‘You’re gonna get wet’: Drag insult comic Bianca Del Rio comes to Brooklyn

By Joshua Encinias

Bianca Del Rio is emerging from her crypt to bring her “Dead Inside” tour to the Kings Theatre on Thursday, February 29.

Del Rio became a seasoned drag queen at the gay bars in New Orleans, until 2005, when she moved to New York after Hurricane Katrina.

By the time RuPaul tapped her to join the sixth season of “Drag Race” in 2014, Del Rio had more experience than your average entertainer on the show. Naturally, she swept the competition.

“‘Drag Race’ is an amazing platform, and you never really know who’s out there in TV land enjoying it until you hit the road,” Del Rio says. “It’s interesting to see the straight girls collect us like Pokémon. They have their favorites and they fight for us online.”

Whether you’re a straight girl trying to catch ’em all or, in Del Rio’s words, “their very straight and uncomfortable boyfriend,” or active in the LGBTQ community, you can expect the self-proclaimed “clown in a gown” to offend everyone when she comes to Flatbush on Thursday night.

Don Rickles in a dress, the veteran (read: old) drag insult comic will mine humor from politics, pop culture, political correctness and everyday life through the eyes of someone who’s “dead inside.”

Bianca Del Rio sat down with Brooklyn Magazine ahead of her Kings Theatre performance to talk about insulting her highest-paying fans and coming up in the New York drag scene. She has some nasty things to say about local legend Lady Bunny and why she doesn’t worry about being accepted by mainstream comedians.

I saw you perform at Dragcon last year, and I was happy to learn that you save more raw material for your live shows instead of putting it online.
I just always prefer a live audience, especially when you’re doing something where an audience knows you and they’re coming out of their way to see you, then you can deliver the goods. When you’re doing something for television or commercial, at certain events, you really can’t unleash the demons. My shows are a safe space where I can unleash the demons.

You once told Newsweek, “You can’t put a clip of your show [up] because people don’t understand context anymore.”
Overall, I think most people get it. I come from a time where that kind of shit doesn’t bother me. You know, I existed before social media in a world of performing with a live audience, and that’s still what I do nowadays. Obviously, the platform has given you exposure to more people as well as “Drag Race,” but that’s not the whole story. So people can pick and choose what they want. And as we’ve said, context is very important. If you know the whole setup, if you spent the whole evening, if you know the beginning of the end, if you know the arc, then you can form an opinion. But overall, we live in a society where everybody just throws things out there. I always find it amusing when people try to take me down. “Oh, how dare you? She’s this and that!” Oh girl, shut the fuck up. That’s usually my response to that.

Before you were on “Drag Race” in 2014, you came up in New York bars and hosted a show at XL Night Club (R.I.P.). Did you perform in Brooklyn?
I didn’t really venture over to Brooklyn that often, so I’m excited to play Brooklyn this first time. It was a very different drag scene, and I was in the city cause it was convenient. I lived in Harlem and then I lived in Hell’s Kitchen. That was kind of my neck of the woods so rarely did I venture out that way. So Kings Theatre is my first big Brooklyn endeavor. If you’re going to do it, do it right. The King’s Theatre, that’s the place to be.

How do you like performing in New York over other cities?
New York’s an amazing group of people. First and foremost, if you’re born and raised there, you’re a lucky son of a bitch. And if you move there, you’re a smart son of a bitch. So I think that they’re open to all types of things and all forms of entertainment. And they’ve always been rewarding, they get it, you know, it’s kind of like U.K. audiences and audiences in Australia, there’s just this appreciation they have for a twisted mind, which has always worked out well for my career.

Whether it be a bar for 50 people or, a large venue like Carnegie Hall, you have to look at them in the same way. You can’t get lost in the idea like, “Oh, shit, I’m in Carnegie Hall,” because you’ll lose your path. You’ll freak out where, for me, you just have to treat it like, “All right, it’s 10 people out there. Go and do what you do and trust your instincts. I’ve been blessed to experience both, and I have to say that all of those nights in a bar with five or 10 people, definitely helped me appreciate the audience of 2,000 or more, you know.

Speaking of twisted New York minds, your friend, Lady Bunny…
Oh God. What did she do now? Did she die? [Laughs.]

Not yet, she’s still kicking.
Barely!

Where did the two of you meet? Craigslist?
Well, that would be the clean version. We met in New Orleans about… God, let’s see, it was the mid-’90s. She was in town doing a show. We met then, we became friends. Now this is pre-social media, so we stayed in touch when she would come to town. When I moved to New York, we were hired to work together, which was a hoot.

The words legend and icon get used quite too often amongst drag queens, and I have to say, she is truly one of the funniest, most rotted, hateful drag institutions that exists. And I hope people understand that is a real legend. That is a real icon. That is a sick, twisted son of a bitch, but truly one of the best. When you get a call from Bunny, you got to stop what you’re doing. You got to sit down. It’s like what your mother calls, you can’t get off the phone quick enough, but you also have to take a minute and just accept whatever she’s throwing your way. We call them drive-by Bunnies.

Just now you weren’t afraid to joke about Bunny, but sometimes queens will cover their shade by saying “she’s my sister” before letting loose. How did that become a thing?
I don’t know if it’s new. I think we just live in a society where everybody wants to be liked and all eyes are on us now with the way the drag has exploded into the mainstream and on TV. And with cancel culture, everybody’s just trying to cover their ass, but everybody deep down is a shady, nasty cunt.

It’s a little tricky where people like Bunny and I don’t necessarily care because we’re the biggest joke. There’s nothing you can say to me that’s gonna make me feel less than. I know what I am, I know what this is about, so I don’t take it personally on any level. I think that everyone’s just trying to be a gay role model. That person who’s fabulous and you’re like, Oh honey, please.” If I showed you half of the texts that I get you would go, “They’re all shady bitches.” They’re just too afraid to admit it. But do you! If that’s your route, do your route, but don’t fuck with me when I’m on mine, because I’m doing what I do.

Standup comedy is still very much a boy’s club. Do you feel part of that scene or does it even matter to you?
I go, what’s acceptance? What’s acceptance? People often say when they’re talking about gay people, they say “the gay community” and “we as a community.” I’ve never been to a fucking gay community meeting in my life so I don’t know what that involves. For me, I don’t perform at comedy clubs. I don’t perform with a comedy troupe. My friends are not necessarily comedians. I know funny people, but I don’t know if I travel in that circle, and I’m not sure what the criteria are to be amongst that group. But I am a comedian who happens to be in drag, in the vein of someone like Charles Pierce and Dame Edna, that’s my presentation to the world. It might put me in a different category, but I consider it all entertainment.

You talk about how you like to do meet and greets because it gives you material for the performance. How do you build it into your show?
Look at it this way, I’m not Barbara Streisand, so the fact that they’re spending money on a meet and greet to meet me means they’re obviously a twisted son of a bitch who gets it. It works out well for me because you get to schmooze with them prior to the show. Even if the show goes to shit, even if the whole night is not my favorite, I know I have those first 20 rows of those people who I met earlier that I can draw from. When you’re doing insult comedy, it works really well. You know who’s the drunk one. You know who’s in a miserable marriage. I’ve gathered all this information pre-show, so all of it sits with me. They’re your biggest cheerleaders, and then I like to turn on them. And that’s why they pay to be in the front row! I often say, if you’re going to SeaWorld, and you’re going to see this whale and you sit in the front row, you’re gonna get wet bitch. You’re gonna get wet.

Tickets are on sale at TheBiancaDelRio.com. There are two VIP packages available for purchase, in addition to general admission tickets.