Speaker 1: But We Loved is a production of iHeart Podcasts and
Speaker 1: the Outspoken podcast Network.
Speaker 2: I think the most difficult moment for me during that
Speaker 2: time was living in an apartment with a closet full
Speaker 2: of designer clothes, no furniture, and then going out and
Speaker 2: trying to try to cop, trying to cop, and so
Speaker 2: I couldn't afford a couch, but I could afford hope.
Speaker 2: And there in lives that sad part right making these
Speaker 2: choices of do I buy furniture for my apartment or
Speaker 2: do I buy heroin? And the latter unfortunately one.
Speaker 1: For a long time, as a gay kid, growing up
Speaker 1: religious and in the South, I thought being gay was
Speaker 1: the worst thing I could ever be. Now, as a journalist,
Speaker 1: I'm trying to unlearn that by seeking out our history,
Speaker 1: and what I've found are people and stories full of courage, perseverance,
Speaker 1: and love. In this episode, we'll meet Louise Camacho Extravaganza,
Speaker 1: one of the choreographers of Madonna's music video Vogue. We'll
Speaker 1: learn how his choreography for her would go on to
Speaker 1: influence generations of queer life and pop culture, and how
Speaker 1: the fame he was quickly thrust into came with a
Speaker 1: Dark Side from My Heart podcast. I'm Jordan and Solve
Speaker 1: and this is what we loved. I have this theory
Speaker 1: that every time a gay man hears the nineteen ninety
Speaker 1: song Vogue by Madonna is when he has his gay awakening.
Speaker 1: I think I was in the eighth grade when I
Speaker 1: had mine, and I first heard it. The music just
Speaker 1: spoke to my soul. Ooh when that bass hits, do
Speaker 1: doo doo, doo doo doo, It's so good. And when
Speaker 1: I saw the video, my mouth was on the ground.
Speaker 1: The way these men were moving their bodies in all
Speaker 1: the ways I would have been mercilessly bullied for here
Speaker 1: they were confidently striking a pose. I was too young
Speaker 1: to have the language to describe how I felt, but
Speaker 1: now I know it was queer self expression, unabashed and unashamed.
Speaker 1: My next guest, Luise Camacho Extravaganza, was one of the
Speaker 1: choreographers of that music video that, by many accounts, brought
Speaker 1: voguing from the underground ballroom scene into the mainstream. His
Speaker 1: work with Madonna would change the world, but much before then,
Speaker 1: from the time he was a little boy, he knew
Speaker 1: that he was destined to be a star. Louise, you
Speaker 1: are a globally known dancer now and very famous for
Speaker 1: popularizing this incredible art form, voguing. But I wonder was
Speaker 1: that always your dream and aspiration as a child. Did
Speaker 1: you always want to be a dancer.
Speaker 2: I don't know if I always wanted to be a dancer.
Speaker 2: When I was in front of the mirror, you know,
Speaker 2: with my hairbrush for a microphone and a towel wrapped
Speaker 2: around my head, I thought I was going to be like,
Speaker 2: I don't know, boy George or Michael Jackson or something
Speaker 2: like that, something that was of show right, of show business.
Speaker 2: And I didn't know if it was going to be
Speaker 2: dance or not. But I had a lot of energy
Speaker 2: which my mom saw and to kind of like rein
Speaker 2: it in, she put me in a boy's movement class,
Speaker 2: which wasn't really a dance class per se. It was
Speaker 2: more like, let's get the energy out of these voices
Speaker 2: bodies and then that way the parents can take them
Speaker 2: home and won't be bouncing off the walls. So it
Speaker 2: was literally run across the room, roll, you know, roll around, jump,
Speaker 2: you know, things like that. And so the teacher, his
Speaker 2: name was Frank Ashley, and he had a little dance company,
Speaker 2: a little junior dance company apparently saw a natural talent
Speaker 2: in me and asked that I come back for another class.
Speaker 2: Eventually it turned into me going to dance classes like
Speaker 2: four times a week.
Speaker 1: Well, what was the moment that you sort of knew
Speaker 1: that you loved dancing and you loved expressing yourself through
Speaker 1: moving your body.
Speaker 2: I think it was probably the first time I ever
Speaker 2: performed on stage with the little junior dance group and
Speaker 2: the lights hit and they put a little outfit on me,
Speaker 2: and I just loved that. I loved I love the
Speaker 2: light that shines on me. I loved that the audience
Speaker 2: was in the dark, and it was almost like I
Speaker 2: was back in my room by myself. And at the end,
Speaker 2: just the applause and looking side to side at the
Speaker 2: other people performing with me, that we kind of did
Speaker 2: something together and we projected this idea, this art form
Speaker 2: that people really liked. Was I just think it was
Speaker 2: a life changer for me.
Speaker 1: Well, fast forwarding a little bit, now, tell me about
Speaker 1: when you first knew you were gay and how you
Speaker 1: came out to your parents and your family.
Speaker 2: I probably first knew I was gay when I went
Speaker 2: into high school. I didn't really know what gay or
Speaker 2: being gay was. And then I get to high school
Speaker 2: and it was the high school performing arts. For me,
Speaker 2: it was like oh, entering the big leagues. Like I
Speaker 2: didn't know any of these people, and I was alone
Speaker 2: and we were in the locker room about to like
Speaker 2: go into our first dance classes and one of the
Speaker 2: older a junior I think he was a junior at
Speaker 2: the time, he came in and he looks us over
Speaker 2: and he goes, okay, uh, you you and you you'll
Speaker 2: be hanging out with us because you're gay. The rest
Speaker 2: of around straight, so fuck y'all buy And we were like, okay.
Speaker 2: I mean he was brash and bold, and he obviously.
Speaker 1: Moved he read you.
Speaker 2: I just like the fact that he wanted us to
Speaker 2: kind of hang out with them or you know what's
Speaker 2: like with his group.
Speaker 1: Well, so you have become so famous for bringing voguing
Speaker 1: to the world stage by all of the work that
Speaker 1: you've done, especially with Madonna, But how did you first
Speaker 1: get into voguing? Tell me that story.
Speaker 2: It was that guy. He was He was the one
Speaker 2: that you do used us to the houses and.
Speaker 1: The balls, and the guy who had sort of.
Speaker 2: He was. He was also a dancer and so you know,
Speaker 2: he was sassy. And after school we played a game
Speaker 2: called red Light green Light Vogue, which is like red
Speaker 2: light green light one, two three, and instead of like
Speaker 2: you know, freezing before you got to the person to
Speaker 2: tag them out, you hit a pose. So the main
Speaker 2: person would turn around, he would say red light green
Speaker 2: Light Vogue and we would try to run towards him,
Speaker 2: and then when he turned around, we would strike a pose.
Speaker 2: And when we were trying to you know, establish or
Speaker 2: kind of cultivate our little voguing style, we integrated our
Speaker 2: technical dance moves into the voging style. So that's what
Speaker 2: sort of set us apart from the guys that were
Speaker 2: vote at the time because we injected our classical training
Speaker 2: into vogue to make it our own. That was my
Speaker 2: introduction to voguing. It was my introduction to the ballroom
Speaker 2: house culture.
Speaker 1: What's the story of the first time that you went
Speaker 1: to a ball?
Speaker 2: So the first time I went to a ball was
Speaker 2: a Paris's Burning ball.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 2: Yes, And it was in Harlem at the Elks Lodge
Speaker 2: in Harlem. If you've ever seen pos and you look
Speaker 2: at the inside of where they do the balls. It
Speaker 2: was almost exact replica. Building was really really old and
Speaker 2: it looked like a miniature version of what used to
Speaker 2: be like an opera house, right, And so it was.
Speaker 2: The first floor was just a wood floor with tables
Speaker 2: and chairs on either side, with a dance floor if
Speaker 2: you will, in the middle, and if you're looking towards
Speaker 2: the back, there was a stage. And then if you
Speaker 2: walk towards the stage and turn around, you'll see that
Speaker 2: there was a second floor and it was a U
Speaker 2: shaped balcony that went all the way around with tables
Speaker 2: and chairs on top of that as well. You smell
Speaker 2: the wood floor when you go in. It's smelled.
Speaker 1: And what did the people look like when you got there?
Speaker 2: Two people looked like beautiful exotic birds. To me, it
Speaker 2: was this plethora of beautifully adorned beings, which really really
Speaker 2: fascinated me because I know most of them didn't look
Speaker 2: like that when they were in the daytime. Right. The
Speaker 2: drag queens were in sequins and in feathers and you
Speaker 2: know big you know hairdoes and hats and wow, it
Speaker 2: was just like Carnival and it was just a parade
Speaker 2: of really beautifully dressed people because they were trying to,
Speaker 2: you know, outdo each other, trying to put their best
Speaker 2: foot forward and trying to emulate a lifestyle that wasn't
Speaker 2: our own in the daytime. A lot of them were
Speaker 2: also sex workers, and so there was a cross section
Speaker 2: of a lot of people who could project this other
Speaker 2: level of being at night and in the ballroom and
Speaker 2: not get judged by it, and to live out that
Speaker 2: other life in the ballroom and be regalled for it.
Speaker 1: I Love the Ballroom was founded in the late nineteen
Speaker 1: sixties as a response to white drag ball being rigged
Speaker 1: against black and brown queens. Ballroom was their opportunity to
Speaker 1: create their own world where they were the stars. Because
Speaker 1: of stigma, conventional job opportunities weren't often available to these queens,
Speaker 1: so many were low income or pushed into sex work
Speaker 1: for survival. Voguing was about aspiration. Ballroom dancers wanted to
Speaker 1: emulate the persona, the confidence, and the fame of the
Speaker 1: models on the covers of Vogue magazine. They dreamed of
Speaker 1: seeing themselves on the cover, wearing expensive designer clothes and
Speaker 1: striking a pose. The balls were also competitions chosen families
Speaker 1: or houses would compete or walk in all kinds of
Speaker 1: categories for prestige that would reward the best voger, the
Speaker 1: best model, the best dressed, and so on. Louise competed
Speaker 1: that first night he attended a ball, but it wasn't
Speaker 1: for voguing. It was for drag. He had also just
Speaker 1: officially become part of the House of Extravaganza and they
Speaker 1: wanted him to win.
Speaker 2: My first category was not vogue. My first category was
Speaker 2: witch cleanup and drag, which grew up and drag is,
Speaker 2: I mean, to put it lightly, is just a regular
Speaker 2: guy getting up in drag and trying to pass as
Speaker 2: a girl. Because one day I went to school for
Speaker 2: Halloween as one of the cheerleaders. It was just a floppy,
Speaker 2: curly wig that I got from somewhere and the school uniform.
Speaker 2: I don't even think I was tucked at the time,
Speaker 2: and you know, I put eyeliner, Metscara and lipstick and
Speaker 2: it was I was good to go. That was my
Speaker 2: first category that I ever walked at a ball was
Speaker 2: between and drag. It was like work, bitch, and all
Speaker 2: this energy around and I was just looking around like, wow,
Speaker 2: this is like perfect chaos. Because it was chaos. It
Speaker 2: was like like I had always been there that first ball.
Speaker 2: First of all, my sister came with me to the
Speaker 2: ball because I needed to use her as an excuse
Speaker 2: to get out of the house, even though she's younger
Speaker 2: than me. But our father picked us up from the
Speaker 2: ball and he came in, and thank goodness, I was
Speaker 2: already done with my category and had changed back into
Speaker 2: my boy clothes and stuff like that. I did not,
Speaker 2: quote unquote like my dad growing up, because you know,
Speaker 2: he would tell me boys don't bounce balls that way,
Speaker 2: or a boy is don't hold their books that way,
Speaker 2: or boys don't stand that way. You know. He was
Speaker 2: just trying to toughen me up just a little bit.
Speaker 2: And yeah, he picked us up and took us home,
Speaker 2: and we were not in trouble. What's interesting is I
Speaker 2: didn't know why he didn't, you know, bring down the
Speaker 2: gauntlet on us, and I never understood. I think my
Speaker 2: first time is my favorite memory. Every time I think
Speaker 2: of the ballrooms, I think of the first time that
Speaker 2: I was at that Paris ball, I really do, because
Speaker 2: it was like chaotic, It was, you know, the stars
Speaker 2: a lot like I don't know. It was this moment
Speaker 2: that when you draw the curtain and you walk through
Speaker 2: and you know this other world and is before you,
Speaker 2: and you feel comfortable in that world. I didn't even
Speaker 2: feel scared.
Speaker 1: Louise had just competed in his first ball and he
Speaker 1: had even won a category. More importantly, he was now
Speaker 1: officially a member of the House of Extravaganza. He and
Speaker 1: his friend Jose Extravaganza, who he went to high school
Speaker 1: with and who he competed in balls with, honed their
Speaker 1: voguing technique and they practiced at the balls. They began
Speaker 1: performing all over New York and around the world. Although
Speaker 1: voguing was gaining popularity within the gay community, it was
Speaker 1: still relatively unknown to the mainstream. But Madonna heard about
Speaker 1: the dance and she wrote a song about it in
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety. She began thinking about the music video and
Speaker 1: she wanted real voguers from the ballroom scene in it.
Speaker 1: The video would change Louise's life and the world. So
Speaker 1: it's the late eighties and voguing is still relatively underground,
Speaker 1: and at the same time, Madonna has pretty much become
Speaker 1: the biggest pop star on the planet. What is the
Speaker 1: story of how you met her and how you became
Speaker 1: her dancer.
Speaker 2: Madonna also was a club kid. I'll start there, because
Speaker 2: she just wasn't a person who kind of walked in
Speaker 2: from nowhere and said I want to record a song
Speaker 2: about voguing. Now. She frequented the clubs, and so when
Speaker 2: she recorded Vogue, it was a natural progression for her
Speaker 2: and she wanted voguers. And her friend, Debbie Mazar, who
Speaker 2: the actress today, was her makeup artist at the time.
Speaker 2: And Debbie goes, let me introduce you to the House
Speaker 2: of Extravaganza. It was like six degrees of separation. Debbie's
Speaker 2: friend who was friends with my friend's boyfriend, and they
Speaker 2: were all hairdressers, and so she wanted she wanted to
Speaker 2: meet us, and we went to Tracks, which is the
Speaker 2: club that David the Pinos spun at in the middle
Speaker 2: of the day and he started playing music. They opened
Speaker 2: up the doors, and you know, we were kind of
Speaker 2: just voguing, and then a limousine pulls up and out
Speaker 2: pops Madonna. And the first thing I said to myself,
Speaker 2: I was like, oh my god, she is tiny, little,
Speaker 2: tiny girl. And so she came into the club and
Speaker 2: she sat down and she was like what you got,
Speaker 2: and we were like all right, and we just started
Speaker 2: freaking going off and voguing, and she was like, this
Speaker 2: is awesome. And before she left, she was like, hey,
Speaker 2: you guys want to hang out tonight. I was like, yeah,
Speaker 2: you want to hang out with us tonight? I know
Speaker 2: when you're hanging out Madonna, but we're hanging out here.
Speaker 2: She's like, okay, I'll go with y'all. Everybody started just
Speaker 2: performing for her, and she sat on the speaker and
Speaker 2: I stood in between her legs, and you know, we
Speaker 2: would just vibing that way, and I don't know, we
Speaker 2: just grew close. And that's how that's how our love
Speaker 2: of you know, our love of Madonna and started. Wow.
Speaker 1: Well, you and Jose Extravaganza choreographed Madonna's video for Vogue.
Speaker 1: It is something people often say is one of the
Speaker 1: greatest music videos of all time. What was your favorite
Speaker 1: memory of that whole music video experience.
Speaker 2: It was the wardrobe. What was exciting was getting to
Speaker 2: the soundstage and getting into hair and makeup, trying on
Speaker 2: these beautiful clothes, and all the clothes were go ta
Speaker 2: and and so even though we and Jose were trying
Speaker 2: to keep our cool about the whole thing, like it
Speaker 2: was exciting for us because we knew that this was
Speaker 2: a turning point. I mean it was a real life
Speaker 2: video shoot with production, and I mean it was like, okay,
Speaker 2: so we are now playing with the big dogs. And
Speaker 2: that whole process of watching all of these departments come
Speaker 2: together to produce this imagery and this video was really
Speaker 2: the high point of that whole video experience for us.
Speaker 1: How did you feel that day when you walked on
Speaker 1: set and there was just all of this incredible production
Speaker 1: and resource and money put behind something that you were
Speaker 1: leading God, you know I felt, I.
Speaker 2: Mean, the little boy Lewis inside was like, yes, this
Speaker 2: is it. I'm never going back ever again, you know.
Speaker 2: And but of course I had to like tell myself,
Speaker 2: rain that shit in, bitch, because you have a job
Speaker 2: to do and if you want to keep doing what
Speaker 2: you're doing for a long time, then you can't. You know,
Speaker 2: you got to be professional. I had to rise to
Speaker 2: this occasion, even though I was giddy inside and I
Speaker 2: felt like, this is it. This is what I this
Speaker 2: is what all the years in front of the mirror
Speaker 2: fantasy about and being a person that wanted to entertain others.
Speaker 2: This is it. It has all culmulated you know has
Speaker 2: been brought to this point.
Speaker 1: Shortly after the video came out, Vogue became the number
Speaker 1: one song all around the world. Madonna was about to
Speaker 1: embark on one of the biggest moments of her career,
Speaker 1: a world tour to support the song and the album
Speaker 1: it was on. The show would be called the Blonde
Speaker 1: Ambition Tour. It would become wildly successful and make Madonna
Speaker 1: the second biggest touring act in history behind Michael Jackson.
Speaker 1: Louise was asked to join as a dancer. Madonna documented
Speaker 1: the tour in a groundbreaking film called Truth or Dare,
Speaker 1: which Louise was prominently featured in. The show and the
Speaker 1: documentary are widely credited for introducing queer life to the
Speaker 1: mainstream openly and unapologetically. At the time it became the
Speaker 1: highest grossing documentary ever made, Louise had just turned twenty
Speaker 1: years old. The fame he was emulating in his voguing
Speaker 1: on the ballroom stage was now a reality on the
Speaker 1: world stage. Well. In nineteen ninety, Vogue becomes the number
Speaker 1: one song in America and really around the world. You
Speaker 1: end up going on this wildly successful world tour with
Speaker 1: Madonna starring in her groundbreaking documentary Truth or Dare. Everyone
Speaker 1: around the world is voguing in nineteen ninety, But what
Speaker 1: was the moment that you realized voguing had become so
Speaker 1: much bigger than what you were doing during Red Light
Speaker 1: Green Light Vogue.
Speaker 2: I never really got the graphatas of what we were
Speaker 2: doing and being our true authentic self until one day
Speaker 2: a mom came up to me. A mom came up
Speaker 2: to me after the show, and she said to me
Speaker 2: that she had a son, and she brought her son
Speaker 2: to the Blande Division tour. There were many years before
Speaker 2: that moment her son suffered, and she was just thanking
Speaker 2: us that we were just being ourselves and that her
Speaker 2: son could see himself in us and thus be himself
Speaker 2: and be free of whatever constraints he had within himself
Speaker 2: that he was locking away. And at that moment, you know,
Speaker 2: I knew that this was something that was way beyond
Speaker 2: not only myself, but it went beyond voting right, It
Speaker 2: went beyond you know, hitting some fabulous pose. It really
Speaker 2: vibrated out to a lot of guys and girls who
Speaker 2: were unable to really express themselves because they didn't really
Speaker 2: have an outlet to do.
Speaker 1: So, wow, what was your favorite memory on that life
Speaker 1: changing tour?
Speaker 2: We were in Chicago because my father is from Chicago.
Speaker 2: So I flew my father and my sister to Chicago,
Speaker 2: and you know, I got them a hotel room and
Speaker 2: I rented him a limo so that way he can
Speaker 2: see his family, So that way he can have this
Speaker 2: little moment of you know, my son is fear said,
Speaker 2: you know this is and I'm pulling up on you.
Speaker 2: It'll it's very cute. But he took us to meet
Speaker 2: my uncle, Raffie. And when my uncle answered the door,
Speaker 2: I immediately knew why. I immediately knew why my father
Speaker 2: was unfazed because my uncle answered the door had longer hair,
Speaker 2: he had long fingernails, and so his brother was a
Speaker 2: drag queen and performed in clubs. And when he looked
Speaker 2: at me, it was there was that look like, oh,
Speaker 2: I get it, I get it. I looked at my
Speaker 2: dad in different light From then on, it was and
Speaker 2: we grew so close after that, and it was all
Speaker 2: unspoken too. It was all unspoken, and that night I
Speaker 2: just cried. I cried because I got it. He just
Speaker 2: probably didn't want me to go through what his brother
Speaker 2: went through, or he wanted to toughen me up so
Speaker 2: that way I can survive like his brother survived.
Speaker 1: I wonder what it was like for you to go
Speaker 1: from dancing in school and dancing in the Balls underground
Speaker 1: in New York to then being thrust onto the global
Speaker 1: stage so quickly. You were about twenty years old at
Speaker 1: the time. What was that like for you?
Speaker 2: I mean, without sounding too kind of like egotistical or facetious,
Speaker 2: it felt natural, Jordan, It really did. It felt like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 2: I'm supposed to be here, and I always go back
Speaker 2: to that image of myself in front of the mirror
Speaker 2: in my bedroom, you know, with a hair brush in
Speaker 2: my hand and a towel for wig, and like that
Speaker 2: little boy made it all the way here.
Speaker 1: After the tour ended, life wasn't so easy for Louise
Speaker 1: and the other dancers. The backdrop of this time period
Speaker 1: was the AIDS crisis. By nineteen ninety one, hundred thousand
Speaker 1: Americans had already died. Shortly after the tour, one of
Speaker 1: the dancers died from AIDS related complications, two others were
Speaker 1: diagnosed with HIV. Being so young, Louise was dealing with
Speaker 1: a lot his community, the ballroom scene, and the dance
Speaker 1: family he made on the tour was dying. In addition,
Speaker 1: he didn't know how to process the end of the tour,
Speaker 1: the intense high and the adrenaline that would come from
Speaker 1: night after night of screaming fans. When it ended, all
Speaker 1: of the hype was over and he was thrust back
Speaker 1: into the reality of his life. He turned to drugs
Speaker 1: to cope. We've talked about a lot of the positives
Speaker 1: around how you had come to this moment, this amazing moment,
Speaker 1: But what were some of the negative consequences of achieving
Speaker 1: this fame so quickly.
Speaker 2: A lot of people saying that Madonna had used us
Speaker 2: for our talent, and then personally, you know, it was
Speaker 2: a wild ride and and so that included drinking and
Speaker 2: for me, and I'm only speaking for myself, you know,
Speaker 2: I lived the rock and roll I lived the rock
Speaker 2: and roll lifestyle, so you know, it was boos and
Speaker 2: boys and drugs, and so I lost my way there
Speaker 2: for minute, I really did. I lost I'm not gonna lie.
Speaker 2: I lost my way. And after a while I had
Speaker 2: to kind of get a handle on that part of
Speaker 2: my journey, which was leading me down a road that
Speaker 2: I didn't want to kind of go down.
Speaker 1: Well, you've been pretty open about your struggles with addiction
Speaker 1: and heroin addiction. How did you discover that?
Speaker 2: It definitely happened after, you know, after the tour. The beginning,
Speaker 2: it was just like drinking and smoking pod and stuff
Speaker 2: like that. Then I got to heroin. It really was
Speaker 2: me just trying to hold you know, hold on to
Speaker 2: the last vestiges of what the Blante ambition had given
Speaker 2: me that at natural high. It's like it was it
Speaker 2: was the after party that I never wanted to leave,
Speaker 2: right And it really was like this calm down of
Speaker 2: being on such a natural high for so long that
Speaker 2: you know, trying to trying to get off, trying to
Speaker 2: get off the drugs was hard, really hard.
Speaker 1: I wonder if you would tell us what was the
Speaker 1: most difficult moment during that struggle for you.
Speaker 2: I think the most difficult moment for me during that
Speaker 2: time was living in an apartment with a closet full
Speaker 2: of designer clothes, no furniture, a TV on top of
Speaker 2: a crate, and that's it. And then going out and
Speaker 2: trying to trying to cop, trying to cop and so
Speaker 2: I couldn't afford a couch, but I could afford Nope.
Speaker 2: And therein lies that sad part, right, making these choices
Speaker 2: of do I buy furniture for my apartment or do
Speaker 2: I buy heroin? And the latter unfortunately won for a
Speaker 2: long time. And you know, it's not enough. It's not
Speaker 2: enough to have a closet full of pretty designer clothes
Speaker 2: if the rest of the room doesn't feel as abundant
Speaker 2: or at least just lived in. And I don't know,
Speaker 2: it was. It was not good. It was not good.
Speaker 1: It sort of sounds as though you had kind of
Speaker 1: gifted the world this art form voguing, and it exploded.
Speaker 1: And it sounds like the train that it was on
Speaker 1: was going so fast that it kind of left you
Speaker 1: behind in a way. It was a train that you
Speaker 1: were initially.
Speaker 2: It's literally the train that you know, for some reason,
Speaker 2: I lost my footing and fell off of so you're
Speaker 2: trying to chase the train and it's just literally going
Speaker 2: faster than you can run. Thus it left me, you know,
Speaker 2: it left me behind, you know. And yeah, we were
Speaker 2: riding that train and it was going faster and faster
Speaker 2: and faster, but one false move and I fell off
Speaker 2: the train and literally was trying to gather myself together
Speaker 2: to get back on the train and could not could
Speaker 2: not catch it.
Speaker 1: Louise was knee deep inside of a heroin addiction and
Speaker 1: it was taking over his life. It was the dark
Speaker 1: reality of show business and a twenty year old watching
Speaker 1: his entire community suffer and die while being thrown onto
Speaker 1: the world stage. How did you end up overcoming your
Speaker 1: addiction after the tour?
Speaker 2: My mom again being the supportive person that she is
Speaker 2: and my parents. One Christmas before Christmas, she came to
Speaker 2: me and she said, I got you a Christmas present
Speaker 2: and it was a plane ticket to Los Angeles. She said, baby,
Speaker 2: you need to rest because I was burning the candle
Speaker 2: at all ends. And I said, oh fabulous, Okay, great,
Speaker 2: let's go to Los Angeles. And I stayed with Nicki Harris,
Speaker 2: who was Madonna's backup singer, and it was the holidays,
Speaker 2: so you know, we cooked, we you know, hung out
Speaker 2: by her pool. She had a pool at her house,
Speaker 2: and so we did that and it was Met and
Speaker 2: me trying to figure out what I'm going to do
Speaker 2: with the rest of my life. And it was January seventeenth,
Speaker 2: that was the day I was I was supposed to
Speaker 2: come back home. I'm packing my bag and literally, Nikki
Speaker 2: walks by the room and she says, you don't have
Speaker 2: to go if you don't want to, that's all she said.
Speaker 2: And literally I lost it because I knew if I
Speaker 2: went back, I would be right back where I was.
Speaker 2: And I cried. I cried, and I knew it. I
Speaker 2: knew it. I knew it. I couldn't go back. I
Speaker 2: called my mom and I said, so I won't be
Speaker 2: coming back for a while, and she said, I understand again.
Speaker 2: And I stayed and I tried to to, you know, rebuild,
Speaker 2: rebuild my life. And so there came another turning point
Speaker 2: in my life where a friend of mine came up
Speaker 2: to me and he was like, listen, I haven't seen
Speaker 2: you in a long time, and I want to tell
Speaker 2: you why. And it's because I've been in recovery. He
Speaker 2: told me his story, and at the end of that conversation,
Speaker 2: I said, I need I need help. I need whatever
Speaker 2: you did, I need that too. Because I realized that
Speaker 2: my addiction would never kill me. It would just drag
Speaker 2: me along like a can in the back of a
Speaker 2: Neluetz car, and I would just be dragged along for
Speaker 2: the rest of my life, and I knew I knew it,
Speaker 2: and I was tired, Jordan Man, I was effing tired
Speaker 2: of trying to chase some thing that was no longer
Speaker 2: available to me because I was not working at it anymore. So, Yeah,
Speaker 2: I went to a recovery house and I spent fourteen
Speaker 2: months in a recovery house and I just turned I
Speaker 2: just completed twenty years and twenty years sober now.
Speaker 1: So wow, congratulations, that's an amazing milestone. You've inspired at
Speaker 1: this point, multiple generations of people, bringing this art form
Speaker 1: into the consciousness of so many people. How do you
Speaker 1: remember this very complex time in your life.
Speaker 2: I think it's the best time in my life because
Speaker 2: it taught me not only to reach for the stars
Speaker 2: and I'll get it if you work hard I did
Speaker 2: at that time. It also taught me that if I
Speaker 2: am not vigilant within my own being in consciousness, that
Speaker 2: I can slip and fall. That being said, if I
Speaker 2: am vigilant and conscious within myself and love myself, that
Speaker 2: I know that I can rebuild and get back to
Speaker 2: Lewis so that time, the good and the bad are
Speaker 2: cherished for me because it lets me have the life
Speaker 2: that I have today, and I'm really, really, really grateful,
Speaker 2: and I wouldn't change not one thing.
Speaker 1: I love that Now. Voguing is now having a renaissance again,
Speaker 1: and it's lasted multiple generations. At this point, I don't
Speaker 1: know what it is about it. Every gay person I
Speaker 1: know is obsessed. What do you think about it transcends time.
Speaker 2: It's the ability to express yourself and not be made
Speaker 2: to feel shame over it, right, whether it's coming from
Speaker 2: within you or shame from somebody else, right, bitch on fears,
Speaker 2: this is me. Boom boom boom. I just got my
Speaker 2: nails down, you know, like, this is me where I
Speaker 2: am right now, and I love that.
Speaker 1: Well, you are one of the pioneers and so deeply
Speaker 1: responsible for the explosion of this. As new queer generations
Speaker 1: discover voguing and inherit voguing, what do you want to
Speaker 1: pass down to them?
Speaker 2: I want to pass down that One. They really should
Speaker 2: get into the history of vogue and where it came from.
Speaker 2: It's just not throwing our hands in the air right
Speaker 2: and feeling fierce. It really comes from a place that
Speaker 2: holds more gravitas than that. And two, getting out there
Speaker 2: and expressing yourself is really important. And three support having
Speaker 2: that support system around you of people saying, yes, this
Speaker 2: is fantastic, you are fantastic. You go boy or you
Speaker 2: go girl or whatever, and you know which makes people
Speaker 2: feel loved and seen and appreciated.
Speaker 1: But We Loved is hosted by me Jordan GONSLVS. New
Speaker 1: episodes drop every Wednesday. If you want to write it
Speaker 1: to tell your story, email us at Butweloved at gmail
Speaker 1: dot com or send us a message on Instagram or
Speaker 1: TikTok at but We Loved. We are a production of
Speaker 1: The Outspoken Podcast Network and iHeart Podcasts. But We Loved
Speaker 1: was originally developed with Pushkin Industries. Our producers Areshena Ozaki,
Speaker 1: Michael June, Emily Meronoff, and Joey pat Our. Executive producers
Speaker 1: are Me and Maya Howard. Original music by Steve Boone.
Speaker 1: Special thanks to Jay Bronson and Rokel Willis. If you
Speaker 1: loved this episode, leave us a rating and follow us
Speaker 1: on Apple Podcasts and Spotify, and thank you for listening.
Speaker 1: I'll see you next week.