"Black drag queen comes in and saves all the white folk ... that doesn't happen often!"Billy Porter encapsulates the plot of Kinky Boots during his show at the Crown & Anchor in Provincetown.
Over this column's long history, the line between celebrity and porn has been blurred beyond recognition. While prostitution and porn are not necessarily the same thing, there is an indisputable connection. Last week, the offices of the largest gay escort website, Rentboy.com, were raided in New York City and seven employees were arrested.
But this raid wasn't solely carried out by the NYPD. The website was being investigated by the Department of Homeland Security. Huh? Is ISIS trying to infiltrate the US through hot male hookers? Was Bin Laden the Al-Qaeda equivalent of Heidi Fleiss? Maybe they're housing a sleeper cell! The official complaint was filed by special agent Susan Ruiz, and she spends an inordinate amount of time defining terms such as twink, scat, fisting, and out rate. Here's an example: "I have learned that a sling, also known as a 'sex sling', is a device that allows two people to have sex while one is suspended." If nothing else, we've surely enriched Ruiz's education.
There's all sorts of drama happening at the O'Donnell home. From what we can piece together, it all started in 1997. That was when Deanna Micoley put her 2-month-old daughter Kayla up for adoption. According to Deanna, she signed the consent documents while high on drugs and under pressure of her then-husband. She also alleges that the adoptive mother knew the condition she was in. That adoptive mother was Rosie O'Donnell, and Kayla soon became Chelsea O'Donnell. In the intervening years, Chelsea has been trying to find her biological parents. Somehow she got in touch with Deanna's father last November. Since then, Deanna and Chelsea/Kayla have been in contact via text and Facebook messages. Allegedly, O'Donnell tried to stop this communication and had some heated exchanges with Deanna. One text from Rosie says, "Get any lawyers u want. It was all legal. Like it or not. Now stop." When Deanna went public with the story, Rosie's publicist said that Rosie "encouraged and supported Chelsea's desire to communicate with her birth mother."
Fast forward to last month when Rosie revealed that Chelsea had been missing for a week with her service dog. On Aug. 18, Chelsea was found with 25-year-old Steven Sheerer, a man she allegedly met on Tinder and who has a record for heroin possession. According to reports, Sheerer sent Chelsea a nude photo of himself, and since she was only 17 at the time, he was charged with third-degree distribution of obscenity to a minor and third-degree endangering the welfare of a child. Six days after the police brought her home, Chelsea turned 18 and became a legal adult. Rosie's publicist made another statement: "Chelsea made a decision when she turned 18 that she wanted to go to her birth mother. That was her choice." But it wasn't quite so placid. We hear that Rosie refused to give Chelsea her birth certificate or Social Security card and threatened to cut her off financially if she left. And yet, off she went. Deanna drove from Wisconsin to pick up Chelsea/Kayla and told reporters, "Leave my daughter out of Rosie's stuff." To be continued...
Season 18 will likely go down in history as the least successful season of The View. All three of the newly-hired co-hosts vanished. For a while, it looked like Whoopi was going to be on the show all by herself. Then Raven-Symone was hired. Then Michelle Collins was hired. Then Candace Cameron Bure was hired. Then Paula Faris was hired. For those of you keeping count, that's five co-hoststhe most the show has ever had.
But Candace will also be filming the Full House reboot, and Paula hosts Good Morning America on the weekends. So they needed some fill-ins. Enter Stacy London, Ana Navarro, Molly Sims and Sherri Shepherd. Yes, Sherri Shepherdone of the few co-hosts in the history of The View to actually leave of her own accord.
Then ABC announced that Joy Behar is back. Not only is she backshe's back as a permanent host. How did this happen? When planning for this revamped panel, the network asked both Sherri and Joy to return. Both entered into negotiations. The idea of this rotating slot appealed to Sherri, who still acts and does stand-up around the country. She was in. Joy was less than thrilled.
"They've come to me, and we couldn't make a deal," she said. "They wouldn't really negotiate well enough for me. And so I said, 'No, I'm not coming back.' I mean, if they were giving me a bigger role on the show, and giving me some power to actually make some changes and let them benefit from my expertise after being there for 16 yearsbut they're not going to do that, so why would I want to bang my head against the wall?" A big issue was the moneywe hear Joy wanted $3 million for the part-time gig. The network balked, and Joy walked. Then Barbara Walters went to bat for Behar. Babs was disgusted with how the show has been run since her retirement, and insisted that Joy be rehired. But wait: There's more. Because the show will now be live on Fridays, Whoopi will take that day offand guess who will be the moderator? Joy, that's who.
I'm already looking forward to Dancing with the Starsor, as I like to call it, Dancing with a Bunch of Nobodies. So far, we have Chaka Khan huffing and puffing and sweating like a pig. Paula Deen might be a hoot. Then there's Nick Carter. If nothing else, he'll get back in shapeand there are few things in this world better than Nick Carter in shape. As to Bindi Irwin, really? She's a celebrity? Let's just hope her partner has a pet stingray.
When our tax dollars are being used to teach the feds about slings, it's definitely time to end yet another column. We had a little bit of everything to kick off our second decademusic, dance, murder, arrests, porn and escorts. And we LOLed the whole time. You can get even more kicks at www.BillyMasters.com, the site that will make you do more than laugh out loud. If you have a question for me, send it along to Billy@BillyMasters.com, and I promise to get back to you before Chaka asks Paula Deen to try her chocolate pie. Until next time, remember, one man's filth is another man's bible.