Actor

I'm one of the most popular cabaret performers, and I don't sing a note. And nobody expects me to sing.

I'm a worker bee.

I wasn't what you would envision for the son of an Army man. I liked doll baby clothes and twirled a baton. But my aunts and uncles tell me how much he loved me.

I had an awful experience where I went to the U.K. and did reality. I can't even get into it - it was called 'Celebrity Big Brother U.K.'

I can spot a homosexual at forty paces.

I talk about things that happened in my life. Now, do I embellish? Absolutely. Come on, we all do it. It makes for a better story. But it always comes from a germ of truth.

That's the secret to happiness. Find something you can make money at that you really love to do.

I was always the class clown. I was always the funny one.

I had 20,000 followers and I treasured that. People'd say, 'Oh that's nothing.' I said, 'What are you crazy? That's 20,000 people that wanna hear what I gotta say!'

I fell out of the womb and landed in my mother's high heels.

I don't mind playing gay because there's a whole plethora of gay roles out there, but if I get asked to play one more Southern hairdresser, I'm going to scream.

We've got to be kind.

In my day there was no one to tell me anything and I feel I have a responsibility to help a new generation. A lady in Atlanta came up to me and said: 'Honey, you are a ministry.' It is about the knowledge I can give others. I think gays will look after their own.

I was reading Agatha Christie as a little boy.

I always call my journey into sobriety, my journey into queerdom, because I really did hate everything about myself.

In a perfect world we'd want gay people to play gay people, but I think that's a good rule of thumb: Whoever gives the best audition should get the part. My problem is getting anybody to hire me for anything other than queens.

Growing up, the main thing I was ashamed of was my voice. It is very effeminate.

Beverley Leslie was closeted. I'm not closeted. He was a little homophobic. He's a social climber. I'm nothing like that. He had a mean streak. I don't think I'm mean at all.

You almost had to have grown up in the church like I did to realize how dark that is, how dark it is to be a kid and be told that God hates you or that there's something wrong with you.

One of the main reasons I started writing these one-man shows was that this really evil casting director once said to me, 'you're peripheral and you'll always be peripheral. You'll come in with the zingers and have very little to do, so just accept that and take the money.'