“Very few people recognize me out of drag,” she said. In her black punk-rock T-shirt and sneakers, she looked more like a part-time guitar teacher than an undercover queen. “They’ve become kind of the yin and yang of drag.”Ī week later, an inconspicuous 56-year-old materialized at a West Village coffee shop and said, “I’m Bunny’s evil twin.” The voice was instantly recognizable, but little else: wavy shoulder-length gray hair, wrinkled forehead, naked lips. “Bunny is more of an old-school clown-slash-entertainer, whereas RuPaul has become more of an Oprah-like oracle,” said Michael Musto, a longtime nightlife columnist. Like a record store clinging to a gentrified block, her insult-comedy style is a throwback to her scrappy East Village roots - or maybe just a stubborn refusal to evolve with the times. Her signature look - big curves, bigger hair - has endured, as has her act: scowling, spiky comedy, laced with political jabs and honeyed with Southern-fried gregariousness.Īnd while much has changed in LGBT life over the past 17 years (same-sex marriage, pre-exposure prophylaxis, Caitlyn Jenner and “RuPaul’s Drag Race”), Lady Bunny retains the rude and crude spirit that has eroded over the decades, both from downtown Manhattan and from drag itself, now that “Drag Race” has minted a new crop of camera-ready stars. And you’re going to pay to get out!”Ī fixture of New York nightlife since the early 1980s, when she moved from Atlanta with her pal RuPaul, Lady Bunny is arguably the city’s reigning drag queen, less a mother hen than a queen bee with plenty of sting. “We’re going to lock the doors, and I’m going to strip. It’s not me,” she told the raucous crowd, many of whom had come in wigs and sequins. “It is my job as the producer of this show to keep things moving,” Harris said.īut Lady Bunny kept talking, promising “un-P.C. After a few minutes, Neil Patrick Harris, who helped revive Wigstock with his husband, David Burtka, popped onstage in a tank top. ![]() ![]() She was flanked by three other drag veterans in gold, who traded unprintable barbs (mostly about who was the oldest or most promiscuous). As most of the crowd already knew, it was Lady Bunny, Wigstock’s buxom, potty-mouthed founder and ringmaster, wearing a kimono-sleeved metallic-gold minidress and a towering blond bouffant. Finally, the correct song played, and the owner of that Tennessee twang emerged in full splendor.
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