2012 Nightlife Hall of Fame: Lady Bunny

What do you need to know about Lady Bunny? Her resume reaches back into New York’s fabled club-kid era: drag queen, emcee, DJ, organizer of Wigstock, arbiter of drag dos and don’ts, blogger, cultural and political commentator. You name it, Bunny’s done it.

“Without a doubt, she is the funniest, wackiest, zaniest, madcap, anything-goes drag performer ever!” says New York drag doyenne Sherry Vine.

That anything-goes style may have been molded in East Village clubs like Pyramid, but it has its roots down south in Atlanta. Bunny was a student at Georgia State University in the ’80s when she first joined forces with a young RuPaul, go-go dancing in gay clubs for Larry Tee’s band, The Now Explosion. The queens she saw in those clubs were her first exposure to true glamour. “As soon as I saw any drag, I was fascinated by it. And they could tell that I was gonna be one of them.”

A Now Explosion gig at The Pyramid Club brought Bunny to New York for the first time, where the city’s wild and rough-around-the-edges drag scene inspired her to found the legendary outdoor drag event, Wigstock. “When I first moved to New York, and I saw her at Pyramid dancing violently through the room, I thought she was fantastic,” says Toilet Boys front man and DJ Miss Guy.

“Some drag queens tend to be ditzy and unfocused, but Bunny’s a real pro,” says Village Voice gossip columnist Michael Musto. “Back in the 1980s, she and I won Michael Alig’s very first King and Queen of NY contest, and Bunny immediately told me we should think of a way to market our titles. A smart cookie!”

While producing Wigstock’s 10-year run, she also managed to appear in films like Party Girl and To Wong Foo: Thanks For Everything! Julie Newmar. Over the years she’s also made a name for herself with her official blog at LadyBunny.net, voicing her often-controversial opinions on pop culture and politics.

“Bunny is a true legend because she’s incredibly smart, hilariously funny and is a top-notch entertainer,” says Paper Magazine’s Mickey Boardman. “The first big story I ever did for Paper was a piece about Wigstock in 1993, so I interviewed Bunny. I was in awe of her because she was and continues to be a downtown superstar.”

These days, in addition to her Wednesday night show at XL, Lady Bunny appears on RuPaul’s Drag Race spin-off, RuPaul’s Drag U, dishing out advice to a new generation of potential drag superstars. And all the while, her signature look—long-sleeved minidresses, upper and lower lashes, sky-high blonde wig—has remained constant, an eternal flame of drag.

“She’s one of the few entertainers to have branded a look,” says Sherry Vine. “When you see a big, blonde, gravity-defying bouffant you immediately think, ‘That is so Bunny!’”

Your look has been pretty consistent since the ’80s. What first inspired your look?
People tell me I look like Dusty Springfield, mainly because she has a horse face—had a horse face. But I never intended to—even though I do love her—I never purposefully tried to impersonate anyone. I don’t kid myself that I’m a mannequin that can wear any silhouette that comes into fashion. People tell me I have nice legs so I show ’em. Everything else is pretty much corrective. It’s really just what suits me.

Every few years there seems to be renewed rumors that you’re going to revive Wigstock. Ever going to happen?
I won’t say never. It doesn’t feel like it’s time to revive [Wigstock]. The average person in New York is not as cool as they were when we started. When I first arrived in New York, at The Pyramid, I wanted to do Wigstock because I couldn’t believe the drag that I saw. It was so different from anything in Atlanta. I came to New York and it was people doing stuff like Hedwig! It was people like Deee-Lite and RuPaul! It was Joey Arias doing Billie Holiday. It wasn’t people doing traditional lip sync. It was drag queens writing magazines, like Linda Simpson. That’s what I wanted to showcase, and I’ve begun to see that die out a bit.

How does your current show, Hot Mess at XL, stack up to things you’ve done in the past?
In all my time in New York I have never done a weekly cabaret show where I attempt to learn choreography! Working with the girls, having a cast and the way a cast feels, you know it’s an organism. I’m not saying we’re anywhere near as polished as a Broadway show, cause this is just a kooky drag revue. But there are props and there is choreography and there are lighting cues. Being part of something like that is—it is sisterly, and that’s just something that I enjoy.

When you first started doing drag did you, in your wildest dreams, think that it would take you the places that it has?
No. I never had any idea where I was going. For ages my act was iffy at best. I’d say the first 10, 15 years, I might have an occasional thing that stuck, but if I was getting flown around, it was because people wanted to party with the originator of Wigstock, and the act was inconsequential.

Your opinions on politics and culture have also made you something of a lightening rod, thanks to your blog. Have you ever worried that your outspokenness conflicts with what people expect from a drag queen?
It completely conflicts, and it may have shut some doors for me, but it’s opened other doors. There’s a lot of problems in the world and people with some sense—which I guess in my old age I’ve come to think I have a little of—I feel that the people who have a lick of sense need to speak up.