Lady Bunny Keeps Things Raunchy for the Holidays

Of all New York City drag stars, there is no one more iconic than Lady Bunny. With her blonde helmet bouffant and hourglass figure, she has sashayed on stages for nearly forty years since arriving in New York where she roomed with RuPaul.

In 1985 Bunny organized Wigstock, the annual drag queen festival that lasted until 2005, and was later revived in 2018. The event became the subject of two full-length documentaries, one in 1995 and a second in 2019. She is also equally well-known as a DJ who has hosted in the nation's major clubs as well as at Pride events throughout the world.

Lady Bunny's retro and outrageous look suggests she would have been home on "Laugh-In" decades ago, but there are few queer personalities with their hand on the pulse of queer culture in the 21st century, as her social media accounts attest.

Bunny turns to the holidays for her latest show, "Very Blue X-Mas," which, as its title suggests, pushes the limits of taste, so expect potty-mouthed parody treatment to more than 30 Christmas anthems, with classics such as "Rudolpho the Uncut Reindeer" and "I Saw Daddy Fisting Santa Claus."

EDGE spoke to the fabulous Lady Bunny about her latest show, the holiday season, and just what her version of "Twas the Night Before Christmas" would contain.

EDGE: On the tiny chance that we have a reader who doesn't know who you are, please introduce yourself.

Lady Bunny: I'm Lady Bunny, a drag queen from New York City, and probably best known for organizing a festival of wigs called WigStock, which ran in New York for about 20 years. I think it was about 20 years. Two films were made about it. The most recent one is Wig with Neil Patrick Harris and others, and the first one was in 1995 called WigStock: The Movie, which was just about the festival. I am also a performer of comedy, usually dirty comedy, and a DJ.

EDGE: Tell us about a "Very Blue X-Mas?"

Lady Bunny: It's a Christmas show that I'm doing this year in New York. It plays through December 15th at the Laurie Beeman Theater in Times Square. I am bringing the trash back to Times Square, screw you, Disney. I will then take the show to Catalina Jazz Club on December 20th, Oscar's in Palm Springs for two shows on the 21st, Oasis in San Francisco on the 23rd, and Hamburger Mary's in Fort Lauderdale on December 30th.

EDGE: How did the idea for the show come together?

Lady Bunny: I always like to have the title express some hint that the show is dirty. Blue is an older word for dirty that isn't in common usage. I like to warn people because this is the odd thing about me, people know me and think, 'Oh, she did WigStock or she's a DJ,' but a lot of times people don't know what I do. Of course, when you're singing songs like "Rudolfo, the Uncut Reindeer," and how you had sex with him you're not going to get on mainstream late-night TV show. I come from the old school of drag. My drag skills were learned in nightclubs, which were sometimes mixed, but predominantly gay. So, I was always encouraged to be outrageous. I don't like to spring my humor on people to where it makes them uncomfortable because it's not for everyone.