Lady Bunny on Fame, Fascism, and Fried Chicken

The artist formerly known as “Bunny Hickory Dickory Dock” is notorious for big wigs and ballsy takedowns. As an insult comic, Lady Bunny is on par with legends like Don Rickles, Joan Rivers, and Andrew Dice Clay. If drag had been more popular in the entertainment business 30 years ago, she might be hosting The Tonight Show on NBC. But lucky for us, the Wigstock founder and superstar DJ is right here instead: talking smack, naming names, and giving chins, chins, chins across the board! —PATRIK SANDBERG

———

SHADE

“Overused.”

———

EDGELORD

“I don’t know what that means. Is that a sexual thing?”

———

RENAISSANCE

“The fans are going to murder me if I don’t say Beyoncé. You have to be careful what you say because they’re crazy and violent, and that’s just her sister.”

———

EXTRAVAGANZA

“The one and only House of Xtrava-fucking-ganza. One of the still-reigning walk-the-balls houses. I’m the mother of the House of International Pancakes, giving you chins, chins, chins across the board.”

———

FRIED CHICKEN

“Yum. I’m from the South. We like fried chicken, except for Chick-fil-A.”

———

INSULTS

“Bianca Del Rio. What a bitch. She’s so extra chromosome. I’m not saying that Bianca is a hag, but when she met Bill Cosby, he made her an espresso and said, ‘Please wake up.’”

———

GENTRIFICATION

“New York City.”

———

FBI

“The raid on Mar-a-Lago. Get Trump on whatever you can get him on and try him. But there’s a danger in this, because if you don’t get him, it runs the risk of looking like Russiagate.”

———

TUCKER CARLSON

“He’s nuts. He laughs at the most bizarre moments. I will say this, though. He’s consistently had on a few people, like Glenn Greenwald, who bashed the Democrats in a way that makes sense. He gives some people a chance who MSNBC would never have on. It’s important that we question everything.”

———

BUGS BUNNY

“Childhood idol. Hilarious. Did drag a lot.”

———

PRONOUNS

“Not my focus, but they mean a lot to many people, especially those who are finding themselves. I was at a festival, a straight thing in New Orleans, and they said, ‘What are your pronouns?’ I said, ‘Well, if you want to make it easy, she, but I’m not trying to draw boundaries.’ I guess if I had to label myself, I would say I’m probably nonbinary, but I don’t feel the need to stipulate. It’s a young person thing. Most people my age feel the same way.”

———

RENT

“Ain’t nothing going on but the rent.”

———

LABELS

“Do not fit me.”

———

TOMPKINS SQUARE PARK

“It was home to Wigstock, the festival that I organized for 20 years. It started in Tompkins Square Park and many say that its best days were there, except for one year we had to move it to Union Square because there was a homeless riot and they thought we were going to be like communists taking over the park, using Wigstock as an excuse to join the homeless. And I said, ‘No, no, no, honey. We may be homely, but we’re not homeless.’”

———

FAME

“Miss Fame. I just saw her.”

———

MAMA RU

“I bumped into her the other day. We’re old friends. There are so many drag roles that are famous, like in Some Like It Hot or Tootsie, where the person is forced to go in drag because they’re out of work or evading military service. Ru was different. She said, ‘I want to be in drag because I’m gorgeous. Get over it.’”

———

GLITTER

“Mariah Carey’s movie sponsored Wigstock at the pier one year and we showed a trailer. The movie bombed, but now people are revisiting it and saying it’s good. Isn’t that wild?”

———

PrEP

“—aration H. Condoms work best for me.”

———

FASCIST

“That word is thrown around so much that it’s lost its shock value.”

———

BOOMERS

“You know what I can’t stand? Is the damn boomers my age that don’t give a shit. They crawled up the ladder when we were prosperous in the ’50s and the ’60s, when college was cheap and there wasn’t this predatory debt, and now they want to pull that ladder up under them. I just don’t think it’s fair.”

———

AMBITION

“Unbridled.”

———

BALDNESS

“I have never suffered from that problem.”

———

PYRAMID CLUB

“Where it all started and a proving ground for drag queens. I arrived there, in drag, because the band that I rode up to New York with had me come in drag to entertain them because they wanted to see me stop in D.C., which is halfway between Atlanta and New York, and literally go into a men’s room and shave through my foundation. That was their entertainment. It was quite humiliating, but I made it to New York and never left.”

———

———

Hair and Makeup: Lady Bunny

Fashion Assistant: Fernando Cerezo III

Location: Cherry Studios

Special Thanks: Devan Diaz