TODRICK HALL
Find out why the Drag Race fave and dance sensation isn’t getting into a spin over his haters
Compliments are few and far between these days, so when Todrick Hall pays me one about my “excellent penmanship,” I gratefully accept it. Take what you can get, ladies. I tell him that friends often compare my psychotically neat scrawl to a serial killer’s handwriting; mass murderers are also keen calligraphers, don’t you know? “I love serial killers,” he replies.
Huh... excuse me?
“That’s one thing you would never know about me,” he assumes, correctly. “I have always been intrigued by their minds and what makes them go to that place, specifically Jeffrey Dahmer because a) he killed a lot of gay men and most of them were African American, and b) he was the most forthcoming [ about his crimes] and explained things.”
Well, that’s another thing Todrick can add to his already- exhaustive skill set: an encyclopaedic knowledge of some of the world’s most infamous criminals.
If you look up the term “multihyphenate” in the dictionary, chances are you’ll find a picture of Todrick. The man is a YouTube sensation, a dancer, a choreographer, a singer, an actor, a writer and ( sharp intake of breath) a director, and you can bet your bottom dollar that his CV spills beyond the standard two pages.
Rising to fame as a contestant on American Idol in 2009 — he reached the semi- finals — then becoming a household name as a guest judge on RuPaul’s Drag Race, the Texan has also conquered Broadway with a razzle- dazzle turn in Kinky Boots, and choreographed routines for a gay wet dream of artists, namely Ariana Grande, pal Taylor Swift and even Beyoncé. “I remember Beyoncé looking at the screen and saying, ‘ I want her to feel beautiful and, right now, I think we could do something better’,” he reminisces.
“She took the time to dress a person who was in the background [ of a music video], and to me it’s about the little details, the fact that she shook the hands of all the people who were there. Oh, and that she didn’t allow people to refer to background performers as ‘ extras’.”
I first meet a jet- lagged Todrick at Attitude’s photoshoot on a drizzly day in London, where temperatures – and the mood – are slightly frosty after discovering the Grade II- listed building we’re shooting in doesn’t have any heating. Fortunately for all of us, a frantic scramble for portable heaters is fruitful.
We reunite a few days later at the somewhat swisher Soho Hotel and the atmosphere is warmer in every conceivable way as a thawed, wellrested and fedora- wearing Todrick buzzes with excitement about his new project, BBC’s The Greatest Dancer.
He has been recruited for the second series, joining fellow “dance captains” Cheryl, Strictly Come Dancing’s Oti Mabuse and former Glee star Matthew Morrison in their search for the country’s next twinkle- toed talent, while Curtis Pritchard mans the phones as the show’s receptionist.
Bringing sparkle, a sense of mischief and a shit- ton of sass to proceedings, Todrick, who started dancing when he was just eight years old, didn’t need much persuading to sign on the dotted line.
“I’ve always been passionate about dance. I love the fact that people can tell stories and take you on a journey without opening their mouth, singing a lyric or saying any lines,” he gushes, adding: “I’m
[ also] thankful to people like the BBC who are willing to cast somebody who is not from the UK and an openly gay person.”
Viewers can look forward to witnessing the birth of a beautiful friendship between Todrick and Chezza, the crowning moment of which comes in the opening episode when he has the honour of wiping away one of her tear drops. “It was warm and glittery,” he giggles.
The former Girls Aloud favourite performed Todrick’s bona fide bop Nails, Hair, Hips,
Heels at Manchester Pride, before accompanying him on stage at the London Palladium during his Haus Party tour last October.
Todrick teases that another collaboration is in the works, including one that could take up to nine months to complete…
“I don’t want to give any spoilers but it is something that has been discussed. Whether we’re going to collaborate on music or on making a beautiful biracial child is up for debate,” he chuckles.
Seriously, his time on The Greatest Dancer has made Todrick broody. “Watching these kids perform, it just makes me want to have children. Being a good parent is the most beautiful gift you can give anybody. You have such a responsibility to guide someone in the right direction and teach them how to be a good human being. I don’t think there are a lot of people who get excited about those parts, and those are the parts I’d excel in.”
After flying in from the States to film the series, Todrick has fallen in love with the UK and plans to move here permanently. One wonders if that decision hinges on the result of the General Election, though.
“One of the main reasons why I’ve thoroughly enjoyed being in the UK and why I want to move here is because I love [ its] open- minded nature,” he explains. “Racism, homophobia and sexism are issues all over the world but I feel them less here.
“I put tickets on sale and the Palladium sells out because people are like, ‘ We don’t care that he’s African, we don’t care what his sexual orientation is, we don’t care what his background is’.”
It’s a far cry from his upbringing in Plainview — population 22,000 — where tolerance for difference was by no means the rule of thumb.
“I’ve always been intrigued by the minds of serial killers”
“I was told by adults that gay people are sick and twisted”
“Racism is such a crazy thing, even in our own races,” he says. “I remember being in The Nutcracker at nine years old and it wasn’t until I was 19 that my dance teacher told me that people wrote letters and unsubscribed from being season- ticket holders at Ballet Lubbock because they’d chosen to cast an African- American boy as Clara’s little brother. They had a difficult decision to make: do we take him out and give him another role to keep our subscribers and not offend people? [ Instead] they chose to give me those roles and I was so grateful.”
Todrick’s sexuality also made him a natural target for bullies at school. “It was never physical. It was just constant, people calling me sissy, punk and fag. When you’re a kid, you don’t even know what it is that you are, you just know that you’re different, that you love princesses, that you love playing with Barbie dolls, that you want to wear your mom’s shoes when she’s not in the room. My mom cried so many nights, wondering what she could do to fix [ the bullying].” He continues: “The crazy part is there were a lot of teachers and people who stood by and allowed these things to happen. I was told by adults, the only people that were there to guide me, that [ being gay] is wrong, that gay people are paedophiles, they possess diseases, they’re sick and twisted. You’re afraid to come into contact with one, let alone admit to someone that you are one.”
Todrick connects the dots between his experience of being bullied and his larger- than- life personality. “There’s a point where you wake up and [ have to] decide: am I going to let them defeat me, or am I going to be so loud and proud as a defence mechanism to make people fall in love with [ me]? The reason why I rely on comedy and am often the loudest person in the room is because I was so hurt. It comes from a very dark place.”
However, he has learnt to draw power from the pain, no more so than in his music, like recent release Fag, taken from his album Haus Party Pt 2, which features the lyric: “They called me f ag/ Now I’m the one with the bag.” He quips: “I definitely have my favourite Louis Vuitton bag... but it’s more talking about the fact that I was still able to become successful.”
Just to clarify, the song still speaks volumes if, like me, your go- to accessory is a Sainsbury’s bag for life.
“I don’t know if the word [ fag] holds the same weight [ in the UK] as it does in America,” Todrick says. It does, I tell him.
“I was conflicted about whether or not to be put the song out but I think reclaiming a word that people have used to destroy you and making it empower you lets little kids who are being called that at school or whatever [ know] that [ they] can definitely come out on top.
“Those people who called me those horrible names and made me cry so many times have given me this fire. I don’t know if I would have had that if I’d had an easy childhood,” he maintains. “I don’t know that I would have had the [ same] drive to work hard, to prove people wrong and to prove to myself that I could do it and that I wasn’t a mistake, that how I felt wasn’t this sinful thing. It’s actually one of the things that I now wear as a badge of honour. I love being a part of the LGBTQ community,” he stresses.
Speaking of badges of honour, Todrick happily takes credit for encouraging his close chum Taylor Swift to wear hers as a vocal LGBTQ ally, most notably on her rainbow- washed anthem You Need to Calm Down. He choreographed, and appears in, the video.
“One of my favourite things that I’ve done is to be a friend to Taylor and be able to help her realise that using her voice is a humungous instrument that is able to change the minds of those who, without her, may have never looked at gay people as actual people.
“When I’m at a club or a concert and I hear people scream the line, ‘… shade never made anyone less gay’ [ from YNTCD], I can’t help but take a little bit of ownership of the fact that I helped her realise how powerful it would be for her to make a statement like that.”
The conversation arose while the pair were discussing the idea of one day starting a family — not together, don’t worry Cheryl.
“I always wanted to handle the situation delicately because it’s not my place to tell someone else when it’s the right time for them to talk about something.
“All I really wanted her to know was that, as somebody who was a bystander, I didn’t know how comfortable she was with me and my lifestyle, and I was apprehensive about fully opening up to her. She was talking one day about having kids and I asked her: ‘ What would you do if your child was to tell you that they are gay?’ She looked at me and was like, ‘ Then they would be gay. That would be no big deal.
It’s not something that I would think about. I would love them and support them with whatever they wanted to do’.
“At that point, I pointed out: ‘ It’s important that you let people know that you feel this way’,” he recalls. “Taylor is just so about love. I call her and she listens to every single situation with every person I’ve thought for one second might be the future Mr Hall.”
And how is the search for love going, I ask him.
“It’s not going well,” he sighs, “but I’m hoping that when I come over to the UK, I’m gonna find my Mr Charming.”
Todrick also has Taylor’s back in her ongoing row with her former record boss Scott Borchetta and sworn enemy Scooter Braun, who used to manage Todrick — the former sold his Big Machine music label to Braun, reportedly for in excess of $ 300m (£ 230m), and he now owns the first six albums of Swift’s expansive career.
“I’m not going to stoop to the level of those who never back me up”
“When you are creative and are given a universal or God- given gift to create art, business or no business, there should never be a time where someone can take your voice and what you created away from you,” Todrick argues. “She’s just wanting to own the things that she created.”
Claws sharpened, Todrick took a huge swipe at Braun on Twitter last summer. And he stands by what he wrote.
“I always think about the things that I say before I say them,” he assures me. “My experience with Scooter Braun was my own personal experience. I can’t speak to Taylor’s experience with him.
“There are a lot of producers out there and people in Scooter Braun’s position who have the ability to change the world when it comes to music. I don’t think they understand how much, growing up as a young gay man, it would mean for me to be able to turn on the radio and hear a man say the word ‘ boy’, ‘ he’ or ‘ him’ in song,” he adds.
“I tried to explain that to Scooter several times when I was managed by him and it didn’t necessarily…” he pauses. “I can’t say how he felt about it but I feel that without walking in that path, without experiencing that, without going through all the things we’ve talked about today, about being called fag, sissy and punk, that anyone can understand how powerful that’d be.”
Todrick has been burned online, too, and I ask him about the very public accusations he’s faced regarding the alleged non- payment of his performers — the likes of Drag Race’s Manila Luzon — and allegations regarding the treatment of an employee, a complaint that has reportedly now been resolved.
But Todrick is measured in his response. “My shows are still sold out, my fans have stood beside me, and they know my heart and my integrity, and they know what type of person I am,” he says. “They know that I would never intentionally do some of these things, any of these things that are being said about me.”
Vowing to be “more careful about who I allow into my circle,” Todrick insists the drama won’t deter him.
“My show is full of love and I focus on that every night… when some kid comes and tells me that because of my music and my message they didn’t take their own life, that they are now wearing heels at school, and they are winning prom queens.
“I’ll sleep with one eye open, but what I’m not going to stop doing is inspiring kids.”
Todrick turned to both Taylor and RuPaul while he was in the eye of the storm. “When I called Taylor, I said, ‘ I’m so sorry to be bothering you, I know you’re probably busy, but you’re the only person who I can talk to’. “She was like, ‘ Todrick, I know why because I’m a professional at dealing with these situations. People have been trying to cancel me for a long time’.”
Like his BFF, Todrick is set to shake off his haters in song. “People who have followed this story are going to know exactly what [ the] lyrics mean but I’m not going to stoop to this level [ of] going back and forth with people whose intentions have never been to back me up.”
Mama Ru also took him under her maternal wing. Fishing out his mobile phone, Todrick reads aloud a sweet text message from his mentor. “I haven’t read this to anybody [ before now],” he says. “When I wanted to go out and defend myself and say, ‘ This is not true, this is not what happened, this is just a completely fabricated part of the story,’ Ru said: ‘ Trust me, this will blow over, they aimed at you because you’re kindhearted and socially conscious. They knew they’d get a reaction out of you and affect you. Most people suspect that they don’t really exist unless they’re affecting someone else. The only way they can feel themselves is through other people’s feelings, good, bad or otherwise.
‘ Hear this: when your actions [ are] coming from a place of love, never worry about how it is perceived by others, know that your intention is love and nothing is wrong with that. XO, Mom’.
“I don’t think he would mind me saying that,” he shrugs. “I’m learning so much from somebody who has experienced these things. RuPaul has opened the doors for so many people and he’s the most loving, kind, caring, considerate soul I’ve met. The fact the people in our own community attempt to bring him down, even though all he’s ever done is give us a platform and a ground to stand on, for people to hear our voices and our stories, it makes me sad but [ it] lets me know that no one is exempt from this.
“If people can hate on Beyoncé, they’ll hate on anyone!” he exclaims. Having bombarded Todrick with questions over the course of our interview, it’s only fair that he gets to ask one back.
“Why do reporters put ‘ Todrick Hall’ and then my age right afterwards? It’s the most cruel thing anyone could do.
“I would like to suggest putting ‘ Todrick Hall, ageless unicorn’ and then just stop there,” he says.
“If someone wants to find out, they can go and Google it for themselves.”
Suggestion received.
Todrick, please direct your eyes to the top of the story.
The Greatest Dancer starts on BBC1 on 4 January
“I focus on things like when a kid tells me because of my music, he didn’t take his own life”