a&e features
Aretha’s triple whammy
Queen of Soul’s on a roll with great local concert, her best new album in years (and a book she wishes had never seen the light of day)
Aretha on stage in Baltimore on Nov. 13. (Screen capture from a YouTube video by Jim Brunzell)
It wouldn’t be an Aretha Franklin concert without at least one head-scratching oddity. For the legendary diva’s latest concert in our region — last Thursday’s show at the Lyric in Baltimore — she came up (sure ’nuff!) with a real winner: for no apparent reason, she sang the encore “The Way We Were” off stage.
For the first minute or so, I suspected it might be a recording and that she was simply too lazy to sing her encore live. If you’ve followed the Queen for any length of time, this notion is hardly outside the realm of possibility. Many others suspected the same as the approximately 98 percent-capacity crowd started pouring out of the theater in droves. But just as many were calling it a night, Franklin — still off stage — inserted a few geographically specific ad libs to the song. It was just another “WTF” moment in a legendary six-decade career (seven if you count her teenage gospel debut) that has been, especially in the last 15-odd years, as noted for its eccentricities and oddities as its music.
These quirks are not as random as they may seem at first glance. With Franklin, who’s actually a lot more predictable than is widely acknowledged, her musical genius — and it truly is genius — is pretty much proportionate inversely with her indulgences, eccentricities and career- and relationship-sabotaging whims. A lifetime in show business has her well informed on just how much she can get away with and how much she has to deliver to keep the world eating out of her hand.
She did return, for a few fleeting moments, to wave good night while her orchestra — in another baffling choice — closed the show with a rousing instrumental rendition of the old warhorse “There’s No Business Like Show Business.”
It’s actually a great time to be an Aretha fan. Late last month she released her best album since 1998 (there’ve only been a few) with the all-covers set “Aretha Franklin Sings the Great Diva Classics.” Galaxies better than the interminably delayed 2011 train wreck known as “Aretha: A Woman Falling Out of Love,” Franklin — a singer known for her way with covers throughout her career — tackles stalwarts like “I Will Survive,” “I’m Every Woman,” “Midnight Train to Georgia” and, most notably, Adele’s “Rolling in the Deep,” which she tore up in a live performance on “Late Show with David Letterman,” a performance that went viral in September.
But if last week’s Baltimore concert — more on that in a bit — and the new album are the first two pieces of a modern Aretha trifecta, the third is a controversial pork chop for the ages that will be discussed and debated for decades — no exaggeration — to come: David Ritz’s towering biography “Respect: the Life of Aretha Franklin,” which dropped just days after her album in October.
At first glance, it’s easy to prematurely dismiss the book as a character assassination of almost “Mommie Dearest” proportions (not quite, but almost). The backstory is delicious: Ritz, having co-written Franklin’s 1999 memoir “Aretha: From These Roots,” laments in the “Respect” intro that he wasn’t able to crack the famously private Franklin facade. The ’99 book, although still a priceless piece of Franklin history in many ways, is about as honest and forthright as its heavily airbrushed cover photo (Franklin’s wildly fluctuating weight has dogged her for years, yet the cover makes her look more like Iman than herself at the time).
“In my view,” Ritz writes in the new book, “my two years of working on ‘From These Roots’ resulted in my failure to actualize the great potential in Aretha’s narration. I didn’t do what I set out to do. Since the publication of the book some 15 years ago, I have not rested easy. It took me a decade to recommit myself to the Aretha story, knowing that this time around, I would have to fly solo.”
What results is a no-holds-barred dishfest that has had media outlets as far ranging as the Daily Mail and Gawker regurgitating its bitchiest passages (which are legion). From family fights with her sisters Carolyn and Erma (also both singers) to passive-aggressive intransigence and egotism gone mad working with collaborators such as Luther Vandross and producer Oliver Leibert, to endless canceling of engagements at the 11th hour, a habit that cost her dearly in the courtroom and drove former booking agent Ruth Bowen (a priceless source of Aretha legend, quoted here at length) nearly mad, “Respect” drips with unflattering tale after tale, the cumulative effect of which is damning, yes, but also rather sad. If even a tenth of its stories are true, Franklin is still an egomaniacal control freak who’s impossible to deal with.
Modern-day Franklin would seem, at first glance, to be quite a different story. Having quit drinking and smoking many years ago and now having her weight under control after a mystery illness in the fall of 2010 — an episode she masterfully spun into an extended testimony/gospel vamp improvisation complete with de rigueur miraculous recovery that found her trotting Holy Ghost-style (the crowd ate it up) at last week’s show — one would like to think Franklin is at peace. Sadly, Ritz says that’s hardly the case. Although long banished from her inner circle, he makes a strong case now that she’s an imperious monster surrounded by yes people who don’t dare cross her. Beset by irrational fears — from her refusal to fly to her her habit of paying her band members cash which she carries around in a purse that’s never out of her site (an assistant both brought it out before Thursday’s show and retrieved it just as she left the stage so it was never out of her sight) — Ritz paints a portrait of a controlling and impulsive woman incapable of self scrutiny or critique.
Franklin, of course, begs to differ. She told the Wall Street Journal last week the book was “a book of trash” and nothing but “lies, lies and more lies.” News broke this week that she’s considering legal action.
It’s an interesting conundrum because the book is not the crucifixion either Franklin or the more salacious outlets would have you believe. What’s been totally lost in the discussion — hardly a surprise — is the book’s many passages of balancing anecdotes. Even those who share the book’s most unflattering tales — Carolyn, Erma and Bowen chief among them — are also some of Franklin’s most loyal compatriots.
“My sister was always engaged in acts of kindness and charity that went unreported,” Ritz quotes Erma as having said. “She and I would be watching the late news. There’d be a story about a woman who lost her home in a fire and the next thing you knew, Aretha was on the phone to the news station getting the woman’s number. The next day she’d send her a check for thirty thousand dollars.”
Brother and former manager Cecil is quoted as calling Aretha “an open-hearted person” and one who “always wanted to help her family.” One gradually senses that Aretha is, at heart, a good person and altruistic when push comes to shove.
Many moments of sheer and utter joy are recalled such as one where Erma, singing backup for Aretha in the studio, remembers her sister cutting — in a mind-boggling display of brilliance — the hits “Day Dreaming” and “Rock Steady” on the same day.
“That was a marvelous day,” she says. “Aretha absolutely tore up the vocal. We knew it was an instant classic.”
Anytime a highly unflattering celebrity biography comes out — one thinks of everything from J. Randy Taraborrelli’s “Call Her Miss Ross,” Christopher Ciccone’s “Life With My Sister Madonna,” Carol Ann Harris’s “Storms: My Life With Lindsey Buckingham and Fleetwood Mac” and many others — everyone debates the perceived verisimilitude of the books. Although opinions vary wildly — Taraborrelli even amended in a way, his Diana Ross books with a later, more balanced effort (2007’s “Diana Ross: a Biography”) — most would concur where there’s smoke, there’s at least some fire.
Groomed and mollycoddled by a doting father (the legendary Rev. C.L. Franklin) and armed with enough Grammys, RIAA certifications and life achievement awards (Rolling Stone even voted her the best singer of all time — an accolade she’s sure to have pointed out every time she’s introduced), it’s easy to see how someone like Franklin could manage to live in her own little world, largely immune to anything she wishes to ignore. (A curious side note: Ritz quotes Carolyn as saying how happy she was to hear of the Stonewall riots in 1969; Aretha, who has supported gay causes in more recent years, initially “found the topic distasteful,” Ritz says.)
The best argument against Ritz’s book, which has gotten strong reviews in USA Today and the New York Times, is that the vast majority of the people he quotes, such as Aretha’s siblings and the voluminously quoted Bowen, are dead.
“He offers no proof that he interviewed them,” says Roger Friedman, writing for showbiz411.com. “Ritz wrote a whole book about Ray Charles. But none of the Ray Charles info in ‘Respect’ was in the Ray book. Suddenly a dead Ray Charles has a whole lot of new quotes about Aretha Franklin.”
It’s a good point, but hardly a damning one. Having co-written a whole book with Charles, (1978’s “Brother Ray”), it’s wholly conceivable that the two spent many hours together and that Ritz could have substantial outtakes Charles either didn’t want in his own book or one party or the other didn’t think were pertinent.
Also curiously absent are the slightest comments or input from any of Franklin’s four sons, two of whom (again, oddly) are pictured with her in the booklet for her new album. It’s debatable the degree to which Franklin herself actually raised these boys, two of whom were born when she was a teen. A passing reference from sister-in-law Earline notes that at one point in the early ‘70s, “Clarence and Eddie were back in Detroit being cared for by Big Mama (Franklin’s grandmother),” and “Teddy was being raised by his father’s folks.” While Teddy played guitar for his mom for years, at times hawking his own recordings outside her shows, the Franklin children are largely a mystery. While Diana Ross counters much of her negative press with united-front photos of her with all five smiling grown children in tow every time she gets an award, I don’t know that a single photo of Franklin with all four of her boys has ever surfaced publicly (Tina Turner’s grown sons are equally as low-key and almost never seen).
This absence of comment is telling. A historian as thorough as Ritz surely tried to get their input. There are a few other flaws with “Respect.” Although perhaps unavoidable considering Ritz knows Franklin personally and witnessed some of the incidents first hand, the shifts into first person are jarring. And there are curious omissions. For all the talk of Aretha’s heavily religious (albeit liberal) formative years, we leave without the slightest sense of whether she has been much of a church goer in her adult years or, if celebrity and travel prevent it, where she gets her spiritual needs met now. Bishop Carlton Pearson was her guest at her 2012 Washington concert at DAR Constitution Hall and her faith background is essential to her persona. And although her appearance on a 1994 episode of “Saturday Night Live” might be seen as a minor matter overall, it gives an interesting insight into the legend. Perhaps compensating for a not-quite-ready-for-prime-time guest host Nancy Kerrigan (fresh off the ’94 Olympics) Franklin, in addition to being that week’s musical guest, also hilariously spoofs her persona in a mock BET interview sketch. If nothing else, it shows Franklin does not always take herself as seriously as Ritz and his flock of mostly dead mudslingers would have you believe. And she hardly sings her hit “Angel” at every concert as Ritz posits: in fact the only time she’s sung it at any of her D.C. concerts in the last decade was at her summer 2011 show at Wolf Trap.
Aretha’s cousin and long-time back-up singer Brenda Corbett, very much alive yet not in her usual spot at last week’s concert, is, however, quoted and is as forthcoming and candid as Carolyn and Erma (both, along with brother Cecil, sadly gone) were.
“I’ve been singing background with my cousin for some 42 years,” Ritz quotes her as saying. “And I still don’t know — record from record or concert from concert — where she’s going to hire me or fire me. Months will go by when she cuts off all communication with me. She’s furious with me and I never know why. Then she’ll call and we’re back together like nothing ever happened.”
It’s a pattern Ritz says happens over and over with family and longtime associates. And like abuse patterns — when many people over decades have eerily similar stories — the tales gain traction.
Ritz’s book ultimately succeeds because it holistically presents a balanced psychological portrait of the great legend. It’s an unexpectedly satisfying unofficial companion to Anthony Heilbut’s brilliant 2012 book “The Fan Who Knew Too Much: Aretha Franklin, the Rise of the Soap Opera, Children of the Gospel Church and Other Meditations.” Though only part of it focuses on Franklin, it’s the most contextualizing thing about her that’s ever been written. Ritz also deserves credit for having the balls to publish this while Franklin (72) is still alive. He could easily have taken the Darwin Porter (known for his trashy celeb bios always published within a year of the subject’s passing) approach, but he opted to forge ahead.
So what’s the deal with Aretha? Is it just Norma Desmond-ism — talent-plus-ego run amok?
Perhaps a quote from Carolyn sums it up best: “I think she was basically afraid that she wasn’t enough,” Ritz quotes her as saying. “Crazy as it sounds, she was afraid that she wasn’t good enough as a singer, pretty enough as a woman or devoted enough as a mother. I don’t know what to call it except deep, deep insecurity.
Ritz offers his own summation in the book’s coda. “In her troubled mind,” he writes, “control is the antidote to fear. She hires, fires and rehires a battery of publicists, booking agents and managers because, when all is said and done, she cannot relinquish control. … When these efforts fail, she deflects the blame. Self-scrutiny is not her way. Her methods of denial have been perfected over a lifetime.” He also writes, though, that she’s the “ultimate survivor, a symbol of strength” who “keeps moving forward, no matter what.”
Ritz also gains credibility to an extent because his love and admiration for the woman — of which he’s unabashed — comes shining through. His laments about the things he wishes Aretha would do, the career twists and turns he longs for her to have made, echo those expressed by many a gay man for the divas they love. With Franklin, it’s especially sad because the sheer magnitude of her greatest great moments indicate how much more she could have accomplished if she had personal discipline, the ability for introspection, a management team whose advice she heeded and better artistic instincts. Hers, unfortunately, have just as often let her down (like attempting a ballet routine at a Clive Davis tribute with a straight face) as reinforced or at times even expanded her legend (subbing memorably for an ailing Pavarotti at the ’98 Grammys).
His description of his ultimate dream for her furnishes a lovely, though bittersweet, moment: “I wanted her to realize a concert with only a superb jazz trio behind her as she sings George Gershwin and Cole Porter and the blues ballads of Percy Mayfield,” he writes. “I wanted her to sit at the piano and accompany herself as she revisits her best songs and the songs of Thomas A. Dorsey and James Cleveland and Curtis Mayfield” and to “put her performing and recording career in the hands of producers noted for impeccable taste, musical restraint and unfettered imagination.” They’re all things, sadly, that will likely never happen.
Leaving an Aretha concert, one has many similar thoughts. Her shows vary in quality — like Ritz, I’ve seen her on several occasions, merely going through the motions and serving up adequate, but hardly inspiring, renditions of her classic hits.
But catch her on a good night — and last Thursday was one — and there are magical moments to be had amidst the clutter (did we really need an on-stage presentation from the local Delta Sigma Theta chapter?) and repetition (she’s used Jackie Wilson’s “Your Love Keeps Lifting Me,” a song she’s never recorded, as her opening number for several years now; it’s a fine song she delivers solidly, but the lack of imagination considering her vast catalogue is inane).
Her cut from “Waiting to Exhale,” “Hurts Like Hell,” was a delicious surprise, that gave her a great little musical cushion upon which to unfurl her trademark melismas, “It’s Just Your Love” was a wildly unexpected deep album cut from the “Jump To It” album and the aforementioned testimony vamp had all the energy and passion one would expect from a soul legend and product of the church whose authenticity of faith has never been questioned.
Probably a little shy in terms of overall quality compared to her Nov. 2012 show at DAR (her last in the region), which included scintillating renditions of “Day Dreaming,” “Think” and “Something He Can Feel,” the Baltimore concert was still highly enjoyable. She looked resplendent in two different gowns and was far more spry and mobile than she was at her heaviest about five years ago. Even with the repetition, the woman truly never gives the same show twice. She mixes up her set list oceans more than her contemporaries like Dionne Warwick, Gladys Knight or Diana Ross, whose set list is essentially the same one she’s been using the last five years.
It’s all part of the joy and frustration of being an Aretha Franklin fan. As Ritz has learned the hard way, you either take the Queen on her terms or you don’t take her at all. Each person, fan and minion alike, has to decide for him- or herself if the sweet outweighs the bitter. Last Thursday night, it did.
- Overture (orchestra)
• Introduction of Aretha (8:52 p.m.) - Your Love Keeps Lifting Me Higher and Higher
- It’s Just Your Love
- Don’t Play That Song
- Hurts Like Hell
- Sweet 16
- gospel vamp/testimony
- Chain of Fools (w/ dancers)
- band jam — Another Star/band solos
• recorded track — Aretha returns dancing with Willie Wilkerson
• presentation from Delta Sigma Theta
• recognition of honored guests - Old Landmark
- I Remember (Keyshia Cole)
- Rolling in the Deep
- You Send Me (Aretha at the piano)
- Freeway of Love (with dancers)
- Respect (with dancers)
ENCORE - The Way We Were
- No Business Like Show Business (orchestra)
(show ends at 10:30 p.m.)
a&e features
D.C. springs back to life with new, returning events
Cherry blossoms, Rehoboth season kickoff, and more on tap
Longer and warmer days are back meaning: It’s time to get out of the house and enjoy Washington D.C.’s many events. Below are a few to check out this spring.
The National Museum of Women in the Arts will host “Making their Mark: Works from the Shah Garg Collection” until Sunday, July 26. This exhibition illustrates women artists’ vital role in abstraction, considers historical contributions, formal and material breakthroughs and intergenerational relationships among women artists over the last eight decades. For more details, visit. NMWA’s website.
Art in the Attic will host a pop-up on Saturday, March 14 at 6 p.m. at 1012 Madison St., Alexandria, Va. There will be a variety of vendors selling products across different modes of art. For more details, visit Eventbrite.
Play Play will host “Indoor Recess – The art of play” on Sunday, March 15 at 2 p.m. This event will embody classic recess energy, including opportunities to build and experience community and connections through games, movement, art stations, and creative freedom. Tickets are $12.51 and can be purchased on Eventbrite.
Spark Social will host “Gay Bar Crawl on U Street” on Friday, March 20 at 7:30 p.m. This will be a fun night out in gay D.C. with other gay people, whether you’re visiting D.C., new to the area, or just looking to expand your social circle. Many crawlers have formed lasting friendships and even romantic relationships after just one night out. Tickets are $35.88 and are available on Eventbrite.
Creative Suitland Arts Center will host “EFFERVESCENT: House of Swann” on Saturday, May 30 at 7 p.m. This will be a gay, good time where we will celebrate love, joy, wellness, and visibility for the LGBTQIA+ community. Tickets start at $17.85 and can be purchased on Eventbrite.
SWAG Works DC will host “Unapologetically Her” on Saturday, March 14 at 2 p.m. at 701 E St., S.E. This event is a powerful celebration of womanhood, resilience, creativity, and self-expression in honor of Women’s History Month. This all-women exhibition highlights the diverse voices, stories, and artistic perspectives of women who create boldly, live authentically, and stand confidently in their truth. This event is free and more details are available on Eventbrite.
9:30 Club will host “Gimme Gimme Disco: A Dance Party Inspired by ABBA” on Saturday, March 14 at 6 p.m. There will also be a “Donna Summer Power Hour – The Queen of Disco” segment during this event. It’ll be one hour of music with no skips. Tickets are available on 9:30 Club’s website.
Harder Better Faster Stronger will host “Heated Rivalry Rave” on Friday, March 20 at 9 p.m. at Howard Theatre. This event is open to all ages. Tickets are available on the theater’s website.
CAMP Rehoboth hosts its 25th annual Women’s+ FEST, April 9-12 in Rehoboth Beach, Del. Entertainers include headliner Mina Hartong, a comedian, storyteller, and founder of Lez Out Loud; and singer Yoli Mayor. There are dances, dinners, pickleball, and much more. Details and tickets at camprehoboth.org.
Also in Rehoboth Beach, the Washington Blade’s 19th annual Summer Kickoff Party is set for Friday, May 15 featuring Ashley Biden, who will accept an award on behalf of her brother Beau. State Rep. Claire Snyder-Hall will also speak. More speakers and the venue to be announced soon.
The annual D.C. Cherry Blossom Festival kicks off March 21 at DAR Constitution Hall and culminates with Petalpalooza on April 4, the day-long, outdoor street party with music and art, stretching across Navy Yard, and ending with fireworks over the Anacostia River.
a&e features
‘Queer Eye’ star Dorriene Diggs on life before and after appearing on hit show
Emotional January episode highlighted 40-year love affair with partner
Dorriene Diggs, 70, whose 40-year relationship with her domestic partner, Diane until Diane’s passing in 2020, the couple’s tense relationship with their respective parents, and Dorriene’s current living arrangement with her straight sister Jo, were the focus of a final season episode of the popular TV series “Queer Eye.”
In a recent interview with the Washington Blade, Diggs told of how her appearance on the show has impacted her life. She elaborated on the many aspects of her life experiences that she told to the five “Queer Eye” co-hosts who interviewed her and her sister in their D.C. home.
Although her parents and her partner’s parents, who have since passed away, were not accepting of their relationship, Diggs has said most of her family members at this time reacted positively to her appearance on the show.
“They loved it,” she told the Blade. “Yes, everybody that saw the show called me and said they loved the show, they really enjoyed themselves watching it.”
Through an arrangement with D.C.’s Rainbow History Project, the “Queer Eye” show featuring Diggs and her sister was presented in a special screening on a large video screen at the D.C. History Center in January.
“Dorriene, a 70-year-old Black lesbian living in Washington, D.C., had spent decades building a life with her partner while navigating silence within her own family,” a “Queer Eye” statement announcing the episode on Diggs states.
“The Fab Five did not arrive to introduce Dorriene to herself, but to help ensure her story was finally heard in full,” the statement says.
Blade: Can you tell us how your appearance on the “Queer Eye” program came about? How did they find out about you?
Diggs: You know, I still don’t have all the details. I think it was my niece, Missy. And she knows somebody there from “Queer Eye.”
Blade: So, did you first learn about it when someone from “Queer Eye” contacted you?
Diggs: No, the “Queer Eye” guy knocked on my bedroom door and started talking. I was in my bedroom watching television and the next thing I know my door opened up and there was Karamo [Karamo Brown, one of the “Queer Eye” co-hosts] with his big black cowboy hat on, opening the door grinning. … They contacted Jo first. And when they came here, they realized there was a gay woman in the house, too. Because my name was not mentioned at first. After they came here, they learned about me, because when Missy reached out to them, she reached out to them about Jo. But that doesn’t bother me. This was all about Jo in the beginning, and not me. … They started talking to me and Jo. And he said, Dorriene, ‘you’ve done so much for so many people, it’s time for someone to do something for you.’ That’s what they said. He said, ‘this is the day we’re doing it for you.’
And so, they put me and my sister up in a hotel for a week. They gave us a personal driver to take us anywhere we wanted to go. And then they took us to a bunch of places. We didn’t know why they were doing all of this. We had no idea that they were renovating the house and renovating our bedrooms. We had no idea.
Blade: What was your reaction when you saw the home renovation?
Diggs: It was amazing. And they bought us all new complete wardrobes – clothes, shoes. But most of the stuff they got me I gave away to a women’s shelter. But it was so nice. Actually, to meet the guys. I’ve been watching the show for 10 years. I have watched it from the beginning. And actually, it brought me and my sister closer – really. We’re closer now than we’ve ever been. She’s my baby sister – not the baby, but next to the baby. She’s the younger one.
Blade: What has been the reaction to your appearance on the show? Do more people now recognize you?
Diggs: Yes, yes. I’m getting phone calls and it’s almost like I’m a celebrity. And I don’t want people to make a fuss over me. All the things I did I did from the heart. I really did. And I don’t want people to think I’m more than I am. I’m just a good Christian woman that believes in giving back.
And I do. God gives me help giving. That’s what I do. And I don’t want anything in return from anyone. You know, because I know what it means to not to have. I know what it means to go to bed hungry, with no food. Going to school with holes in your shoes. I know that. I know that feeling. I’ve been there. And I promised myself as a kid I would never live like this again. And when I got bold enough to leave home, I left home at 14, and I moved in with a drag queen. Damen was his name.
Blade: Did your appearance on the show change your life and your relationship with your sister?
Diggs: Yeah, yeah, it actually did. We are actually closer now than we’ve ever been. Because, like I said, I moved away from home early and I never went back. My parents had a problem with my lifestyle. They really did. My mom looked at me with such hatred. When I was old enough to say goodbye, I never looked back. And to come back around now in the last few years after Diane died, that’s when I came back here.
And at one point I stayed with my nephew Todd and his wife – but he got killed in a car accident. I couldn’t stay at his house anymore. So, then I called Jo and told her I need to get out of here. And without hesitating she came and picked me up and brought me to her home. And I’ve been here ever since.
Blade: Can you tell a little about when it came about and how you met your partner?
Diggs: We lived on 18th Avenue in condos. I just bought one. Hers was above mine. I bought the bottom one. When my brother came over, she was getting out of her car. She was driving a Vega. And I turned to my brother and I said – this is the God’s honest truth – I said Keith, that’s the woman I’m going to spend the rest of my life with. Just like that. And he started laughing. He said, girl you’re crazy. I said I know I’m crazy, Keith, but I’m telling you that woman right there is who I’m going to spend the rest of my life with.
Blade: And when was that?
Diggs: It was 1980 actually. And then I started going to the laundry room to do my laundry. So I started talking to her. She said, ‘I’m not speaking to you.’ Isaid ‘why not?’ She said ‘because you’re nothing but a female gigolo.’ And I said I’m not dating anymore. I’m waiting for you. ‘No, you’re too fast for me.’ I said, ‘well, I’m not giving up.’
And I didn’t give up. So, I was playing an album one day and she knocked on the door and asked what I was playing, I think. I said you liked that. She said yeah. I said OK, I’ll bring it upstairs and we can listen to it together. So, when I went up there to her apartment that day and whenever I went up there, I never left.
Blade: So, your partner’s name was Diane?
Diggs: Yes, Ruth Diane Robinson. But she hated the name Ruth. So, the only people who called her Ruth were at work, the people she worked with. Everybody else called her Diane.
Blade: And how many years were you together?
Diggs: Forty. Forty years together
Blade: And where were you living with her most of the time?
Diggs: We lived in Hagerstown the longest, Hagerstown, Md. And so, if Diane hadn’t died I probably still would have been in our house in Hagerstown.
Blade: Can you tell me a little about what you were doing career wise during those years?
Diggs: I do computers. I used to do computers. And before that I cooked. I love to cook like my mom. And then I wanted to do something else. So, I taught myself computers. I taught myself how to build computers and stuff. So, then I got my own computer business called Ida One Computer Consulting. And so, we helped build computers for people.
Blade: Around when was this, in the 1980a or 1990s?
Diggs: Yes, in the 1980s. I think I stopped I would say around ’96, when I stopped. Because we both said we were going to retire at 55. And we did. We both retired at 55. And then she started diabetes. Every day I had to give her an injection because she was afraid of needles. She couldn’t give it to herself. So, I had to give her an injection every day One time, I don’t remember when, she had a mild stroke. And I had to take care of her. I’ve always taken care of her. And I don’t regret it. I never regretted it. It’s taking care of the one you love.
Blade: When was it that she passed away?
Diggs: In 2020. I found her on the kitchen floor.
Blade: How did your family and your extended family react to your relationship with Diane?
Diggs: Well, her family, oh my God, they hated me – her mother the worst. Because I put a stop to them treating her really bad. I told her mother – I said never in my life – my mother raised me well. Never disrespect someone’s mother. I said but this time I’m going to disrespect you because you are going to start treating Diane like you ought to. This is a wonderful woman and you and your son and you it’s always about your son. You never, ever say anything good about your daughter.
I said it isn’t going to happen again. You’re never going to disrespect her again. I said you take a damn good look at her because you’ll never see her again. I meant that. I grabbed Diane. I said it’s time to go. They don’t care about you.
Blade: Can you tell a little about your family?
Diggs: Yeah, I’m a triplet sister. So, it’s Dorriene, Chorine, and Chrissy — we are the triplets. So, my mom had a set of twins and a set of triplets within nine months. One of the twins died at birth. So, the other twin is Margaret.
Blade: So then how did your family react to you and Jo being on “Queer Eye”?
Diggs: Most of my family really had no problem with it.
Blade: Were you out to them?
Diggs: Oh yeah. I was never in the closet. I didn’t give a damn what people felt about me, sweetheart. I really didn’t. I didn’t care. Because I was going to be me. And for people who didn’t like it, I wasn’t living for them, I was living for me. I’ve always been out. I had a brother who was also gay, Marvin. God rest his soul, too. But he stayed in the closet. He was in the closet until he was about 55 years old.
But everything I said on the show was the truth – my account. The things that I went through with family … You can’t tell me how I felt. If they try to make mom and dad out as perfect, they weren’t perfect. They were the worst parents. That’s my account of it.
So yes, everything I said on that interview was the truth. That’s one thing people who know me know – I do not lie.
Blade: What are some of the things you like to do these days?
Diggs: I’m a sports lover. I love sports. So, my baseball season is getting ready to get started. Baseball is my favorite sport. Yes, I love baseball. I like the statistics of it. And watching the guys. I wish they had a women’s professional baseball team, honestly. … I’m a D.C. sports fan. The Wizards, the Nationals, the Mystics, the Caps. … And see, I’m a diehard Redskins fan and I refuse to call them the Commanders. They’re the Redskins. They will always be the Redskins to me. I love my sports teams.
Blade: Can you tell a little about the history of the house where you and Jo now live and where they did the filming of the “Queer Eye” show?
Diggs: Jo had a house on 17th Street, I think it was Northeast because it was over there by H Street, N.E. And I think somebody wanted to buy her house. I don’t know why she moved. So, she found this house. Because she wanted to buy something where she could buy a house straight out. She didn’t want a mortgage on another house.
Blade: What are your thoughts on being on the last season of “Queer Eye?”
Diggs: Yeah, we were the last ones. We took it out with a bang, me and Jo. That was it.
Blade: Can you say how you and Jo appearing on the show impacted your life?
Diggs: I don’t know. I’m the same person. I’ve been getting calls from people saying I saw you on the show. And friends who I haven’t seen in years have been calling. … So yeah, the show, people I haven’t seen and talked to in years have been calling. I think that’s a good thing.
a&e features
35 years after ‘Truth or Dare,’ Slam is still dancing
Salim Gauwloos on Madonna, HIV, and why he almost didn’t audition for Blond Ambition Tour
Most gay men of a certain age remember “the kiss.”
It was the moment Madonna’s dancers Salim Gauwloos and Gabriel Trupin locked lips in the hit 1991 documentary film “Truth or Dare,” which is celebrating its 35th anniversary this spring.
The kiss was hot, but what made it groundbreaking is that it appeared in a mainstream Hollywood movie that screened in suburban multiplexes across the country. This wasn’t an obscure art house film. The movie, and tour on which it was based, received months of breathless media attention all over the world for bold expressions of female empowerment and queer visibility. Madonna was threatened with arrest in Toronto for simulating masturbation on stage and Pope John Paul II urged Catholics to boycott the show, triggering a media firestorm.
“Truth or Dare” was billed as a behind-the-scenes documentary of the tour, but it quickly became clear that the real star of the show wasn’t Madonna, but rather her colorful troupe of seven backup dancers, six of whom identified as gay: Kevin Stea, Carlton Wilborn, Luis Xtravaganza Camacho, Jose Gutierez Xtravaganza, Gauwloos, and Trupin; Oliver Crumes III identifies as straight.
We saw them party and march in the New York City Pride parade. They were unabashedly queer at a dangerous time — before protease inhibitors began to stem the AIDS plague and before most celebrities and politicians embraced the gay community in any real way. Being out in 1991 carried major risks to career and reputation.
Enter Gauwloos, one of those brave dancers who vogued his way into the hearts of countless gay men entranced by his handsome looks, his stage presence, and dance skills.
Gauwloos — known then and now as “Slam”— sat down with the Blade to talk Madonna, the lasting impact of “Truth or Dare,” the public disclosure of his HIV status, and plans for a new book on his life.
His story is fascinating — from growing up in Europe to dancing in New York to landing the gig of a lifetime with Madonna. He performed on that tour while secretly HIV positive and went without medical treatment for 10 years because he was living in the United States as an undocumented immigrant. Not even Madonna knew of his HIV status. Two other dancers on the tour were also HIV positive but no one talked about it. Ironically, Madonna was singing “Express Yourself” and advocating for condom use during her concerts yet backstage three of her dancers were secretly positive.
“A lot of people were dying so I wasn’t going to tell Madonna I had HIV,” said Slam, now 57. “And the others didn’t either. It wasn’t the moment to do it. She used to make speeches about Keith Haring and AIDS and I thought it’s going to be me next.”
Gabriel Trupin died of AIDS in 1995. Slam was diagnosed at age 18 in 1987, a frightening time when a positive test result often meant a death sentence. He booked the “Blond Ambition Tour” at age 21 after moving to New York. His friends encouraged him to audition but Slam resisted because he wasn’t a big Madonna fan.
“It was crazy, everyone wanted that job,” he said, “but I wanted to dance with Janet Jackson and Paula Abdul.” He listened to his friends and shortly after the audition, Slam received a call from Madonna herself inviting him to join the tour.
“We all wanted to be stars but not even Madonna knew how big that tour would become. The way it was choreographed and directed, the stars aligned. … It never looks dated even today.”
The world tour kicked off in Japan in April 1990 then moved to the United States and Europe, stirring controversy wherever it went. There was the iconic cone bra; the aforementioned simulated masturbation during “Like a Virgin”; and religious imagery that offended many Catholic groups and the Vatican.
And the controversy didn’t end with the tour. Cameras were rolling throughout the tour for what Slam thought would be a “video memory” for Madonna. But as the tour unfolded, director Alek Keshishian reportedly became more interested in what was happening behind the scenes so plans for mere tour footage were expanded into a full documentary.
“We were young and partying and didn’t really know what was going on,” Slam said. “You live in this celebrity bubble and you sign a paper – I don’t even know what I signed.”
In 1992, Kevin, Oliver, and Gabriel sued Madonna for invasion of privacy and fraud claiming she used some footage without their consent. They claim they were told nothing would be included in the film that they didn’t want to be seen. In one specific incident, Gabriel alleged that he told producers he didn’t want the scene of him kissing Slam to be in the film as he wasn’t fully out.
“Gabriel was forcibly outed,” in the movie, Kevin said in a 2016 interview.
Slam did not join his colleagues in the lawsuit.
“I couldn’t sue because I was illegal but I wasn’t ever going to sue,” Slam said. “I’m not a suing kind of person. But good for them, they fought for it and won. A lot of people don’t have the balls to sue Madonna.” The suit was settled two years later for an undisclosed sum.
“We were all conflicted about the kiss,” he said with a laugh. “The kiss, oh my God, my boyfriend is going to kill me! Belgian stress!”
Beyond worrying about his boyfriend’s reaction, Slam had concerns about the impact of being openly gay on his modeling career.
“In 1990, you couldn’t get high fashion campaigns as an openly gay model,” he said. “I was worried about that. I couldn’t get a campaign because I was gay. My agency told me to say I was straight and it was just a game.”
In 2016, pegged to the 25th anniversary of “Truth or Dare,” the surviving six dancers filmed a documentary about their lives post-Madonna titled “Strike A Pose.” In it, Slam publicly revealed his HIV status for the first time in an emotional scene with his former colleagues.
“I found the strength to tell the world I have HIV,” he recalls. “I was scared but I felt brave. The outcome and messages were beautiful. After I saw ‘Strike A Pose,’ I knew we gave people hope. And not just for gay people.”
He was infected in 1987 but didn’t get treated until 1997. After the tour ended, he said he went into a depression and his agency dropped him.
“I was partying too much after the tour,” he recalls. “I made a decision to live as an illegal alien.” In 1997, Slam collapsed and was rushed to the hospital with pneumonia.
“They started treating me and thank God the new HIV drugs were out, the cocktails, it took me a couple months to get better.”
Madonna didn’t participate in “Strike A Pose” and Slam said he hasn’t seen or spoken to her since the end of the tour. He said he had no idea of the impact “Truth or Dare” would have.
“You look at this movie in 1991 and you don’t think it’s going to be such a big thing and 35 years later it’s still helping people,” he said. “It was helpful for people who felt alone at that time. It was such an important documentary.
“I don’t think younger gay people realize how important Madonna was to gay and queer visibility — she was a big part of it. We showed the world it’s OK to be gay and that was the great message of this movie.”
He noted that, decades later, many of his friends have transgender kids and that queer culture is represented in much of mainstream pop culture.
“It’s amazing how far we’ve come,” he said. “I know we’ll always be marginalized but we have come so far. I’m really proud of our community. The current nightmare will be over and I do believe that things will get better.”
Referencing President Trump’s attacks on the LGBTQ community and crackdown on immigration, Slam described the situation in the U.S. today as “sad.”
“Everything is such a mess,” he said. “Some of these people have lived here 30-40 years and they take you out of your home. I can’t even imagine. It breaks my heart. When I was illegal it was a different story.”
Slam met his husband, Facundo Gabba, who’s from Argentina, in 2000, and he helped him get a legal case together to win citizenship. He filed a case in 2001 and was told there was a 99 percent chance he wouldn’t be permitted to stay in the United States because they weren’t allowing HIV-positive immigrants to remain in the country. But he got his green card anyway in 2005 and became a U.S. citizen in 2012.
Today, Slam and Gabba live in Brooklyn, though they travel a lot because “I can’t take the cold.” The couple married in Argentina in 2010 and in the U.S. in 2016.
Slam is still dancing and working as a choreographer. He’s teaching at a contemporary dance festival in Vienna in July and even offers online lessons via Salimdans.com.
As a longtime HIV survivor, Slam is dedicated to a healthful lifestyle.
“You have to keep moving; when you move you stay healthy,” he says. “Dance heals everything. I do yoga, I eat healthy and clean as possible. I don’t watch much TV … I try to stay healthy and positive. If I absorb all of the negativity I would be sick.”
In addition to his ongoing work in dance and choreography, Slam is in the early stages of writing a book about his extraordinary life and pioneering career.
“I always knew I had a book inside of me. I want to talk about my HIV status. I know I can inspire more people. I want to tell even more secrets in the book; secrets are a poison so I want to tell everything.”
Among those secrets, he notes, is a desire to write about his strict Muslim father and the years he spent as an undocumented immigrant in America.
“Those are the things I want to talk about, the struggles. It’s a love story, hope and resilience. I know it will help people.”
As for his friends from the tour, Slam says he remains in contact with Gabriel’s mother and José Xtravaganza is his best friend. Baltimore’s Center Stage theater is currently developing a new musical about Xtravaganza’s life. And Slam said he occasionally talks to Oliver, though “he still can’t pronounce Sandra Bernhard’s name.”
At the end of our interview, Slam indulged a round a rapid fire questions:
• Favorite song to perform in the “Blond Ambition” tour? “Express Yourself.”
• Aside from Madonna, who was your favorite artist you worked with? Toni Braxton in “Aida” on Broadway.
• Favorite Madonna song? “Live to Tell”
• Favorite Madonna video? “Bedtime Stories”
• What’s more stressful: performing in a concert or performing on the VMAs? “Both, because we always had to be perfect.”
• Did you go to Madonna’s recent “Celebration” tour? “I didn’t see the show but I saw clips online.”
• What do you remember most about performing “Vogue” at the VMAs? “It was nerve-racking for them to flip those fans.”
• When was the last time you vogued? “I teach classes so a couple weeks ago.”
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