonna put DJ around just the gay theyre just the black kids. They put me around everybody, and we learned how to grow and navigate through And I think that's a really cool thing is when you can you know in life that you can't pick the people that you're gonna be around. We can't choose our circles at all times. We can learn more about all the different circles where cultures, and that makes us all awesome and better people. And that's why I love you so much because I think you're that's what you're totally interested in. The irony of the whole conversation was we were saying the same thing, and that's why it has to be a conversation. So Okay, we're gonna go longer because I want to get into your business. But I think that that was important conversation and I'm grateful for it. And And if you want to thank you for feeling safe, just thank you for feeling safe to have that combo with me. And I think that you know, everyone doesn't sign up for you know, I hear a lot of people say, well, honey, I'm tired of having the conversation. I'm tired of educating people, and that's everyone's perspective, that everyone has allowed their individual perspective. For me, I'm down to have the combos, even the difficult ones, and I felt safe to have that with me. Yeah. Now let's get into you. So you lived in your house in Paris, Texas, single mother. Southern, you said, Southern Baptist. Yes, my grandparents are very strong Southern Baptist. I grew up in the church. I was at one point the piano player, Honey, I was the choir director. I was never a soloist at that time. But um, I that's why I really grew to have a great love, have great faith and hope. But I always felt like I didn't fit in a lot of times in some of those spaces and places, especially when we have preachers that were preaching about you know, homosexualities of sin and wrong. But it didn't stop me from being me. I still was super active in school. I'm I'm a natural born leader. I think you and I both are scorpios in that way where we're like, zoom, let's go out and get it. And then it was the first in my family to graduate and go to college. Um, I got a huge leadership scholarship from s m U in Dallas where I went and separated from you, thank you, um, and had a lot of great opportunity there which now i've just let's go many a decade and a half later and I am um now on the advisory board for the Meddle School the Arts back at s m U as a drag queen entertainer, as a drag queen and entertainer, which is amazing for that particular school. Um. So who drew who or what drove success in your house? What was the relationship and concept of money and what it meant to be successful? And what work ethic was? What was that path like and what was that like in your house? Okay, let me break it down for you in uh in two tracks here one with regard to the work ethic, I always saw workers in my family. My grandpa was a farmer. Okay, he was death so he couldn't hear very well in the black community. He was hard to hear him. You had to yell at Granddaddy. He had to watch your mouth for you to be able to hear him. But he had cows and hogs and he used to go around town and he would pick up other people's garbage in the back of his truck and big barrels, take it out to his hog band and feed the hogs and do that. I saw him working from six am every day until it was nighttime at night, and his boots would come home muddy. And that was my grandpa. My grandma wasn't housewife, but she ran everything in there. And my mom, I think the hardest working example in my life and my family. You know, she went to the military, she came back. My mom sometimes had three jobs at a time. She'd be substitute teaching during the day, she'd have an office job in the afternoon, and then overnight she was stocking vending machines at the local power plants here, in which I would, you know, feeling like my mom worked so hard. I'd want to help her out so much. She was more focused on me, like just get the school work done, be good in school. But I would wake up at night go with her to the vending machines because I knew she could pack them faster if I was there with her, So I would like load the truck. She would take the dolly and go inside pack the cans, and honestly, seeing my mom worked so hard put in my mind like, Okay, we don't have a lot of money. We would always like, you know, trying to keep bills from being late, or if they were like taking money from here to pay this over here. Things we cut off at times. I didn't want that, and I knew I had an ability uh to relate to people. I could see the way people responded to me. They were very open to like me being involved in things, and that's how I got involved in so much in school. I was a student council president from the time I was in sixth grade all the way until we were seniors, and it involved in so many different things. But I knew that I had an ability to get out there, to create relationships and to make money for my family. I had a job from the time that I was fourteen. I started working as a stock market charity. Back in the day, they used to have like just the newspaper where you chart the markets, like commodity markets and stock markets. I had a job doing that. I worked at a retail selling shoes at Bell's work. I was a hustler and I'm still a hustler. That's how I know that I got to this place so that I am today and I still have that hustle ability. Yeah, I can tell, and in reading about you, I could tell. So I want to get it focused, so I understand, and uh, here, what is the brand? What exactly is the brand? What's the trajectory? What's the goal? First of all, are you do feel financially secure? Now? I do? Uh so much so that I was able to in two thousand team purchase a home for my grandma. I grew up in a two bedroom house on the rough side of town, and I moved us to a nice side of town with a house with many more bedrooms. And my mom came down and to help my grandma because she's in a wheelchair now, but she's eighty three. But that being said, that's the crowning jewel to me to be able to provide for my family as well as for myself. Are you in that house now? I am in this house today. Now. I gotta go to Chicago to work this weekend, and I live in Los Angeles, but I am here today and uh and you can't see much, but yeah, this is the childhood bedroom here. Wow. Okay, So you were able to provide for your family and now you're young, So I want to hear about what your brand is because there are so many different things that you're doing and I can sort of tell that you are um hunting and then you're gonna gather like you're doing this like you you're just you're achieving success and a lot of it's uh financial and um people are aware of you. What's the goal, the trajectory? How do you organize all this? I know that you've been on many, um many whatever the word is, like seasons of Drag Race and you haven't won, so that you could definitely tell people that winning is definitely not everything for sure for sure. UM, let me just say that, Yes, I did compete on three separate seasons of RuPaul's Drag Race. Season two I came in. I'd only been doing drag for like five months, so I was a total baby. So the first one voted out and after that year, I was like, oh my god, what have I done? Because you know, you sign up for a reality competition show. In my mind, baby, I was going to win, even though I didn't know nothing really about being a drag when you putting everything together myself. My mindset all my life has been I'm going to win. So the prize at that time was twenty dollars and for poor kid, I was like, maybears be all my dreams country, I get it. That was me on the Apprentice. Okay, Apprentice, I was all the money in the world and I wanted the job, so okay, I got that. Okay. Three days later, I was back at the house and I was thinking, oh my gosh, I quit my job because I was working p are in l A. And I remember telling them I needed three weeks off, but I'd set up all my clients and everyone's gonna be fine. I had a backup plan, and they said, where are you going to do? And I said, I'm doing a competition reality show. It's called Rupel's Drag Race. They had no idea that I had even started doing drag, which I had only done it ten times anyway, and they were like, well, that doesn't line up with our company's values and morals. I don't if you do that show, we're gonna have to let you go. And I told him, well, I came to l A to work in television ultimately, so that's what I do. I'm gonna quit. So I left the job, went to win the twenty thousand, came back home three days later with no money, no job, and was like, oh, I lost low, but I I don't stay low too long. When I hit I had a fail button, I feel it, and then I'm like, go back into hustlement. Same person, same person when I didn't win the apparent, the same exactly like you do it, you really get you do it, you feel it, you go low and then you but it almost fuels you even higher and you were before because you just get a fresh, clean slate and it's a new thing. Bethany, you are so right, because I was like, you know what, I'm not gonna I knew that I had a time period between the time that we filmed the show that year in November when they left. The show was going to start being promoted in January, and the first episode was the into January, so I knew I had about a three month period. No one knew that I was not going to win, so and it was the second season, so not many people were chatting and talking things about spoilers and all that. So I started calling up clubs. I started booking myself. I was like, Hi, DJ Pierce, so you know I have Changela, She's gonna be on the new season or RuPaul's drag Rays. And people who knew me in l A from performing, They're like, oh, she's a great performance, she's winning. So baby, I was booking the calendar up. So by the time they saw that I was the first one off already had contracts in places said I was booked. They couldn't let me go unless they had to pay me. So I went and did the job. But I've always been a return client kind of girl. I'm a you're gonna return and you're gonna buy again if you come one time. And that's how I did my shows, Like I knew that as a Dragon Attenner, I was also a salesperson and I was in there selling myself. You asked me what the brand is? The brand is Channgela me, And that's difficult sometimes because you're like, okay, well, I'm My brain sometimes does not stop because at night I'm even thinking about the things that I've established and what I want to do and how i'm you know, how I want to be still visible and how to balance that with work and life and family and still being me. But at the same time, it's like, all right, because you're right. I went to drag race three times. I never won, but I never walked away not thinking I was the queen. But when you say the brand is Channgel, if I can give you just one piece of advice, I think you have to write yourself a blur. But you could say in an elevator and what it what exactly that brand is and what that means? Is that about that showing people exactly had a hustle and that you can knock down, but I'll get right up again. Whatever it means, we don't have to do it here. And it means that every product you do, every endorsement you do, every gig you do, every show you do, with the exception of something some crazy money you can't turn it down, should adhere to that line. Because I'm because you're you're young, and I'm reading all the different things you're doing. At some point you're going to have to really take this into some sort of amazing monetize able return on investment vortex where it's like even getting tight. It's like a it's like a rough diamond that you keep polishing until it's like this like de flawless time, and that's just based on what I'm reading. But we're getting there and talking to you, so you may actually even know what that diamond is. Um So, you said the brand is Chandela, and I love that you said they were always going to come back, and I love that you made it that the show. I don't know if if the show always has the same people come back, but that they brought you back so many times, says so So. I was the very first person that they brought back to compete again on the right that's different today. I came back in an all star season to compete again, and every time that I went back with another opportunity, I felt I was on television. I wanted to represent myself as an authentic person. And I honestly feel like if you watch the show, even though there are moments where it's heated and I'm not always you know, firing on tin, but at the same point, the person that you see on television is the same person that you got right here in this podcast. And I stand by that, and I'm so thank you. I like you to thank you. Um So, do you have money noise now? Like that you're gonna go back to being broken, that you're gonna lose it all, or like, what's what is your relationship with money? I think if you ever grow up without, you always have that feeling that I don't ever want to be without again. And even with everything that I've been able to create and build and I've been building and I'm I'd like to say I'm smart about money. I like to save it. I still drive the same car that I own that I drove in college. Uh, the houses that we have I own, um, but it's I don't spend a lot of things on you know, I've never you know, we didn't grow with a whole bunch of labels and stuff. So I do have some things that are luxury goods that I don't need them and I don't need to showcase or share them to know that I'm doing well. How I know that I'm doing well as my family can you know, eat and be taken care of. But I do always have that mentality of I need more because you never know when a rainy day will come. And we just had a pandemic of a year that there were no drag shows, that there was no touring that there were no in person gigs, and thankfully I was able to navigate that not in a space of fear or uncertainty, because I had prepared for the rainy day well. And it also probably if you are a person who doesn't get stunned, which I can already tell that you don't because you you get knocked down and you take a minute, this was probably a good time for you to sort of plant seeds and nurture and organize and make plans versus just being in, you know, in the entertainment world like entertaining. But I read that you have helped your industry because I didn't. Most people aren't thinking about the fact that right the drag queen quote unquote industry shut down. That's literally entertaining. You have to be out socializing. It's the opposite of COVID nineteen. So that's something interesting to hear. How many drag queens do you think there are in this country? Oh, my god, hundreds of thousands, maybe millions. Well you can tell that by the success of shows like RuPaul's Drag Race that not only have more than thirteen US seasons, but also franchises in multiple countries around the world. And there still seems to be this great attraction. I'm so grateful that there is this interest in the world of drag and seeing it be more visible, especially in television and film. So there are tons, tons, tons And I love that you touched on the fact about helping because um, you're someone who also does that. I mean, I love the stuff that you do with the b Strong Foundation and all the things that you do, and I'm like, how the heck does this lady do it? Because that's what I'm like, I've I want to do too. And when I during the pandemic, when I saw Lady Gaga come together and say, look, I called thirty of my friends, you know, and asked them each for a million dollars and we're gonna help with the COVID nineteam relieve Now, I ain't got thirty friends with a million dollars to give that I know of, But um, I knew that I wanted to help, and that's always been a part of who I am. That's, you know, being a kid seeing my grandma like make food for people in our neighborhood after her came Maria. I remember, I was the I can't speak to anyone else, but I knew I wanted to do something, So I hopped to flight myself when not many people were evil able to get a flight down into Puerto Rico. Flew down there and took some meals from Delta and went and gave them out in the community, went to the Salvation Army, did some stuff for only I only had two days off. I mean it was seventeen was a big touring gear for me. So I went down there and did that with my friend and came back and didn't encourage people to vote for to give. And with regards to the pandemic, I knew that so many of our dragon attain were out of work and they were having hunger issues because they ain't got no money to buy food. So I I know my gift is and I'm so grateful to have not only a platform, but I'm able to connect with people. And so I was able to create this organization called Feed the Queens. I literally did it in this bedroom. I was here like with just a notepad because I always I make lists. That's how I started to something like that. Yeah, that's how I started to I just had the idea to do it, and so um luckily I was able to work. I'm knocked on a lot of doors, a lot of nonprofits, God bless them. But they didn't want to work with me because they were like, well, you're not a five or one C three. It's a whole bunch of red tape. And they don't think that's a real issue. They think that's don't think that's a real issue. Yeah, And so thankfully the Actor's Fund was like, we'll do it, and we won't charge you, we won't take an overhead. Every dollar that was donated, we were able to. I called up some of my dragon retainer friends and we were able to raise in one year a hundred thousand dollars to provide food grants of four dollars each to every dract that applied to get a food grant. We did like these little instru that's yeah, I I do the cash cards for people were doing it right now in Louisiana. So I know it. But you just brought up something that can be related to business. So you helped in Puerto Rico, but you sort of felt like it was a one off and you didn't know how to really make it uh something you could have a real great impact, not that that wasn't impactful, but meaning it sounds like for people listening who want to help in some way, because so many people ask me, so many people do want to help a It's like business. You have to be organized, you have to be thorough, you have to be transparent, you have to get frustrated. It's like starting a business, doing a startup, which is challenging. But if it's something that affects you, so just think about what affects you. It's like business. If it's something you care about, you'll be able to probably successful at it. So it sounds like that's something that directly affects you, something that you understand and something you have a connection to, so you can have a greater impact. What about your romantic life? I'm bethan to get in to see girl. You know what, being a person who's been on the road for like the last ten years, it's really difficult to build a strong, trusting, one on one relationship and I just haven't been able to do that yet. So am I currently dating anyone in a relationship? No, I'm not. I love love. I can watch a j Lo movie Boo and be like, oh I love this, whereas I want to be the wedding planner. You know, I've been maid in Manhattan. But as for a particular relationship for myself and this moment, I don't have it. Am I entertaining the thought? Especially during the pandemic, when you're sitting down here by yourself, you know you're like, well, who's gonna help take care of you? I'm in this house of myself. Who's backs that didn't love? But um no, it has not happened yet, so I'm just throwing work. Oh God, yes, and this relationship. You want to be married, I think that would be awesome, But um I just I would love to date first, and I would love to be able to build like trust. But I'm not in a place, one place at the time long enough to really find that person, or I haven't found them yet. So we'll see, Okay, we'll see. What percentage do you think you are lucky and what percentage smart? Well, I definitely know that I'm lucky. I am incredibly lucky, but I'm also very smart. If we were talking percentages, I would let's go sixty forty sixty smart, forty lucky, maybe even seventy thirty seventy smart thirty lucky because I never won drag Race, but I was really lucky. I would have wanted. Okay, but or maybe not, because you know, I think my entire journey and people seeing me grow up as a Dragon entertainment right in front of them, Um is I'm lucky in that respect because maybe they've seen me and know that changel never won, but she never gave up, and here she is today. That's the brand. You just said it all one, but she never gave up. Hallelu and thank you and see I'm going to remember that because I think the overarching brand most definitely is that, and a part of how I represent that is through creating businesses, creating products. One of those businesses is like, say what entertainment. It's a management company that I created because I had just been ripped off so many times by managers. When we came out of Drag Racist Reality people, there was no there's no map that says and now here's how you make it to success or stardom. We just were like, okay, now what do we do? That's why I say seven sixty smart because I knew that I was gonna have to represent myself a lot of times. And even when I was working with people that weren't honest in that stole for me. It helped me and motivated me to go, you know what, I can do this. Not only can I do it for myself, but I'm going to create an organization that helps does it, that helps to do it for my sisters from drag Race. So we managed now three to four queens. My partner Ron Davis, and I managed them through our organizations Say What Entertainment then and also on products like even in the pandemic I created, I gotta show you this because you know, if it wouldn't be me, I watched the big shot. Honey, I always shoot the shot. Um. This is called sanitizer that proved uh scented hand Sanitizer comes in three different sents. I'm sending you something. Yes, I love what a great name. I love that. Yeah, And it's like Changels shanitizer. It's fabulous. It spray on you, rab it on. And this one is called sugar Daddy because you know I had his rant about I don't have a sugar dad and never had a sugar daddy. And the other one is called professional and it's a fresh like Linen Scent, and ten percent of each of these purchases goes back into Feed the Queens, the organization that helps to provide food grants out of work Dragon. But I love that for all of the like for pride, for floats, when everyone's on top of each other, like crowded in drag clubs, like those are big major events. Maybe you could get, you know, like a deal with them. That's a great name. I love that, and that's so that's great, that's so on brand. Um. But yeah, that's your brand, and that should be all every anthing that you do should sort of adhere to that. That it's about never giving up and going to get it. And it's sort of about more about the journey than the destination at the time because you never know what's going to happen. And then I guess the last one is for your career. What has been the rose and the thorn, the high and the low? Um, I would say that, let me start with the thorn. The thorn I think was the time that I broke my leg on stage. That was a really rough one. Young girl. I was on stage. I was doing a move that I taught to the children on dance moms called the death drop. Okay, I was doing the moved and I was on stage Halloween, New York City. I was at this club near downtown and when UP came down, broke the tibia amphibula bones snapped them out the side of the leg. They didn't come through the pane hoose because you know, I wear support host but I saw the triangle and I laid there. I continue to, you know, do the number, and I was like and then when I tried to get up, I was like, oh, this is not good. They had to roll a guerney through the club because you know, New York didn't handle back interurance through the dance floor, and they rolled me out on Halloween and people were taking selfies and I was like, Hallelula, I'll be back. But I spent three weeks in Lenox Hill Hospital. Thank god, betthean I'm gonna tell you because you know, I didn't grow up with no money, so we didn't have insurance, but I did. I just qualified that October one for SAG Blue Cross Blue Shiel p p O. And I never broken anything before and this and right on October thirty one, I did that leg. So they took me to Lenox Hill. Hallelu great doctors. I stayed there while they reset the leg. The swelling had to go down, and I remember thinking, what have I done and what am I going to do? I'm a dragon, you I perform, I'm a state, I'm on tour. I got all these tourist books. This is my bread and butter in this moment, and now you know now here I am laid up in a hospital with one leg. But I pushed through the physical therapy. I pushed through. I set a date for myself. I went back on touring mark of the next year. The doctor said, no, you can't go to August. I was like, baby, I'll go in flat boots and I did. Went to Australia, performed, had wheelchairs through the airport and then we'll get on stage and do my Channgelin numbers. And that helped me to overcome that the fear of being back on stage and performing, but also getting back to what I loved. So that was a thorn, but it pushed me to the thing well, I would really say my rose and there have been hot moments. I mean, I got to perform Beyonce for Beyonce, okay, at the glad Awards two thousand and eight. Yes, ma'am, we had to approve it, which I'm so grateful she did. She's like she was the first number ever before and I performer. That's money. Whoever's on this, y'all give back to me a link to Channgela and when I tell you, at the end, she and jay Z both gave me a standing ovation. She asked to meet me back in the room. So I get to go in there. Dress is Beyonce and channgelas Beyonce, and and I went and she was just like, you were so good, and that's I could tell you were in it because you know, I can see your face, you know. And I was like, thank you, because you are so in it. I wanted to honor you with this number and thank you. So I did a whole nine minute medley. They told me I had one song, babe, I did eight. You must have been so nervous, you know what, people, I wasn't nervous until everyone kept coming up to me. Right before I was going on going Beyonce, she came out. She's sitting out there in the audience now like she came out to watch your performance. Thank you, Thank you so much awesome it was. That's awesome, all right. So that's a rose? Is that rose? I guess I think the biggest rose would be actually being back here in this house. I'm don't get emotional, but I've got to tell you, growing up and going through situations where you didn't have a lot, and seeing everyone around me work so hard, um like hard work now or very hands dirty labor. I can see, like going around the house at night sometimes when we have my nieces and nephews over and they're all in different beds in different rooms, and you know, my mom moved from Dallas down to Paris to help take care of my grandma, and I'm able to help support her while she's doing that. And seeing my grandma being just this large, comfortable space and having people to help her even when I'm not able to be here, like that's the most awesome. I'm grateful that I have that relationship with my family because so many people do not, um. So I try to share it, you know, to a certain extent on online, to show that there is love out here, and there is love even from your birth family. A lot of times, especially it's gay people. We don't have that relationship. A lot of times with our birth family. We go out there and we find a family. Well, I'm thankful that I've been able to find a chosen family but also still be really connected with the family that raised me. And that's I'm probably just by nature of that relationship educating people in that area that are not as tolerant or open. So it's probably had a good effect totally. You know, you're successful in a completely different way from presented people in that area, you know, Southern Baptist, etcetera. So it's probably been a great eye opening education. Yeah, and I'm still pushing. I like what you said. You know, one time my old boss, all old boss from years ago said to me, you know, I think it's like I was twenty one. I remember I was driving this guy to the airport and he said, Um, I admire you a lot. I think you you're gonna go far, but you you really are a jack of a lot of trades and a master of none and a jail of all trades. Yeah, hallelu hallelle, come on, come on, come on. That either she the up beyond the all of the above. But I will tell you it is that kind of hurt in the moment because I was thinking, this guy thinks that I don't I don't have a specific skill in any one of these. And then that's been in a portion of my life thinking I should cut everything and just do one thing, especially when I created ch Angela. But then I learned even with the with Angela, I'm able to go in so many different directions. When I got on reality TV, I thought, Okay, I will never be able to be an actor, but then I said, no, I'm gonna still go out here an audition and I want them to see me as an actor, and we actually have a film coming out next year. And then you know, and working in as a Dragon ortainer, sometimes they don't take you serious as a business person walk in the room, and I think it's a gift being able to be a Dragon entertainer and play between the genders at times, because you get a greater understanding of how people respond and treat you differently sometimes when you are a different gender. Yes, but also being underestimated can sometimes be a gift. Listen to the Suzanne Summer's pockets. They don't see you coming, they don't take you seriously, and sometimes better because they're just laughing and you're laughing. I did, and I gotta tell you I love listening to her live for you as well as share all of her I mean, come on, it's stopmasters the intelligence they are and she's you know, they don't see you come and I think that blonde she was a domb blonde and you could be you know, you're a dumb drag queen and and they don't see that you're so smart and that's gonna be just know that. So then you have that going in. Okay, they're not gonna say, well, I've got all these plans and I'm playing chess while they're playing checkers. And then just the last thing I want to say to you is you can make that insurance thing for drag queens who are performing part of your charitable initiative, like making sure that they all have insurance, because that that really set you back as much as the pandemic not being able to perform. That could be part of your whole thing. Awesome. That was so great. What amazing. I always like, I don't even know you, and this was one of the best podcast we've done. And that's I mean, I've had serious people on here, but it's never what I expect. I mean, it's always some learning experience and a great conversation and a person I would never have met, which is why I love doing this podcast more than anything I've ever done. It's like you and I would never have had an hour and fifteen minute conversation. So this is awesome and it was great to meet you when I wish you all the luck in the world, and I can't wait to meet you in person and hear about like the next steps in the next chapter. It is to only gonna happen. And trust me, I'm telling Charlie right now, we're making sure you get you some of that. Shanita. This has meant so much to me. I really take this into I've had amazing moments in my life where I've been able to really I just you know, in thinking about things and loving things in my life, they come to me. That's how I ended up living in Jennifer Lewis, who's a great actress and friend of mine, in her basement for ten years, working my way up from being her assistant to being her great friend and and learning so much with her as my mentor. I feel like I helped to create this moment as well, So thank you so so m Hopefully I'm one of the Roses in your bouquet. Come on, Rose, all right from the Titanic. That'll be my drag, Queen Ding, I'll be Rose. That's it, Rose. I want you to have a hat and I want you to look like when you come out for your number. Do this that that. I love it? Okay, I love it all right? Well, thank you so much. Have a wonderful, wonderful day, okay. YouTube Bethany bye bye. Wow. I mean this is amazing. That was such a satisfying conversation that was so inspiring. It was so amazing. It just makes me realize why I love doing this podcast so much. I love it more than anything else that I do. It is just every day in education, like it's a learning experience. It's growing, it's hearing from somebody that I have no idea about about their trajectory that could not be more different than mine in some ways. And I'm so grateful to be able to do this. And um, we'll be doing this in different ways, expanding and broadening soon, so stay tuned for that. But as always, remember to rate, review, and subscribe. I'm grateful for the conversation and grateful for you, So have a learnerful day. H m hm

Just B with Bethenny Frankel

If you can’t handle the truth you can’t handle this podcast. Just B with Bethenny Frankel is the bes 
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