The Diva Rules Read online

  If you’re paying attention, you can learn so much from watching people, and that’s all I’d do all night long from the main stage. It’s where I got my real education. It’s where I learned how to read—and own—a room. It’s where I learned about star power, darling. And it’s where I learned the simplest, but perhaps most important, lesson of all: If you want to succeed, the first thing you’ve got to do—before everything else—is just show the hell up (mentally and physically) fully prepared to take on whatever may be required of you. I know that Susanne would never have hired me if I’d been too drunk to dance, and if I’d missed that opportunity—who knows?—I shudder to think that I might never have met Ru. And when I look at who among my friends from that time made it, it’s not the ones with only talent and ambition. We were all talented. We all wanted more for ourselves. It’s the ones who simply kept their shit together enough to notice when they got noticed.

  rule no. 9:

  BE THE HONEY and WAIT FOR THE BEES.

  To get to the top, you’re going to need people around you who support not only your career but also your soul. And I’m not necessarily talking about your friends here. (Of course, they’re important too. I personally keep a very tight inner circle, or so my husband raves.) No, I’m talking about the other F word: “fans.” You need them, now and always. Whether you’re a receptionist or a CEO, the more fans you have surrounding you, the easier success will come to you (and keep coming to you) in every area of your life. The difference between divas and everyone else is that divas consider every person around them potential members of their adoration society. So, as a diva, know that when you’re working in your office, dancing in a club, buying a book (ahem), shopping for new clothes, or making an upside-down half-caf skinny 108-degree latte, you have just one job: Win over everyone around you.

  Luckily, we’re all born with charisma. Some of us, however, just know how to channel that charm a little bit better than others, and as a result, fans are just drawn to them like pigs to . . . you get the point. Perfect example: Adore Delano. I say this with nothing but pure love, respect, and adoration, but you and I both know she was a not-quite-ready-for-primetime drag queen who wore messy-ass shake-and-go wigs and midcalf gowns. (Oh yes, honey, I am still talking about her hemlines.) I’m not being shady here. I’m just telling it like it is . . . or hopefully (fingers crossed) was. And yet despite her unpolished aesthetic, Adore is so incredibly charismatic, nothing else mattered in the end. I fell madly and truly in love with her, and she won lifelong, devoted fans—myself included—from the moment she uttered her first “Party!” That’s magnetism, baby. If you’re funny and you can carry on a conversation worth listening to, make it be known. If you’ve got it, werk it! And if you don’t, go get an effin’ candy dish, fill it with chocolate, and offer everyone you meet a piece. I’m dead serious.

  I’m not saying I ever needed to bribe people to hang out with me. People have always been drawn to me from my earliest days. I am just saying that serving up some real sweetness, coupled with sweet realness, has definitely helped me in my life.

  After I graduated from college at nineteen, I needed a job. My parents had taken a second mortgage out on their house to pay for my tuition, and room and board, and the moment I sissied my walk across that stage to get my degree, my mom said, “Congratulations. Sally Mae wants her money back.” She wasn’t messing around either. She literally handed me the book of payment slips, and from that day forward, I was responsible for paying not only my own living expenses but also my college loans.

  I registered with a temp agency and almost immediately got permanently placed as a receptionist at a clothing showroom in NYC’s famed Garment District called Casablanca and Fundamental Things. My main job was to answer the phone, and you know I worked that line like a diva. In my head I was Lily Tomlin’s Ernestine the operator (Google it, young’ns). “Casablanca and Fundamental Thiiiiiings,” I’d sing in my most sultry voice. It was all I could do to make that place seem more fabulous that it was. Everyone who worked there would have rather been working for Thierry Mugler, Oscar de la Renta, or Vera Wang, but instead they were stuck selling mid-price-point polyester clothing to Bible-toting Midwestern women. The customers weren’t buyers from Bloomingdale’s or Bergdorf’s. They were the buyers from Dillard’s and Bon-Ton.

  You couldn’t work at Casablanca and Fundamental Things and be a fashion snob, but the head bitch in charge certainly tried. She was this uptight woman named Gail who always wore full makeup, pumps, and a pencil skirt, and had her hair done up in a “Jersey poof” updo so shellacked it looked like a croissant in the back, helmet in the front. A “crullet,” it you will. Though I lived for that, it was obvious that her main problem was that she clearly needed to get laid, and my main problem was that I needed to be able to sneak out for auditions whenever I had one. You already know this about me, but I do not stop until I get what I want. And Gail wasn’t going to be the first one to take me down. Child, puh-lease. So here’s what I did: On my lunch break, I went to the dollar store and hauled back a giant bag of candy, which I then set out in a dish on the edge of my desk. I also casually placed my pack of Marlboro Light 100s in plain view, a sign they were available for bumming. Finally, I stashed all the menus of the local restaurants in my top drawer, so if anyone ever got hungry, they’d come to me to place their order. Very quickly, my desk became the social center of the office. Everyone would stop by to grab some candy, have a smoke, order lunch, or just chat, and as a result, not only did I have more fun at work, but I also became more than just the receptionist. Prior to talking to me, all of the ladies at Casablanca and Fundamental Things saw me as a nineteen-year-old kid who fell somewhere between a mindless theater-college graduate with zero ambition and a gold-digging hooker looking for a sugar daddy. But after talking to me, they started to get to really know me and understand how serious I was about becoming a recording artist/Broadway star. Pretty soon, some of them were even offering to cover the phones for me if I had an important audition. I eventually won Gail over too. Seeing how many fans I had in the office, she never made my absences an issue, and before long, she even started asking after my auditions and rooting for my success. Even the owner, Sam, was into my success! I would answer the phones, and when he would call, the first thing he’d ask was how my latest auditions were going. When I landed Seduction later that year, they were so happy they threw me a little going-away dinner when I had to quit the job to pursue my dream. It had been a tough start at a new job with a close-knit group of ladies who had been working there for many years and had zero interest in widening their circle of friends. They all ended up being incredibly personable (even Gail) and likable when they took the time to talk to me. Who cares if I had to lure them at first with my candy and ciggy-butts bait? I am the honey, they are the bees, and in the end, they couldn’t stay away from my desk. #Winning.

  THE

  CHILDREN, WINNING FANS, ONE BY ONE BY ONE, IS HOW YOU GET SHIT DONE. And I’m not talking about using people either. I’m talking about forming real relationships. To win fans, all you have to do is just spread love (and, if necessary, also candy, cigarettes, and pastrami on rye). If you can make everyone within twenty feet of you genuinely feel better about themselves, or even just their day, by being around you, or simply just listening, you’ll have not only loyal fans but also loyal friends. And when an opportunity does come along, they’re the people who’ll help lift you up so you can reach out and grab it. Remember this: somebody is always going to win the prize, so honey, why shouldn’t it be you?

  rule no. 10:

  CELEBRATE YOUR COMPETITION.

  When you’re out there fighting tooth and acrylic nails for success, you’ve got to get to know your competition. And I don’t just mean the bitches to your left and right. I mean, everyone: the success-hungry masses nipping at your six-inch stilettos, and the one gorgeous diva who is already on top, who is already winning at everything you so desperately want to do. Study each of them—up
, down, and sideways—like it’s your job. Make it your mission to learn what they do well, and then start doing your own version of the same damn thing—only better.

  Madonna has always been my idol from the moment she released her debut album, Madonna, in the summer of 1983. I was fourteen years old, and when I heard her for the first time, I would’ve sworn to you right then and there that the world had stopped spinning. Forget Belinda Carlisle. Madonna was who I wanted to be. And then—then!—two years later, she went and married my ultimate dream guy, Sean Penn, whom I’d been fantasizing about since Bad Boys and then, of course, Fast Times at Ridgemont High. Madonna was living the life I was meant to live, and I became obsessed with everything about her.

  She was everything to me then, and she still is everything to me to this day. I love, adore, and respect her so much. In fact, I still have a huge Truth or Dare poster, which has survived my many cross-country moves, hanging on my living room wall. And in my office I have a sign that asks, “What would Madonna do?” Whenever I find myself stuck, or lost, or at a crossroads, it’s the one question that shows me the way to the right answer every time. She is the true north on my diva compass, shining her superstar light on my path forward. Too much? Nah, I don’t even think so.

  OK, OK, children, she may have gotten a little loopy lately, and those grills were a bit much even for me, but you should never, ever forget what a trailblazer Madonna was. She always stood up for what she believed in, even if her beliefs weren’t popular at the time. She was always an open and fierce advocate for the gay community, even when Elton John was still in the closet. She always embraced her sexuality and was never afraid to express it, even when the entire Catholic Church came down on her for it. (The Vatican once proclaimed one of her concerts one of the “most satanic shows in the history of humanity.” Apparently, John Paul II was as big of a drama queen as Madge herself.) And she always had the power to surprise, delight, entertain, and even shock us, changing her image every time we saw her. Before the dawn of social media, I remember waiting with bated breath for her next video, her next magazine cover, her next tour, just to see what amazing new look she’d unveil. And she never disappointed.

  By the time I’d moved to New York City, my dream was clear: I wanted to become the next Madonna, and nothing was going to stand in my way, not even the queen herself. When I was twenty, just a month or so before I landed Seduction, the famous nightclub impresario Susanne Bartsch, who had already recruited me to Vogue at her downtown parties every week, invited me and my crew to Vogue on center stage for her first Love Ball, a star-studded event to raise awareness and money to fight AIDS. It was so crowded that you could hardly move, but everyone who was anyone was there: designers Carolina Herrera, Donna Karan, and Thierry Mugler; David Byrne of the Talking Heads; artist Keith Haring; Vogue’s Andre Leon Talley; RuPaul; Studio 54 owner Steve Rubell; gossip columnist Michael Musto. The New York Times wrote about the event, saying, “The Love Ball was to the typical charity affair what the Sex Pistols were to Mozart.”

  The evening had all the elements that make New York City nightlife remarkable: beauty, pageantry, celebrity, and gender confusion. Leading figures from the fashion industry were on hand to sponsor, perform, or judge in perhaps the biggest public display to date of “Vogueing.”

  I certainly wasn’t the only one Vogueing that night. There were amateurs, giving it a go for charity, but I, of course, was not. I was the pro, brought in by Susanne to show how it’s really done, and I was without a doubt serving up so much sexiness in the Roseland Ballroom that night that no one could’ve missed me. I wore my platinum-blond ponytail snatched high and tight, along with my usual bra, leggings, and boots. This time, I also added a new accessory: knee pads.

  THE

  WHEN COMPETITION GETS FIERCE, as it always has and always will on the great dance floor of life, it’s easy to get down on the other bitches gunning for you. It’s easy to hate them for stealing your moves or for making you feel scared or for even existing. How dare they! But rather than throw shade and hate, here’s what I want you to do instead: Fill your heart with gratitude and thank every single one of them for making you try harder, risk more, and be better than you ever would have been without them. Without the people who are constantly trying to outshine us, we would be the big, giant C word: complacent! (What did you think I was gonna say?)

  Legend has it (and Susanne Bartsch confirms it) that my idol, Madonna, was in the audience that night, and the Love Ball is where she was introduced to Vogueing for the first time. Of the event, which raised $400,000 to fight AIDS, Susanne has been known to brag, “Madonna came, and the next thing you know, there’s the ‘Vogue’ video.”

  She’s right, too. Ten months after the Love Ball, Madonna released “Vogue,” and when I saw the video for the first time, I was absolutely gutted. Everyone in my inner circle, including Willi Ninja and Cesar Valentino, called me up, all, “Girl! That hair, that bra, those moves, your everything.” And she picked Jose and Luis Xtravaganza, two the best Voguers on the scene and my shade-throwing rivals, to be her teachers and backup dancers. Once they teamed up, Madonna started doing everything I’d already been doing for the previous four years in the clubs. To say she was actually doing me might be presumptuous, but the coincidences were beyond.

  Of course, in the short time between the Love Ball and “Vogue,” my life had changed drastically. I’d landed Seduction and was touring the country and even shooting music videos. Michael Bay, who’d go on to direct Armageddon, Pearl Harbor, and all the gajillion Transformers movies, directed our music video for “Heartbeat” in Los Angeles. He’s a great guy, and I got along famously with him. But, man, he is completely obsessed with tits! It was a tiny problem for me, literally, because believe it or not, at the time, I had none! We’re talking practically lowercase A-cups here. But Michael kept saying, “Could you push your boobs up more? Higher? More? Any more?” By the time we were actually filming, I was wearing two of the thickest padded pushup bras I could find, stuffed with my finest Lady Footlocker socks, and hoisted up to my chin. (If you watch that video on YouTube, you’ll see me and my very obviously padded bra dancing in silhouette.)

  After my video aired on MTV and the song hit #13 on the Billboard charts, Marthe, our label rep at Vendetta, called me up and said, “I want you to know something and I don’t want you to get upset.” Never a great a way to start a conversation. It turns out that that Madonna’s people had called my people and accused them of promoting an artist—me!—who was too closely emulating Madonna, and Madonna was not happy with it. Oh, the SHADE!

  Initially, I was devastated. But then it dawned on me. Madonna knows my name. She knows who I am. She knows I exist. And that gave me life. And, after that, the room kind of faded, and Marthe kept talking about something else and blah-blah this and blah-blah that, while I imaged Madonna’s gorgeous lips repeating “Mii-chellle Vii-sage” slowly, over and over. I just thanked my lucky stars for shining on me, uh, wherever I am. At that moment, I realized I was fierce enough to make Madonna notice me. And that meant I was doing it right.

  rule no. 11:

  BELIEVE YOU’RE THE BEST (or FAKE IT UNTIL YOU ARE).

  If you never struggle with self-doubt, then congratulations: You’re perfect . . . and annoying. We get it. Now, die, robot, die! If you do struggle with self-doubt from time to time (or, you know, even all the time), then welcome to the club—you’re officially human. Do not let that nasty little voice in your head take over your life, or you could lose everything. I’m not being dramatic when I say that either. We all have this idea that if you have a down day, that’s OK, because tomorrow you can start over again. New day, new you, and all that. And while that sounds nice, I think it’s total bullshit. Insecurity is a greedy bitch, and she only stops when there’s nothing left of you to take. So if you give in to her, even just a little, you will spiral downward, and the lower you feel, the harder it’ll be to rescue yourself.

  Never give up. Never surre
nder. Today is the day. What are we waiting for? We will be invincible. I love you, Pat Benatar.

  OK, I’m going to let you in on a little secret that only Ru and my husband know: My confidence is a total act. Behind all of this hair and these incredible God-given cheekbones, I’m an insecure mess. Always have been. My inner saboteur, if I let her loose, tells me, “You’re aging. You’re overweight. You’re washed-up. You’re not worthy of anything. Not love. Not friendship. Not success. And most certainly not natural breasts.” Right before a gig is when I’m always at my most vulnerable. My inner saboteur always sneaks up on me in my dressing room and grabs me by the (false) lashes, whether I’m taking my seat next to Ru at the judges’ table on Drag Race or taking the main stage when I’m touring the world. But—and this is a huge “but,” just like I like ’em—during the split second when I go from offstage to onstage, right as I’m about to sashay into the spotlight, I somehow find the courage, or maybe just the grit, to beat that nasty bitch back until I can no longer hear her voice over my own. Being able to find your fierceness, even in your weakest, most vulnerable moments, is what makes you a diva. Never—you hear me?—neeeeh-verrrrr let anyone see you sweat. I know that’s a deodorant commercial, but it’s a damn good one. And the reason you remember it is because it’s true. (Sidebar: Dry Idea execs, call me. Let’s tawk.)