Sweetie, darling?
He’s faced ghosts and ghouls in American Horror Story, goblins and monsters in Celebrity Big Brother, and the wicked witch of the west – aka Karen Walker – in Will & Grace. But now, our favourite frosted Mini-Wheat Leslie Jordan takes on his most hair-raising challenge yet – our sweetie jar of random questions…
What’s the biggest diva tantrum you’ve thrown?
In the Big Brother house! It was the one where Frenchy and Lauren [Goodger] came in drunk and I jumped up in the middle of the night and said, “Shut your fucking mouth!”
No, no, no! The bigger one was when Frenchy tore up our food and I said, “You dirty French slut”, or something.
She crawled out of the sewers of Paris!
If you could have any superpower, which would you go for? To be invisible. I wanted to be able to walk into a gay bar and have people just shit and fall back in it. That’s all I wanted. I wanted to be famous my whole life. Then I got a little bit of it and I thought, “Oh my God! I just wanna go invisible!”
If you could go back in time to any period of history, which would it be? The 1960s. In the one gay bar, there was everybody from lawyers to students to leather queens to drag queens. There was a real sense of community. I loved that era.
What’s your favourite word? “Massive.” I’ll say this or that, like, “His dick was massive.” “Brilliant” and “massive” I hear more than any word ever here in the UK!
If you could eat one food for the rest of your life, what would it be? Fried shrimp. You call them prawns. When they’re dipped in egg and you coat them in bread crumbs.
What film can you quote the most lines from? Sordid Lives. That movie I did with Olivia Newton-John.
What’s your favourite place in the world?
Puerto Vallarta. It’s a little gay mecca down in Mexico. I’ve never done this, but my friend says you just go up to the boys and what you say is, “Do you need a little diaper money?” Because they’re all married with children, but they’ll do anything for diaper money. Who’s the most famous person you’ve met? I did a TV series with George Clooney for two years, before he was famous. So probably George Clooney.
What’s the most overrated thing in the world? Jim Carrey said, “I wish everybody in the world could be famous and rich so that they would know that that’s not it.” Your generation especially. They want that Kardashian kind of fame but they don’t seem willing to do the work. I think it was George Clooney who said, “Fame is like that little red dragon that you thought you’d die if you didn’t get as kid. Then you get it and it’s kinda out in the back yard and you play with it every once in a while, but it’s doesn’t really mean everything.”
If you could give your 15-year-old self a piece of advice, what would it be?
I didn’t vote until I was 42, when I got sober. I had never registered to vote. I was the generation where we marched in the streets and we were hippies. The only change that can come within the gay community is through legislation. Your vote counts. I would tell myself to get sober earlier and also get a little more politically involved.
What does success mean to you? I want to be financially set. That would be success to me.
What’s your biggest fear? The underlying fear is always that I’m coming off too effeminate. That’s an old, old fear. The wonderful part in recovery with alcoholism is that you recognise it for what it is, and say, “Oh, that’s that,” but it’s this fear of coming off effeminate.
Would you like a toy boy?
I had straight boys that I kept for years. My generation, we did that. Did we have sex? Well, I’d blow ‘em maybe. I was with one for ten years. But now I’ve been with my boy three days. He’s 20 years younger than me, but he has a fetish for silver headed men. It was an online thing for a long time. He flew to LA three days before I left for London. After three days, he asked me to marry him – and I will. I told him, ‘I’m gonna go to London for 30 days and let’s see what happens when I get back.’ It was this connection. We tried to have sex about ten times but we couldn’t because we’d keep talking.
What’s the best book in the world? To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee.
What’s your hidden talent? I have one talent, and that’s stealing every scene I’m in. [Laughs] What you see is what you get with me!