Music icon Patti LaBelle is a staunch ally of the LGBTQ community, but the singer wants people to know that she was the “original drag queen.”
“I’m the original drag queen,” LaBelle told Page Six. “I was wearing crazy hair, crazy makeup, crazy clothes [from the beginning].”
She has always fully embraced the community, and she says they have loved her right back.
“I always accepted everybody,” she said. “And I think they saw [in] me someone that they could spill their hearts to. And they just follow me. I love gay people. I love all people. I think my gay following realize that I’m one of those girls that they can come to say whatever they have to say, and I say, ‘It’s OK.'”
LaBelle’s Verzuz earlier this year was one of the most talked-about since the online battle series began last year.
At 77 years old, LaBelle says she has no plans to stop performing. Not any time soon.
“I’m so excited to wear pumps and a costume, get on that stage with a microphone in my hand, and to see an audience who’s safe, who’s vaccinated, who’s laughing together, loving together and cheering and all of that stuff. I can’t wait to see a live audience,” she told Page Six, adding that she travels with a masseuse “to make sure we keep these 77-year-old bones right, and I do things in the hotel suite, like jumping jacks and different things to move around. … I take care of myself.”
The singer, chef and actress recently starred in an Old Spice commercial alongside black-ish actor Deon Cole and “A Black Lady Sketch Show” comedian Gabrielle Dennis.
Speaking to People, she revealed her “basic” skincare routine.
“People ask, ‘Why are you so youthful looking?’ I get a lot of compliments on my skin. I use Vaseline to take off the makeup. And then I put on La Mer cream. I’ve been doing it for ever. And now it’s going to be Old Spice [too],” she said.
