For those of you reading this column on a regular basis, you know I have made it very clear for about six weeks that Bianca was my favorite and should win RuPaul’s Drag Race Season 6. This is the first time in all six years that I predicted who the winner should be. I could not have been happier that RuPaul crowned Bianca, until I started thinking about the fact that I would be interviewing her, and then I got very excited! It was a pleasure to sit down with Bianca for this exclusive Hotspots interview.
At what age did drag become an interest and how did you pick your name?
I started drag when I was 20. I was working for a theater company and there was an awkward moment when they needed someone to do drag in a play and I volunteered. I have since been on an 18-year journey of being a man in a wig.
I got my name when I was drunk in a bar and a friend said I looked like a Bianca and it clicked. She also picked my last name.
How many times did you apply to be on RPDR and how did it feel when you found out you were chosen?
I only applied once and it was overwhelming when I got chosen. You send in an audition tape and you wait months, and then you get the call and only have 4 days to get everything together and travel to California.
Tell me about your RuPaul’s Drag Race experience.
It’s surreal and you feel like you are in the TV. You never know what’s to come and that’s the part I loved about it. I never thought about winning, just about the individual challenges and trying to do the best I could do. There is no down time between challenges.
How crazy has your life become since the start of this season of RuPaul’s Drag Race?
My life was crazy before Drag Race, but now it’s even crazier. It’s time-consuming, interviewing and planning and traveling all over the country. I just didn’t realize how time-consuming it really was going to be. I am just lucky it happened to me now at 38 instead of at 20, because I can digest it now. It’s an adjustment, but I definitely wasn’t ready for this when I was younger.
If you couldn’t win, who would you want to win and why?
All three of us discussed this and we said whomever won, we would be grateful. I wouldn’t have been upset if either one of them won. They are both so talented.
Tell me about the man behind Bianca.
He has to shave all the time…LOL. The show has shown all of me so I have no secrets; he is the same person as Bianca.
What are you going to do with the $100,000? What’s the first thing you are going to buy?
I have to pay my dentist a lot of money, but I am an old queen, so I am going to do an adult thing and put a deposit down on a condo.
How has drag changed since you started?
Well, drag itself has evolved, but as far as the show, it’s brought drag into people’s homes. I mean, 80 percent of the feedback I get now is from women. However, like everything good and bad, there is this idea that you are curing cancer… sometimes I have to tell these “Beautiful” [not the word Bianca used…LOL] queens, “Calm down, honey, you’re just doing drag.” You are a man in a wig with makeup on, I mean…seriously, it’s what you do with it. You have to know yourself. I grew up in the Ru era, watching the RuPaul show, listening to Supermodel of the World, and it’s great that this has happened to her at this point in her career, and that she has been able to give this golden opportunity to so many other drag queens and the community at large. One of the main changes I’ve noticed is that everyone has a platform now and that has really changed since I started doing drag. I mean Facebook, Twitter, blogs… It used to be if you hated a drag queen, you had to come up and say it to her face. Now, everyone has access to all of these people and can say what they want to them; that has totally changed the game.
What’s ahead for Bianca?
There are two things I am working on besides touring. I am working on a one woman/one man drag cabaret show and I am working on a film with my friend Matt Kugelman. The film is called Hurricane Bianca and it’s about a guy who gets fired from a job because he is gay. Most people don’t know that you can still get fired in 29 states for being gay, so it’s a comedy that brings that issue to light, and hopefully we can use this newfound interest in me to promote and make the movie successful. The man comes back as Bianca to wreak havoc on the town and get revenge.
For more about Bianca, visit TheBiancaDelRio.com.
https://www.facebook.com/TheBiancaDelRIo
https://twitter.com/thebiancadelrio
http://instagram.com/thebiancadelrio#
https://www.youtube.com/user/TheBiancaDelRio
