“That is a humanitarian crisis: There are people dying, and we have a president who is an hijo de la gran puta [son of a bitch], pardon my language.”
–Madame LaQueer, who moved from Puerto Rico to Orange County shortly after appearing on season four of RuPaul’s Drag Race, on the current state of her homeland.
LaQueer, whose real name is Carlos Melendez, was interviewed by Tatiana Tenreyro for last Thursday’s Billboard story, “Puerto Rican ‘Drag Race’ Alumni Talk Show’s Impact on the Island Ahead of Benefit Concert.”
Originally from Carolina, Puerto Rico, Melendez is now a makeup artist residing in Santa Ana and sometimes appearing as Madame LaQueer at VLVT Lounge. She tells Tenreyro that she doesn’t have immediate family on the island but feels the need to do her part to help.
“I saw the benefit and I said, ‘I’m going to have to make some time.’ I bought my flight so they wouldn’t have to spend money on me and I said ‘let’s go, vamonos, I’m in, I’m in.’ And I was one of the first people to jump in,” LaQueer says.
This was not reported by Tenreyro, but we figure that having a president who is an hijo de la gran puta spurs this reaction from LaQueer:
OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.