DON’T PUT BIANCA DEL RIO UP ON A PEDESTAL
Bianca Del Rio, perhaps more than any other performer, has taken drag far beyond midnight shows at nightclubs.
We know her, of course, as the Season 6 — and arguably best — winner of “RuPaul’s Drag Race.” She’s since expanded her empire to include films, books and almost nonstop touring.
“It’s better than the alternative, sitting at home crying that no one wants to hire you,” Del Rio quips.
She starred in a pair of well-received “Hurricane Bianca” films, set in a small Texas town. A third is reportedly in the works. Her bitingly funny advice book, “Blame it on Bianca Del Rio,” was released in 2018. She’s been featured in a Starbucks commercial and made her West End debut earlier this year.
Her fourth stand-up tour, It’s Jester Joke, has been going since February and visited Australia, Asia, South Africa and Europe before heading to the U.S. She performs Friday at Cullen Performance Hall at the University of Houston.
The trek even took her to Wembley Arena and Carnegie Hall, a first for a drag performer at both venues.
“I never thought those places would be possible. That’s, to me, where you kind of go into your little gay boy dreams. ‘Oh, maybe one day,’ ” Del Rio says. “But then everyone around you is going, ‘B—— , you’re 44, get with it. Do it now before you die.’ ”
So what’s left on Del Rio’s to-do list? “I have faith in America, because if they elected somebody with orange hair, a clown with no talent from a second-rate reality show, maybe president of the United States would be perfect for me,” she says. “I could be president and first lady.”
Ouch. But that sharp tongue is what’s made Del Rio a star and earned her a devoted legion of fans. They sell out meet-and-greets. They follow her from city to city. They dream of being “read,” or insulted, from the stage. They gift Del Rio with detailed drawings of herself that she sometimes turns into merchandise.
“Let’s be fair, any drawing would be better than my makeup,” she says. “On occasion, you’ll get a bottle of Fireball, which doesn’t hurt.
“I spent many, many years in a bar doing happy hour, doing bingo, and there’s nothing worse. Probably the only thing worse would be giving people test results. The fact that
people do come to a theater and sit in a chair to get to watch you live, that’s a completely different game.”
Before the makeup and wigs, Del Rio, whose real name is Roy Haylock, was a celebrated costume designer in New Orleans. The Del Rio persona was born in the mid-’90s and immediately demanded attention. Haylock moved to New York City after Hurricane Katrina,
costuming for Broadway shows and operas.
The Del Rio character continued to develop, eventually obliterating the competition on “Drag Race” and becoming the clown in a gown we now know, love and fear. Even today, Del Rio’s unrelenting brand of insult comedy stands alone amid so many sequins and showgirls.
Other queens are funny, to be sure. But no one is doing it quite like Del Rio. And she has no intention of toning it down amid the current obsession with cancel culture and keyboard activism.
“Political correctness and the fact that you can’t make fun of anything without someone being offended is really ridiculous. It’s just noise. And it’s endless outlets for noise,” Del Rio says. “Social media’s a blessing. It’s definitely changed my life and my career. But it’s also very damaging on many levels because so many people are just giving their opinion. And that’s really all it is, is their opinion.”
Del Rio says navigating success “in the gay world” is even more challenging. And she’s no role model.
“They love to put you on a pedestal and say that you’re an advocate and an amazing person. I’m not an advocate. I’m not an amazing person. I’m an entertainer, which means I do what I do, and I don’t expect you to like everything I do, and I’m OK if you don’t like everything I do,” she says. “Look what’s going on with Ellen right now. It gets very, very tricky when they put you on a pedestal, and that’s a place I prefer not to be.”