Lepore, Amanda
WORK TITLE: Doll Parts
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE: 11/21/1967
WEBSITE: http://amandalepore.net/
CITY: New York
STATE: NY
COUNTRY:
NATIONALITY:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amanda_Lepore
RESEARCHER NOTES:
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| LCCN Permalink: | https://lccn.loc.gov/no2017051679 |
| HEADING: | Lepore, Amanda |
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| 100 | 1_ |a Lepore, Amanda |
| 670 | __ |a Doll parts, 2017: |b title page (Amanda Lepore) about the author (Amanda Lepore is a recording artist, model, rule breaker, international LGBT icon. Doll parts is her first book) |
PERSONAL
Born November 21, 1967, in Cedar Grove, NJ.
ADDRESS
- Home - New York, NY.
CAREER
Transgender model, singer, and performance artist. Has appeared in films and had cameos in music videos.
WRITINGS
- (With Thomas Flannery, Jr.) Doll Parts: A Memoir, Regan Arts (New York, NY), 2017
Put out a debut full-length album, I . . . Amanda Lepore, in 2011.
SIDELIGHTS
Amanda (born Armand) Lepore is a transgender model, singer, and performance artist. Lepore grew up in New Jersey in troubled circumstances. Her mother was schizophrenic and institutionalized for long periods, and her father abandoned the family when Lepore was fourteen. Lepore, who says she always knew she was female, rebelled early in life. She made transgender costumes for a friend in exchange for female hormones and ran off to marry a man at age seventeen. She underwent sex reassignment surgery at age eighteen (astonishingly, paid for by her father-in-law). Several years later she left her husband to move to New York City to establish herself as a model and singer.
In New York, she worked variously as a manicurist and dominatrix. In the 1980s, she was a member of the Club Kids, a group of dance club personalities on the underground nightlife scene who were best known for showy costumes and shocking behavior. Lepore has appeared in films and had cameos in the music videos of Elton John and Grace Jones, among others. Her debut full-length album, I . . . Amanda Lepore, came out in 2011. She has also released singles. Lepore was a part of the True Colors Tour 2007, a North American tour of fifteen cities to benefit the Human Rights Campaign, PFLAG, and the Matthew Shepard Foundation.
In 2017, Lepore released Doll Parts: A Memoir, cowritten with Thomas Flannery, Jr. In this debut, she shares details of her difficult childhood and her gender transition. She also shares stories of her work as a dominatrix and her many cosmetic surgeries. Peter Davis reported in the Observer that the book “includes tip sheets on how to flirt with men, bleach your hair, do your nails and command a stage.” A Kirkus Reviews contributor called Doll Parts a “wonderfully candid, unrushed text” paired with “impeccably styled, posed, and provocative photographs.” The wealth of photographs were taken by such luninaries as David LaChapelle, Josef Jasso, Rob Lebow, and Joey Falsetta. Writing in The Cut, Hyunjee Lee noted that Lepore “maintains an unapologetic sense of self.”
In the New York Times, Jacob Bernstein commented that Lepore is famous largely for her extensive cosmetic surgery, so famous that “Swatch even put out a timepiece with Ms. Lepore’s face and blowfish red lips emblazoned across the dial.” In her quest for beauty, she has had silicone injections to fill out her breasts and derriere and even had her ribs broken to enhance her hourglass shape. Bernstein remarked, “Ms. Lepore’s outsize presence has not always been embraced by fellow travelers on the night life circuit, who sometimes wonder aloud how a person with no discernible talent has managed to remain in the public consciousness for so long.” Even so, she “remains extremely popular with nightclub audiences.” Writing in W Magazine, Emilia Petrarca observed that “by the end of the book, readers learn that Amanda Lepore is so much more than just an expensive body; rather, she’s the embodiment of a life much lived.”
BIOCRIT
ONLINE
Amanda LePore Website, http://amandalepore.net (February 8, 2018).
Cut, https://www.thecut.com (April 19, 2017), Hyunjee Lee, “How Burlesque Dancer Amanda Lepore Became a Transgender Icon,” review of Doll Parts.
Filthy Dreams, https://filthydreams.org (July 27, 2017) Emily Colucci, review of Doll Parts.
Gay Book Reviews, https://gaybook.reviews (June 23, 2017), review of Doll Parts.
Kirkus Reviews, http://www.kirkusreviews.com/ (March 15, 2017), review of Doll Parts.
New York Times, https://www.nytimes.com (July 19, 2017), Jacob Bernstein, review of Doll Parts.
Observer, http://observer.com (April 20, 2017), Peter Davis, “Amanda Lepore, Confessions From Loving Life as a Living Doll,” author interview.
Out, https://www.out.com (March 27, 2017), Michael Musto, author interview.
Reviews by Amos Lassen, http://reviewsbyamoslassen.com (February 8, 2018), Amos Lassen, review of Doll Parts.
Windy City Media Group Website, http://www.windycitymediagroup.com (May 17, 2017), Owen Keehnen, author interview.
W Magazine, https://www.wmagazine.com (April 20, 2017), Emilia Petrarca, review of Doll Parts.
- Doll Parts: A Memoir Regan Arts (New York, NY), 2017
- Amanda LePore - http://amandalepore.net/bio
Amanda Lepore
image
Photo: David Nguyen
“The Most Expensive Body On Earth”
The world’s most famous transsexual and an effervescent fixture on the New York scene, Amanda Lepore has been at the cutting edge of culture since the club kid era, breaking and re-making the rules for music, marketing, and gender.
Her album, I…Amanda Lepore, is the culmination of her long reign as the queen of Gotham’s button pushing (and button popping) carnival, cementing her status as the most prevalent risk taking creative artist and good-time gal after dark. A sort of woozy inflatable doll, Amanda comes off like a Jeff Koons statue of Marilyn Monroe, a walking work in progress whose nonstop array of surgeries have made her a unique comment on womanhood, and every inch a dame.
In Milan, she was dubbed La Silicona. In New York, she gets paid to enter a room, lips first. It’s not a party until her benevolent presence is spotted on a banquette, like a space alien sex goddess crossed with a curvy Disney goldfish, doling out insights, giggles, and occasionally free drink tickets. A dominatrix and a regular member of Michael Alig’s clubland circus at Limelight’s weekly Disco 2000 in the early ‘90s, Amanda went on to work Patricia Field’s makeup counter while finding her constantly changing face the most marketable object in town, it’s been used to promote Heatherette, M.A.C., Swatch, Smart Car, Perrier, Pop Water and Sergio K, just to name a few trendy brands, including her own limited edition fragrance by Artware Editions, and in 2006, way before he designed for that other first lady, Jason Wu did a limited edition Amanda Lepore doll, three versions, which represented her in plastic—a creative act that made perfect (dollars and) sense.
“But who is Amanda Lepore?” is an often overheard remark, second only to “But WHAT is Amanda Lepore?”
Well, back in the ‘90s, a newspaper column blithely called Amanda a drag queen, so she mailed them a Polaroid of herself giving them the finger (with no clothes on, by the way). “I’m a transsexual,” the exasperated diva explained to me at the time. “I have a vagina!” She’ll even show it to you! In person! And as with a lot of her transformations, it came pretty cheap. (As a boy in Cedar Grove, New Jersey, Amanda got hormones from a transgendered friend in exchange for outfits. She ended up dating a surgeon who gave her a free nose job, a later boyfriend paying for her sexual reassignment. Who needs nationalized health care when you can just marry well?)
Things happen pretty enchantedly for Amanda, though this obscures the fact that beneath her vavoomy exterior is an unflappable person with a will of steel who invariably gets what she wants. Her obsessive dabblings in rhinoplasty, liquid silicone injections, eyelifts, and breast implants are calculated to make her the world’s most beautiful lab experiment—an iconic presence that artists from Elton John to The Drums to Tiga to The Dandy Warhols to Cazwell, have used to enhance their videos and that anyone with a camera—and half a brain—automatically aims her way. Amanda has worked with some the most renowned photographers and creatives in the world, including Terry Richardson, Ellen Von Unwerth and Pierre et Gilles.
“Amanda has no interest in being a girl,” photographer David LaChapelle—one of her longtime mentors—once told me. “She wants to be a drawing of a girl, a cartoon like Jessica Rabbit. When I told her that silicone is dangerous, she said, ‘I don’t care, as long as I look beautiful in the coffin’. There’s something kind of profound in that, that she’s creating this moment of beauty for herself and is willing to make the ultimate sacrifice.” Amanda’s music also takes pains to serve a challenging product that, in its post-Warholian way, sardonically comments on capitalism while wholeheartedly embracing it. Playing a ditz comes naturally to her (she sang “I Know What Boys Like” for Another Gay Movie Soundtrack and the downtown classic “My Hair Looks Fierce” on her first album, 2005’s I…Amanda Lepore), but it’s a pose, a winky attempt to portray a sort of modern day Ann-Margret, albeit one who once had a penis.
Usually, Amanda would rather sing about more important things than just boys and hair—like champagne, her nails and her privates! Her 2007 club hit “My Pussy (Is Famous)” giddily reminded the world that, while it arrived without a pricetag on it, her fertile crescent is now worth millions.
In April of 2017, Amanda released her memoir “Doll Parts”, published by Regan Arts, in collaboration with Vigliano Associates and Peace Bisquit. This autobiography is a tell-all, co-authored with Thomas Flannery, and features exclusive photos and imagery chronicling Amanda’s illustrious life and career. She also continued to work in the studio on her forthcoming EP, LEPORE., to be released early 2018. The first single, “Buckle Up”, can be heard HERE!
In between touring and performing around the world, you can find Amanda hosting and performing at the hottest parties in New York City (On Top, STRUT!, Holy Mountain, The Museum of Sex , The Box & More!).
FOR BOOKINGS, EMAIL: staff@peacebisquit.com
image
- Wikipedia - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amanda_Lepore
Amanda Lepore
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Amanda Lepore
Life Ball 2014 red carpet 075 Amanda Lepore.jpg
Lepore at the Life Ball in Vienna, Austria, May 2014.
Born Armand Lepore
November 21, 1967 (age 50)[1]
Cedar Grove, New Jersey, United States
Residence New York, New York
Occupation
Model socialite singer performance artist
Years active 1989–present
Website amandalepore.net
Modeling information
Height 5 ft 2 in (1.57 m)
Hair color Platinum blonde
Eye color Brown
Amanda Lepore (born November 21, 1967[2]) is an American transgender model, celebutante, singer, and performance artist. The former Club Kid[3] has appeared in advertising for numerous companies. Lepore is also noted as a regular subject in photographer David LaChapelle's work, serving as his muse, as well as many other photographers, such as Terry Richardson and Ruben van Schalm. She participated in LaChapelle's Artists and Prostitutes 1985–2005 exhibit in New York City, where she "lived" in a voyeuristic life-sized set.[4][5] Lepore has also released several singles, many written by and/or recorded with Cazwell. In 2011, she released her debut studio album, I...Amanda Lepore, on Peace Bisquit.Contents
1 Early life
2 Modeling and acting
3 Book
4 Music
5 Merchandise
6 Discography
7 See also
8 References
9 External links
Early life
Amanda, born Armand Lepore in 1967,[6] grew up in the Essex County community of Cedar Grove, New Jersey.[7][8] Her father was an Italian-American chemical engineer, and her mother was a German-American housewife. Her mother had schizophrenia and spent much time in mental institutions.[9][10] She has one sibling, an elder brother.Lepore later wrote: "Ever since I can first remember, I knew I was a girl. I couldn't understand why my parents were dressing me up in boys clothing. I thought they were insane."[10] In her early teens Lepore began making costumes for a transgender friend in exchange for female hormones.[11] She was already isolated from her peers. At this time, her parents withdrew her from public school and hired a private tutor. They took her to a psychologist, who helped her obtain a prescription to begin hormone therapy to prepare her for transition to a woman.[12]
At the age of 17, and through a legal loophole, Lepore married a male bookstore owner. She was granted permission for sex reassignment surgery,[12][13] which she had at age 19 in Yonkers, New York.[13] Lepore later left her husband; in 1989, she relocated to New York City.
In the early 1990s, Lepore tried to establish herself as a nightlife figure (including being a member in the Club Kids). She supported herself by working in a nail salon, as a dominatrix,[12] and later as a cosmetics salesgirl for Patricia Field. After meeting photographer David LaChapelle one evening while hosting at Bowery Bar, she began collaborating with him. She ultimately gained international renown as his muse.[12]
Modeling and acting
Lepore has appeared in fashion magazines, including French Playboy, Ponytail, DAMn and TUSH. She is on the cover of Lords of Acid's 1999 album Expand Your Head and on Thighpaulsandra's 2006 album The Lepore Extrusion.Because of her association with the Club Kids, Lepore had a cameo in the documentary Party Monster: The Shockumentary (1998) and the feature film Party Monster (2003). She can be seen briefly in the fashion spoof comedy Zoolander (2001). She was featured in the documentary Dig! (2004) and in Another Gay Sequel (2008). Lepore will be featured in José André Sibaja's upcoming film The Zanctuary.
Lepore has had cameos in music videos for artists including Elton John, Thalía, The Dandy Warhols, Girl in a Coma,[14] Grace Jones, Keanan Duffty, TIGA (for his cover of "Sunglasses at Night"), and the alt rock band The Drums (for "Days").[15] Lepore appears in many of Cazwell's music videos, including "Watch my Mouth"[16] and "All Over Your Face".[17]
She was Chief of Parade at the 2010 Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras in Australia.[11]
Book
On April 18, 2017, after having it announced for more than a year, Lepore launched her autobiographical book, "Doll parts". It was co-written with Thomas Flannery Jr. and published through Regan Arts. Among the text, the book features lots of pictures of Amanda taken by different photographers such as David LaChapelle, Josef Jasso, Rob Lebow (who has taken the cover image) or Joey Falsetta.Music
Her first single, "Deeper," is a 2003 trance dance song written by Wigstock drag queen Lady Bunny.[18]In 2005, Lepore released her first album, Introducing... Amanda Lepore, which contains "Champagne" and "My Hair Looks Fierce". In 2007, she released two remix albums, Fierce Pussy and My Pussy E.P. Lepore also sings the main title for Another Gay Movie, "I Know What Boys Like". She also performs "Cotton Candy", from the soundtrack of Another Gay Sequel.[19]
Lepore was a part of True Colors Tour 2007, a 15-city North American benefit tour sponsored by the Logo channel, hosted by comedian Margaret Cho and headlined by Cyndi Lauper.[20] The tour benefited the Human Rights Campaign, PFLAG and the Matthew Shepard Foundation, and it included Erasure, Debbie Harry, The Gossip, Rufus Wainwright, The Dresden Dolls, The MisShapes, Rosie O'Donnell, Indigo Girls, The Cliks and other special guests. In 2009, Lepore performed at the Majestic Theatre during Metro Pride Fest in Detroit with The Divas of the Majestic: A Divine Lites Productions and Founder, Electra Lites.[21] In June 2011 she debuted her album I...Amanda Lepore at the Highline Ballroom with Cazwell, Kat Deluna, Neon Hitch, Ana Matronic, Jonté and many others.
Her debut full-length album I...Amanda Lepore was released in 2011 on Peace Bisquit.[22]
In 2013, her version of the Marilyn Monroe song I wanna be loved by you was released through Peace Bisquit
In 2014, Lepore was featured on drag performer Sharon Needles' single, "I Wish I Were Amanda Lepore", and she guest starred in the music video for the track, depicting Needles as a fan obsessed with getting plastic surgery to look like her.
In 2015, she colaborated with Alek Sandar in his song P.O.R.N., even appearing in the cover of the single and in the music video.
On July 31, 2015, she published the remix album I... Amanda Lepore - Make over sessions. This album includes 2 digital CDs that contain the best remixes of her first studio album I... Amanda Lepore, released four years before.
On December 8th, 2017, the song Buckle up was released from her forthcoming EP Lepore., which is going to be released on February 16th, 2018. The EP contains 4 new songs: Buckle up, My panties, The Jean Genie (original song by David Bowie) and Too drunk to f*ck
Merchandise
In October 1999, Swatch released "Time Tranny", a watch designed by LaChapelle with Lepore on the face, which displays a printed crack on the glass and marble stripes as the background. A second version displays no cracked glass and a blue and yellow striped background.[23]In April 2006, Integrity Toys launched an Amanda Lepore doll produced by Jason Wu as a benefit for AIDS charities.[24]
Lepore has a line of cosmetics in partnership with CAMP Cosmetics, called "Collection Lepore", as well as a signature perfume.[25]
Discography
Studio albums
List of studio albums, with selected chart positions, sales figures, and certifications
Title Album details Certifications
I...Amanda Lepore
Released: June 28, 2011
Label: Peace Bisquit
Formats: CD, digital Download
I...Amanda Lepore - Make over sessions
Released: July 31, 2015
Label: Peace Bisquit
Formats: digital Download
Includes 2 digital CD's
Remix album
Has 2 official covers
EPs
Year Album
2005 Introducing... Amanda Lepore
Released: September 21, 2005
Formats: Digital Download
2007 My Pussy
Released: 2007
Formats: Digital Download
2008 Fierce Pussy (The Remix Album)
Released: June 1, 2008
Formats: CD, Digital Download
2010 Cazwell and Amanda
Released: October 26, 2010
Formats: Digital Download
2018 Lepore.
Released: February 16, 2018
Formats: Digital Download
Singles
Year Title Album
2006 "I Know What Boys Like" Another Gay Movie Soundtrack
2009 "Cotton Candy" I...Amanda Lepore
"My Hair Looks Fierce"
Music videos
Year Title Director
2009 "Cotton Candy"[26] Bec Stupak
2010 "Marilyn"[27] Leo Herrera
2011 "Turn Me Over" Marco Ovando
2010 "Get Into It" Cazwell feat. Amanda Lepore Marco Ovando
2011 "Doin It My Way" Marco Ovando
2012 "Doin It My Way" Remix Sid Licious
Lepore, Amanda: DOLL PARTS
Kirkus Reviews.
(Mar. 15, 2017): From Book Review Index Plus. COPYRIGHT 2017 Kirkus Media LLC http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
Full Text:
Lepore, Amanda DOLL PARTS Regan Arts (Adult Nonfiction) $39.99 4, 18 ISBN: 978-1-942872-85-6
A singular fixture on the New York City club scene reveals the private details of her gender transition in a photo-heavy memoir.Buxom performance artist Lepore, 49, boasts having "the most expensive body on earth," yet her beginnings were humble. She was born Armand to a suburban New Jersey chemical engineer and his elegant, sophisticated "trophy wife." The author's early unhappiness, beginning at age 5, stemmed from a passionate yearning to become her truest self: a girl. Dreaming of long blonde hair and excitedly reaching for Barbies ("everything I wanted to be") instead of Hot Wheels, Lepore frustrated her father and compassionately doted over her mother, who suffered from intermittent paranoid schizophrenia. Though her parents eventually separated, Lepore was determined to master makeup skills, the rules of femininity, the ability to please men with her body, and the wonder of hormones. This all led to the sex change procedure she had been envisioning to make her physically whole. A failed marriage behind her, she went on to conquer the Manhattan party scene in the 1990s with melodramatic appearances and adored performances. Complementing the author's wonderfully candid, unrushed text are pages of impeccably styled, posed, and provocative photographs--many seminude--showcasing an obvious love of fashion, glamour, and pride in her own expensively enhanced female form. "I associate dressing up with mental stability," writes the author, who doesn't skimp on intimate personal details. Scattered throughout the book are sidebars of personal factoids and clever tips as well as snippets on everything from her personal grooming particulars and the dos and don'ts of female hair and nail care. Though confined to just a few pages, Lepore offers some sage advice for transgender youth and those embarking on their own journeys into gender transformation. Through generous photos and a narrative that could stand alone, this is a must-have collector's item for readers eager for a glimpse into the unique world of a fearless chanteuse. A thoroughly enjoyable hybrid of flashy pictorial, artsy production, and outspoken autobiography.
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
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"Lepore, Amanda: DOLL PARTS." Kirkus Reviews, 15 Mar. 2017. PowerSearch, http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A485105286/GPS?u=schlager&sid=GPS& xid=872d027f. Accessed 20 Jan. 2018.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A485105286
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- The Cut
https://www.thecut.com/2017/04/see-photos-from-amanda-lepores-new-memoir-doll-parts.html
Word count: 328How Burlesque Dancer Amanda Lepore Became a Transgender Icon
By
Hyunjee Lee
View Slideshow
Amanda Lepore. Photo: Photographed by Vijat MohindraIn her new memoir Doll Parts, transgender model Amanda Lepore details her path from growing up as a scrawny boy in New Jersey to achieving fame as a New York City go-go dancer (and an oft-nude guest at fashion parties). The book features portraits and fashion spreads by photographers like Rob Lebow and David LaChapelle. With co-author Thomas Flannery, Lepore begins by recalling her early years of being bullied in school while her mother grappled with paranoid schizophrenia.
“I accepted her mental illness, the same as she accepted my femininity,” she writes. Her father was not so welcoming, forcing her to cut her hair short and hide her Barbie dolls. At age 15, Lepore met a transgender stripper who helped her access hormone pills and begin transitioning; she had a sex-reassignment surgery at age 17. After landing in New York, she became a nightlife fixture as one of the “Club Kids” and launched her career as a performance artist.
Lepore candidly shares her experiences from working as a dominatrix, as well as her cosmetic-surgery history, but she doesn’t shy away from side effects that came with her lifestyle, like having to sleep sitting up for six months after a waist-shrinking procedure. Through it all, she maintains an unapologetic sense of self, which resonated with her audience: “I went from being a spectacle to getting respect. People seemed to have a better understanding of me,” she writes. Lepore offers advice to transgender teens as well: “Whatever you decide to do, do it legally, with a real doctor. When I was going through it, there were a lot fewer resources for transgender youth. Don’t use my risky decisions as your excuse.”
Click ahead to see images from the book, out this week from Regan Arts.
- Out
https://www.out.com/michael-musto/2017/3/27/amanda-lepore-her-new-book-celebrity-dates-caitlyns-lesbianism
Word count: 3150Amanda Lepore on Her New Book, Celebrity Dates & Caitlyn's Lesbianism
Amanda LeporeAlso! Whoopi Goldberg's new drag name! Alec Baldwin's work process! Marvin Room's casting!
By Michael Musto
Mon, 2017-03-27 09:59Amanda Lepore is a trans icon, party hostess, photographers’ muse and now a book. The New Jersey-born answer to Marilyn Monroe, Lepore is the subject of Doll Parts (written with Thomas Flannery, Jr.), in which she shares her life story, beauty tips and glamour photos. Amanda once told me that at age 11, she saw a TV show about transgender people and promptly woke up her parents to tell them she wanted to transition. She eventually got hormones from a friend in exchange for outfits, and she was also helped by an encouraging shrink. And her first husband’s dad paid for her operation, though hubby had no idea of her “secret” at first. Many surgeries later, Amanda is a long running nightclub chanteuse and presence—and an author. I chatted with her to get a feel for the doll.
Hi, Amanda. Do you read a lot of books?
I don’t read so much. I’m one of those people who like pictures more. Stuff on Marilyn or other glamorous women from the 1950s will always catch my eye.
Have you read the bible?
No. I’ve seen them in the hotel once in a while.
Did you ever steal one?
No, but I did used to steal Barbie clothes when I was a little kid, at a 5-and-10 store. When there were Halloween costumes, I’d put all kinds of junk I wanted into the box. I got caught stealing with a friend. Her mother was really sweet, and she was really mad when we got caught, so I stopped.
What’s your top beauty tip?
Staying out of the sun and protecting yourself with sunscreen. Besides makeup and glamour, I also like to take care of my skin. I was in a car accident and I had needles done to reduce scars. It seems like a craze. I watched a YouTube thing and bought it myself. I’ve been doing my whole body. It’s a roller with needles on it. Your skin gets used to it so, even though you’re red and look sunburnt the night you do it, you’re fine the next day. And the skin products will work 80% more. That’s really exciting and sort of primitive and weird, but it works. They discovered it from people getting tattoos—needling without the ink works, and it produces collagen.
Do you feel like a doll?
Yes.
Are you a Barbie doll or an inflatable doll?
I’m inflated in the right places. I think I look better than a blow-up doll. I do have that blow-up doll thing with the boobs and the big round lips and the long hair. My boobs and lips and ass and hips are inflated. My head a little bit, too. (laughs)
Is there any surgery you wanted that the doctors wouldn’t do?
No, but I recently got my eyes done and I was really happy with them. They’re now much more doll like. I’m glad I waited because I went to a Korean doctor, and they know how to make Japanese eyes into white eyes. I wanted my eyes bigger. I think I look a lot more proportionate. It makes everything else look natural because everything else is fake, so I have matching eyes now. I know I said I wasn’t going to do any surgery and I was happy, but who can resist bigger doll eyes?
That actually makes perfect sense to me. You sometimes come off a little ditzy, but that’s just a shtick, right? Or are you really a ditz?
A little bit of both. Sometimes I’m not faking with my dizzy thing—I really am--but it works for me. I just be myself and it’s great, either being a dumbbell or smart. It surprises people both ways!
Did you ever have a date with a celebrity?
Yes. It’s in the book.
I know, but let’s keep people guessing.
I think they worded it so I won’t get in trouble.
I know he’s black.
One of them is.
In the book, it says, "He was a very famous rapper, they were playing his new song in the clubs constantly. I never saw him again after that, but when he got married, I couldn’t help but think that his wife had a similar body type to me." Anyway, you were so ahead of the curve—or the curves—as a trans icon. Do you feel it has become a trend?
In some ways, it’s good. In all different ways. Thanks to the Internet and Instagram, you can follow people that you admire, which is so important for kids. I go away and entertain—I went to Little Rock, Arkansas, which is mentioned in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes—and they have an amazing trans scene of supporting themselves. It’s really important with transsexuals. And there’s the YouTube thing. I know dilating wasn’t really talked about much for post operative transsexuals. Now you can look it up on YouTube and all these people talk about it and demonstrate. I wish I had all that when I was younger. I’d hear about the transsexuals of the moment. There was one every 10 years, I think. (laughs) Now there’s a lot. They all have different experiences, so people can relate to it more. Parents can see it. When I was transitioning, I had a home tutor. They didn’t want me in school while I was transitioning. I was going to go because I didn’t know better. Now parents are supportive with transsexual or transgender kids.
Your thoughts on Caitlyn and her politics?
It’s kind of disappointing that she’s a Trump supporter. It’s weird and a slap in the face. That’s really odd. I did believe that she was transgender. I think that gets lost when you like women. Because when I was young, I just liked guys and was a bottom, so it’s easy to transition. But if you like women, you go into a relationship with women, getting a vagina would get in the way.
Related | Caitlyn Jenner Calls Trump's Reversal of Transgender Bathroom Rights a 'Disaster'
But with or without a vagina, you can be a lesbian.
Yes, but when you’re in a situation dating someone who doesn’t know [you’re female] and they’re attracted. That’s probably why she waited so long. It must be harder. I don’t think that openly being a lesbian would have made it easier. She was in a marriage where she was Bruce Jenner. I knew trans girls who one day would be beautiful and take hormones and the next day they’d meet a guy on the subway and change back to a boy to please them. I think it’s something like that. Being who you don’t want to be for your partner.
But now Caitlyn is liberated.
She wanted to be with that person, but on the other hand, she wanted to be a woman. If she came out transgender and an honest lesbian, it would be easy, but because of the relationship she chose, it must have been hard. That’s the only way I could have compassion.
But you don’t change your sexuality, just your physical gender.
Right. But she was in that relationship and wasn’t being honest with that, so that screws you up.
But now you’d say Caitlyn’s a lesbian?
Oh yeah, lesbian all the way, right.
The father of your husband (at the time) paid for your vagina. How much was it?
I don’t know. Most of my surgeries I didn’t pay for myself. I’m sure I spend more money on shoes than my vagina was. Some of the shoes are $4,000 a pop.
At the peak of your surgeries, what’s the most work you had done in a year?
When I went with [trans former friend] Sophia Lamar to Mexico, I did liposuction, had my ribs broken in the back, which made my waist smaller, and got my boobs much bigger.
Did you get tired of spending so much time recuperating?
I have a really good immune system. I heal really well, fortunately. Even the eyes I just got done. I had them done on Thursday and they took out the stitches on Monday. I try to take good care of myself.
You don’t do drugs?
No. I don’t really drink. Once in a while I’ll have shots of tequila, but I never finish it. When you’re in high heels and all that stuff, I wouldn’t want to be out of control. Plus I was told that the hormones don’t work as much when you drink. [Scandalous club kid promoter] Michael Alig used to always force drinks on me. I’d pour out the drink and he caught me and said, “If you’re not gonna drink it, don’t get it.” He’d make fun of me when I would have wine spritzers.
Related | My 10 Most Shocking Memories of Michael Alig
I also saw him trying to push pills into someone’s mouth. Why did you and Sophia Lamar have a falling out?
I don’t know. I think it has to do with David and the modeling. [Amanda has long been a muse/model for artist David LaChapelle.] She was more of a model than me.
So she got jealous?
Yeah.
Do you have a boyfriend or husband now?
No, I’m just dating, I had a boyfriend I broke up with. Weird stuff. He would mention having threesomes with girls a lot. Maybe he should have went with Caitlyn Jenner. (laughs)
You don’t do threesomes?
No. I‘m not a lesbian—not even bisexual. I’d do it with a guy before the girl. I just get jealous around girls. I’m like 10 girls, and it’s too much femininity!
Amanda Lepore's Doll Parts is available for pre-order on Amazon, and will be released April 18.
WHOOPI GOLDBERG IS TRULY A SAGE PERSON
Me Whoopi And Tom
Photography: Jason Russo (HeyMrJason Photography)
Another female icon, Whoopi Goldberg, threw an event at Chef’s Club last week for SAGE (Services and Advocacy for GLBT Elders), promoting the May 18 “SAGE Table” happening where people will host dinners bridging the gap between young and old. At this event, I chatted with Lisa Kron (Tony winner for writing the book of Fun Home) about the difficulty older gays face because we don’t always have people to take care of us the way we took care of our parents. “My partner Madeline says she’ll go into the forest, eat a Cadbury cream egg and then shoot herself,” said Kron, with a wry smile.
Related | LGBTQ Elders Are Being Forced Back in the Closet, Now Trump Wants Them Erased
And then Whoopi arrived—a little late—and told the crowd, “I fell asleep. I can’t lie. I‘m such an old person.” Sitting at my SAGE table, Whoopi explained that she’d been watching Feud and dozed off. “If you were a gay man, you never would have fallen asleep watching Feud,” I told her, and she laughed. Whoopi is quite serious about helping SAGE’s mission to help mature LGBTQ people. She’s also livid about the indignities being perpetrated by President Trump and said she sometimes wants to scream “What the fuck is going on?” when she’s on The View, but she bites her tongue.
Related | Ryan Murphy Interviews Jessica Lange on Fame, Feuds & the Feminine Mystique
Other conversational topics were given to us in clever brochures, including our secret drag names, so I decided Whoopi could be Eileen Sideways and I’d be Beth Israel. (Or maybe we can both be Lois Commondenominator). We were also asked to discuss our favorite childhood foods, upon which Whoopi said she was so poor growing up that her mother mostly boiled bok choy—the cheapest thing you could get—in large quantities. When a tablemate chirped that he’d gone to Harvard, Whoopi said she’d been honored with that school’s Hasty Pudding Woman of the Year award and loved it even more than the Oscar because “I didn’t go to high school or college and all these smart people were honoring me!” That’s how I felt on this night of nights—though the prevalence of ageism shone through with regards to one suggested conversational gambit that everyone at my table ignored: “Tell everyone your age.” We need SAGE more than ever.
BROADWAY CASTING GOSSIP
Aging straight people are at the center of Marvin’s Room, the Scott McPherson play about a family wracked by health emergencies, which is being revived this June at the Roundabout. Well, I’m hearing buzz on some casting names who seem to be involved: Celia Weston, Lili Taylor and Janeane Garofalo. Sounds like a Room worth inhabiting.
A REAL SMART ALEC IN DIAPERS & A SUIT
Alec Baldwin turns out to be perfect casting for the lead role in The Boss Baby, about a bossy child who’s actually a suit-wearing secret agent involved in some international puppy shenanigans. In their review of the animated film (which focuses on the bonding between the baby and his brother), the Hollywood Reporter wrote that Baldwin “seems to have cornered the market when it comes to playing conceited man-babies.” And his work ethic is obviously very secure. “Alec self directs,” said director Tom McGrath after a special screening last week. “He says, ‘I think we got it.’ I say, ‘Can we try one more?’ He’ll stare at you and then say ‘yes.'” But McGrath added that Baldwin happens to be comically inventive and a total pro. Unlike the guy he impersonates on SNL.
Related | Alec Baldwin as Trump Says 'We're All Going To Die' in SNL Cold Open
GONNA MAKE YOU “SWEAT”
Worker unrest that partly led to Trump’s America is at the core of Lynn Nottage’s Sweat, which is mostly set in a Reading, Pennsylvania bar in 2000 (with some scenes eight years later), where steel plant workers gather to drink, bond, and betray. We already see some of the effects of this lifestyle; the bartender (James Colby) was hurt in an accident at the plant, and Brucie (John Earl Jelks) was shut out of his job, along with fellow union members, at another mill, and he hasn’t handled it well. As management lowers the boom on jobs, while offering to promote someone from the working class ranks, things get complicated, especially since a Colombian American bar back (Carlo Alban) admits to feeling invisible—until he’s bitterly called a “scab” as tensions flare (along with racial issues).
Under Kate Whoriskey’s direction, this is pulled off with a lot of energy and surprising humor—the characters don’t seem to have a lot of introspective time—and a game cast gives it extra heft. Best of all are the three lead women—Michelle Wilson, Johanna Day, and Alison Wright—as figures in an embattled landscape, navigating through it while trying to survive. Nottage won the Pulitzer for Ruined, and with this, her first Broadway play, she’s achieved something earnest but worthwhile.
MUSICAL DRAMA WITH SAIGON SAUCE
Finally, a revival that doesn’t skimp on the budget, while assuring us that the “reinvention” breathes new life into material that used to allegedly be overblown. The new revival of Miss Saigon—the souped-up Boublil/Maltby Jr./Schönberg’s answer to Madame Butterfly—is lavishly produced, from the throngs of crotch bumping prosties to the whirring helicopter that’s come back to give Phantom’s chandelier a run for its chutzpah.
And I must have really gotten old because I enjoyed it a lot more than in '91, when I found it screechingly cheesy. This time, there are still some clunky lyrics and also people belting songs while writhing in melodramatic anguish. But the story grabbed me, as teenage Kim works in a sex club run by a raunchy character known as the Engineer, falling for an American GI, Chris, who feels she deserves better. It’s no secret that later on, Chris doesn’t know Kim’s given birth to his son, and Kim’s wife has no idea that he was with Kim (though she’s starting to suspect as much).
As the dramas unfurl, Laurence Connor’s direction keeps things swirling, with some dazzling set pieces, including Jon Jon Brione’s brilliant turn as the Engineer, gleefully—and sleazily—singing about the glories of “The American Dream” as dancers cavort around him and a gleaming car emerges to give the helicopter a contest. (The character beams about an America where you can regularly grab for big bucks and fake tits, slaying the audience as he topically exclaims “Let’s make it great again!”) Jonathan Pryce won a Tony for the original production, amid cries that they should have cast an Asian. This time, they did so, proving the talent is out there if you just look for it. Eva Noblezada sings chirpily as Kim, Alistair Brammer emotes elaborately as Chris, and Katie Rose Clarke is terrific as his searching wife. A show with references to “chicks with dicks” and Vietnamese history? To 'hos and Ho Chi Minh? I love it (and so would Amanda Lepore).
ONE MORE THING...
A long-time drag performer is on the warpath against his ex-boyfriend, who's currently making a career leap. Drag Queen 1 says Drag Queen 2 is a scarily shady Eve Harrington-type who stole way more than his heart. Helleaux!
Tags: Michael Musto - New York Times
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/19/style/amanda-lepore-transgender-memoir.html
Word count: 2200Amanda Lepore, Transgender Club Diva, Tells All About Her Plastic Surgery
By JACOB BERNSTEINJULY 19, 2017
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Amanda Lepore, the transgender night life diva, at home at Hotel 17. Ms. Lepore recently released a memoir that mentions her numerous cosmetic surgeries. Credit Ryan Pfluger for The New York TimesThe transgender night life diva Amanda Lepore is, to quote the filmmaker Joel Schumacher, a “moving sculpture,” a person who has made her own body her life’s work.
The night life columnist Michael Musto calls this ubiquitous carnivalesque curiosity, “the missing link between old New York and the current prominence of transgender divas.”
Famous largely for the plastic surgery that she brazenly flaunts, Ms. Lepore has been photographed by David LaChapelle while bent over a gurney, receiving a silicone injection. The fashion designer Jason Wu created a doll in her Jessica Rabbit-meets-Jocelyn-Wildenstein likeness. Swatch even put out a timepiece with Ms. Lepore’s face and blowfish red lips emblazoned across the dial.
And that’s to say nothing of the ad campaigns for Mac Cosmetics and Armani Jeans. Or the dance single she recorded with the producer Larry Tee (the title of which cannot be repeated in this newspaper).
Continue reading the main story
Related CoverageDavid LaChapelle, From Photographer to Artist MAY 27, 2011
FRONT ROW
Amanda, a Scent That Might Make You Tipsy MARCH 4, 2009For those who still can’t get enough of this silicone-enhanced creation, there is now, “Doll Parts,” a memoir disguised as a coffee-table book that Ms. Lepore released this spring (with her ghostwriter, Thomas Flannery Jr.) and features many of Ms. Lepore’s most iconic images with collaborators such as Mr. LaChapelle, Marco Ovando, Pierre et Gilles and Roxanne Lowit.
Not that Ms. Lepore is aiming to be the next Patti Smith. Sitting in the Gramercy Park hotel room she calls home, decked out in a fire-engine-red dress, her hair blown out like Jayne Mansfield, Ms. Lepore estimated that she’s read all of two books since 1986.
“Oh, I never read anything,” she said. “Mostly, I look at pictures.”
Certainly, Ms. Lepore’s publisher, Judith Regan, did not decide to publish “Doll Parts” because she saw her latest author as the future oracle of trans-feminism.
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Ms. Lepore, center, who has appeared in high-profile fashion campaigns, at the Blonds fashion show in 2014. Credit Chelsea Lauren, via Getty Images“I wanted it because of the plastic surgery,” said Ms. Regan. “It’s extreme.”
“And then you sit down and talk to her and it’s a lifetime of drama.”
Befitting a person who is endlessly reinventing herself, Ms. Lepore’s age can change depending on what she feels like on a given day.
In her Tinder profile, she is a 36-year-old “hourglass shape petite blond bombshell looking for tall gentleman.” In her memoir, she is 49, though friends have their doubts.
Nevertheless, Ms. Lepore (whose birth name was Armand) grew up around Cedar Grove, N.J., where her father was Herman Lepore, a chemical engineer, and her mother was Frances Lepore, a housewife who spent much of Ms. Lepore’s childhood floating in and out of mental institutions with schizophrenia.
One of Ms. Lepore’s earliest memories is of a recurring dream in which she was trapped like Rapunzel in a tower. Perhaps because she is a person who lives to be photographed, this was not a nightmare about isolation and neglect, but a fantasy about having strawberry blond hair and a mirror to spend all day in front of.
Through a nanny, Ms. Lepore learned to sew, which came in handy when she worked at a gentleman’s club in Newark while still a teenager. There she would make costumes for the strippers, one of whom was transgender, and paid Ms. Lepore with black-market estrogen.
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The designer Daphne Guinness and Ms. Lepore, who is best known for her crafted beauty, celebrated 15 years of Nars Cosmetics in 2009. Credit Jamie McCarthy, via Getty ImagesIt would be another three decades before transgender rights became a major social issue, but Ms. Lepore knew at an early age that she was trapped in a man’s body.
As Ms. Lepore recounts in her memoir, a guidance counselor at her high school spotted breasts growing underneath Ms. Lepore’s shirt and gave her an ultimatum. “I could get a tutor or quit,” Ms. Lepore said. She changed her name to Amanda, chose a tutor and got her high school equivalency diploma soon after, she said.
Finding love as a transgender woman would prove more difficult, and Keni Valenti, a friend for more than 30 years, said he always believed Ms. Lepore’s obsessive physical transformation was driven by a feeling of “never being feminine enough.”
Growing up, Ms. Lepore acknowledged, she was concerned with little other than “looking pretty. I didn’t know anything else really.”
Her first paramour was a businessman she hitched a ride from one day after high school. Ms. Lepore was 18 when she had her first long-term relationship, with a man identified in the memoir as “Michael,” who she said beat her up when he found out her biological secret.
Michael’s father, who was perhaps more progressive, intervened on her behalf, explaining that Ms. Lepore was not a man, but a woman whose body was out of sync with her mind. As Ms. Lepore tells it, the father paid for her sex reassignment surgery.
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From left, the designer Traver Rains, Kelly Osbourne, Ms. Lepore and the designer Richie Rich. Ms. Lepore and Richie Rich both made a name for themselves in the ’90s Club Kids scene. Credit Bryan Bedder/Getty ImagesSoon after, she and Michael patched things up and got married in a small ceremony in New Jersey. But the relationship was rocky, said Mr. Valenti, who attended the wedding.
“He was possessive, really possessive,” Mr. Valenti said. “I was trying to turn her into a model, so I would take pictures of her, and I remember, he said, ‘You’re exploiting my wife. I was like ‘We’re making fashion.’”
In the memoir, Ms. Lepore not only recounts the abusiveness of the marriage, but said her father-in-law began to make sexual overtures. “It was just too weird,” she said.
One night in 1988 or 1989, Ms. Lepore packed a single suitcase and decamped to New York City, where she roomed with a male hustler who would throw her out whenever he brought home a trick.
She found work as a dominatrix at Belle de Jour, an S&M club on the East Side, before landing at the makeup counter at Patricia Field, the avant-garde boutique in downtown Manhattan known for its transgender and unconventional staff.
“Working” wasn’t exactly what she did there.
“I used to say, ‘Amanda sits in the makeup department and looks at herself all day long,’” Ms. Field said. “It was a loving joke.”
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While Ms. Lepore was making her foray into the city’s clubs, a fortuitous night arrived in 1993, when she attended the opening party for Disco 2000, a Wednesday party at the Limelight. She was spotted from across the dance floor by the party’s promoter Michael Alig (later convicted of murdering and dismembering a drug dealer named Angel Melendez) and the club’s publicist Claire O’Connor.
“I pointed her out to Claire and said, ‘Look at that beautiful woman,’” Mr. Alig said. They introduced themselves, and Mr. Alig hired her on the spot to become a club regular and help spice up the party.
Nightclubs around the world started booking her for appearances, where, in addition to free airfare and accommodations, she was paid to primp and pose with fans, becoming, as Mr. Musto noted, one of the first people who was paid simply to show up at parties. This was especially true after Ms. Lepore appeared on the “Joan Rivers Show” for a segment about club kids.
In 1998, Ms. Lepore ran into Mr. LaChapelle at Bowery Bar, and after spending all night talking he invited her to model for him the following day. The photographer-muse relationship blossomed as her devotion to perpetual self-reinvention through plastic surgery intensified.
Ms. Lepore certainly isn’t shy about discussing her numerous operations. “That’s the thing I love,” said the veteran club promoter Susanne Bartsch. “She’s completely open about it.”
Ms. Lepore has undergone cosmetic alterations to nearly every part of her body that can be altered. She has had her derrière injected with silicone, her nose made smaller, her forehead lifted and her hairline lowered. Her cheeks are regularly pumped with fillers, and her breasts have been enhanced three times.
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Ms. Lepore, right, with Debbie Harry and David LaChapelle, who has often used Ms. Lepore as a muse for his photography. Credit Bill Cunningham/The New York TimesTo accentuate her hourglass figure, Ms. Lepore even had her bottom ribs broken and pushed in as a way of making her waistline appear smaller and her hips broader. For that procedure, Ms. Lepore traveled to Mexico since few doctors will even perform the operation in the United States.
Her latest procedures include a laser treatment designed to make the skin around her jaw tighter. “It’s like a face lift, but you don’t get cut,” she said, with the kind of enthusiasm others display when discussing shopping.
She argues that segments of popular culture, especially reality shows, have caught up with her obsession with cosmetic self-improvement. In “Doll Parts,” Ms. Lepore describes having an assignation with a famous rapper whose songs often play in the clubs she frequents. Soon after, she writes, he got married, and “I couldn’t help but think that his wife had a similar body type to me.”
Ms. Lepore’s outsize presence has not always been embraced by fellow travelers on the night life circuit, who sometimes wonder aloud how a person with no discernible talent has managed to remain in the public consciousness for so long.
Unlike Honey Dijon, a transgender D.J. who sits at the intersection of music and fashion, Ms. Lepore cannot match beats. And unlike Lady Bunny and Bianca Del Rio, she is neither a ferociously funny comedian or a commanding stage performer.
“I guess she sings,” said Mr. Valenti, “I don’t know. Have you heard her?”
L.G.B.T. activists have different gripes. A person who parades around the global party scene in rhinestone-encrusted outfits that show off her heavily augmented figure can seem like an inconvenient spokesmodel, especially at a time when President Trump has rescinded protections for transgender students, and feminists have argued that transgender celebrities like Caitlyn Jenner are reducing women to “hoary stereotypes.”
Denise Norris, a trans activist who served on the board of Marriage Equality USA and founded the Association for Transgender Professionals, said Ms. Lepore deserves credit for “fearlessly expressing” herself decades before the topic of gender diversity became a central cultural debate. At the same time, she added, Ms. Lepore can seem like a Dorian Gray figure who draws unwanted attention to the “pressure” trans women face to “conform gender expression to societal norms” without showing much regard for coming off as “intelligent and articulate.”
“The only way we can judge Amanda is through the eyes of 1987,” Ms. Norris said. “Doing that, she becomes a bookmark to how much we’ve changed in 30 years.”
Nevertheless, as Ms. Bartsch points out, Ms. Lepore remains extremely popular with nightclub audiences. “Every time she takes off that dress, people love it,” she said. “Roaring. Screaming. And I think that’s an art. She’s the ultimate sex symbol. Move over everybody.”
Correction: July 27, 2017An article last Thursday about the transgender night-life fixture Amanda Lepore misidentified her place of residence. She lives at Hotel 17 in the Gramercy neighborhood of Manhattan, not at the Gramercy Park Hotel.
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A version of this article appears in print on July 20, 2017, on Page D1 of the New York edition with the headline: Her Pose Never Fails To Strike. Order Reprints| Today's Paper|Subscribe
Continue reading the main story - W Magazine
https://www.wmagazine.com/story/amanda-lepore-doll-parts-new-york-nightlife-queen
Word count: 3656Amanda Lepore, a Fixture of New York's Nightlife Scene for Decades, Finally Bares It All
by Emilia Petrarca
April 20, 2017 1:22 pm
Santiago Felipe/Getty ImagesIn the opening line of her new book, Doll Parts, Amanda Lepore introduces herself as "the most expensive body on Earth." And yes, on the surface, the model, muse, performance artist, nightlife queen, and transgender icon is the work of many masterful plastic surgery sessions— all meant to make her look like some amalgamation of her top three icons: Marilyn Monroe, Jessica Rabbit, and Barbie.
But by the end of the book, readers learn that Amanda Lepore is so much more than just an expensive body; rather, she's the embodiment of a life much lived.
"I hope this book shows you there are as many different ways to be transgender as there are to be a woman," she writes. "Which is what I am."
Growing up in New York City, I've seen and heard about Lepore from afar. Of course, she is unmistakeable, but I've also seen her adopt into her nightlife crew both my childhood neighbor, Kyle Farmery, and my high school best friend. Over the years on Facebook, I've watched the two of them blossom into the stunning, bold, and confident people I always knew them to be despite a mainstream culture that didn't until recently tolerate let alone celebrate them. Today, Lepore is showing a future generation of misfits how to find and nurture the most fabulous parts of themselves.
Watch
Kathryn Newton, HBO's Next Big Star, Leaves It All in the Ring — And Then, She Gets a Slice of Pie"Amanda is always teaching others to find the positive in any situation, and how to stay true to themselves and their success without hurting others," Farmery, who has been Lepore's protégé since he was 12, wrote me at 5 a.m. after "tucking Amanda into bed" following her book launch party at The Top of The Standard on Tuesday night. He added: "She always wants to make sure that anyone who took the time to come out and support her, leaves with a special little magical memory."
The party, and the book signing at Bookmarc earlier that day, had been classic Lepore. Original club kids and other critters of the night like Susanne Bartsch and Richie Rich rubbed shoulders with the next generation of movers and shakers—most of whom grew up on RuPaul's Drag Race and Lady Gaga. There were numerous performances as well as a man who, um, well, paints with his you-know-what. Lepore, who entered like a queen on the shoulders of two scantily-clad man servants in leopard-print skivvies, watched over it all with the benevolence of a regal matriarch who is not only among the most beloved fixtures of New York nightlife, but also one of its longest lasting.
"People stop going out at a certain age, so you have to have the next generation," Lepore told me over lunch at L'Express just weeks before her big party. She wore a skin-tight red velvet dress with rhinestone trimmings that she made herself, and was even more perfect-looking in person. Her skin had the translucence and texture of a newborn, not a plastic doll, and her breasts ballooned over her top like perfectly groomed hills.
"I’m still here," she said, with a laugh.
But how, exactly, did Amanda Lepore get here? She's never spoken much about her upbringing, as it wasn't exactly glamorous and she's never one to be negative. She's even claimed that her birth certificate was burned in a fire. (Wikipedia says she's 50.) But now, thanks to Doll Parts, Amanda Lepore is truly an open book.
No One Throws a Party Like the Legendary Amanda Lepore (Here's Proof)
Inside Amanda Lepore's launch party for her new book, "Doll Parts," which took place at Boomarc and The Top of the Standard in New York.
Inside Amanda Lepore's launch party for her new book, "Doll Parts," which took place at Boomarc and The Top of the Standard in New York.
Inside Amanda Lepore's launch party for her new book, "Doll Parts," which took place at Boomarc and The Top of the Standard in New York.
Inside Amanda Lepore's launch party for her new book, "Doll Parts," which took place at Boomarc and The Top of the Standard in New York.
Inside Amanda Lepore's launch party for her new book, "Doll Parts," which took place at Boomarc and The Top of the Standard in New York.
Inside Amanda Lepore's launch party for her new book, "Doll Parts," which took place at Boomarc and The Top of the Standard in New York.
Inside Amanda Lepore's launch party for her new book, "Doll Parts," which took place at Boomarc and The Top of the Standard in New York.
Inside Amanda Lepore's launch party for her new book, "Doll Parts," which took place at Boomarc and The Top of the Standard in New York.
Inside Amanda Lepore's launch party for her new book, "Doll Parts," which took place at Boomarc and The Top of the Standard in New York.
Inside Amanda Lepore's launch party for her new book, "Doll Parts," which took place at Boomarc and The Top of the Standard in New York.
Inside Amanda Lepore's launch party for her new book, "Doll Parts," which took place at Boomarc and The Top of the Standard in New York.
Inside Amanda Lepore's launch party for her new book, "Doll Parts," which took place at Boomarc and The Top of the Standard in New York.
Inside Amanda Lepore's launch party for her new book, "Doll Parts," which took place at Boomarc and The Top of the Standard in New York.
Inside Amanda Lepore's launch party for her new book, "Doll Parts," which took place at Boomarc and The Top of the Standard in New York.
Inside Amanda Lepore's launch party for her new book, "Doll Parts," which took place at Boomarc and The Top of the Standard in New York.
Inside Amanda Lepore's launch party for her new book, "Doll Parts," which took place at Boomarc and The Top of the Standard in New York.
Inside Amanda Lepore's launch party for her new book, "Doll Parts," which took place at Boomarc and The Top of the Standard in New York.
Inside Amanda Lepore's launch party for her new book, "Doll Parts," which took place at Boomarc and The Top of the Standard in New York.
Inside Amanda Lepore's launch party for her new book, "Doll Parts," which took place at Boomarc and The Top of the Standard in New York.
Inside Amanda Lepore's launch party for her new book, "Doll Parts," which took place at Boomarc and The Top of the Standard in New York.
Inside Amanda Lepore's launch party for her new book, "Doll Parts," which took place at Boomarc and The Top of the Standard in New York.
Inside Amanda Lepore's launch party for her new book, "Doll Parts," which took place at Boomarc and The Top of the Standard in New York.
Inside Amanda Lepore's launch party for her new book, "Doll Parts," which took place at Boomarc and The Top of the Standard in New York.
Inside Amanda Lepore's launch party for her new book, "Doll Parts," which took place at Boomarc and The Top of the Standard in New York.
Inside Amanda Lepore's launch party for her new book, "Doll Parts," which took place at Boomarc and The Top of the Standard in New York.
Inside Amanda Lepore's launch party for her new book, "Doll Parts," which took place at Boomarc and The Top of the Standard in New York.
Inside Amanda Lepore's launch party for her new book, "Doll Parts," which took place at Boomarc and The Top of the Standard in New York.
Inside Amanda Lepore's launch party for her new book, "Doll Parts," which took place at Boomarc and The Top of the Standard in New York.
Inside Amanda Lepore's launch party for her new book, "Doll Parts," which took place at Boomarc and The Top of the Standard in New York.
Inside Amanda Lepore's launch party for her new book, "Doll Parts," which took place at Boomarc and The Top of the Standard in New York.
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1/30Inside Amanda Lepore's launch party for her new book, "Doll Parts," which took place at Boomarc and The Top of the Standard in New York.
Full ScreenBorn Armand Lepore in Cedar Grove, New Jersey, Lepore's family unit included an aloof older brother, a father who punished her for playing with dolls, and a mother with paranoid schizophrenia.
Through all this, Lepore remained steadfast about who she was and what she wanted. "I was a girl," she writes. "It was a fact. It wasn’t a conscious decision."
Looking back, Lepore now realizes that it was her mother's condition that first planted the idea in her head that beauty was happiness, and vise versa. “Even though I know it’s not always the case, I associate dressing up with mental stability," she writes. "If I’m dressed down, I’m sad. If I’m really done up, I feel happy and mentally well.”
As a high schooler, Lepore was bullied often and received the nickname "Leper Lepore." She was brave enough to venture beyond her community though, and eventually found her way to a go-go dancer named Bambi, who traded her hormone pills for Lepore's hand-made, bedazzled bikini tops and G-strings.
When Lepore started developing breasts, she decided to go to school dressed as a girl from head-to-toe. And while her classmates found this somehow easier to wrap their heads around, the administration said that if she was going to dress as such, that she had to be tutored from home. So, that's what she did.
At the age of 17, Lepore finally found a man who wanted to support her sex change, but it was actually his father who offered to not only pay for it, but also become her legal guardian so that she could do the paperwork. This same man would later make sexual advances towards Lepore, meanwhile his son would abuse her and force her to stay at home as a housewife—all before the age of 20. But as Lepore says, she had all she ever wanted in life, which was a "perfect pussy."
In the early '90s, Lepore would leave her first husband and flee to New York City, where she first worked at a nail salon and as a dominatrix. She also later got a job as a cosmetics salesgirl for Patricia Field, who would become the costume designer for S_ex and the City._ But Lepore quickly found a permanent home in popular New York clubs like The Limelight and Key, dancing in a cage suspended above the dance floor.
From her vantage point, Lepore was able to watch culture ebb and flow from the ground up. She saw trends come and go, from coke to ecstasy and glam to grunge. (She is quick to point out that she doesn't drink or do drugs, which may explain her longevity.) But she also saw generations, and friends, pass through the clubs' doors. The promoter Michael Alig, for example, would be arrested for manslaughter in 1996, and Lepore would later have a notorious "feud" with Sophia Lamar, another transgender nightlife fixture and former compatriot.
"In the aftermath of the murder, the Club Kids scattered to the wind," writes Amanda. "Jenny Talia got clean, Armen Ra became a world-famous thereminist, James St. James rode high on the success of his book, Richie Rich started the massively successful fashion line Heatherette, Kenny Kenny continued to reign as the top doorman in NYC, and Sophia Lamar and I kept dancing together and moved forward with the next wave of New York nightlife."
Bowery Bar and Plaid became the new Key and Limelight, and Lepore also took her act on the road, from downtown in the Financial District district to Dallas, Texas. She would spend the next few years scraping together odd jobs, until one day, the famous photographer David LaChapelle came knocking.
After Lepore became LaChapelle's muse, her image was no longer confined to the walls of a boîte. She started finding herself at swanky parties, in fashion magazine spreads from F_rench Playboy_ to Visionaire, on the runway for Heatherette, and was even flown to Milan for a Giorgio Armani show.
By the Aughts, Lepore's circle included a sprinkling of celebrities, from Kelly Osbourne to Miley Cyrus, who once said she "hates everyone but Amanda Lepore." (The feeling is mutual but Lepore admits partying with famous people is never very fun.) To this day, Lepore still cultivates a rumor that she hooked up with a rapper, although she refuses to say his name. Her only hint: "When he got married I couldn’t help but think that his wife had a similar body type to me."
In 2017, it seems the world has changed around Amanda Lepore, with more acceptance for transgender people than ever before, even if some of the old stigmas remain. Trans models are on the runways and in major fashion campaigns, the first male CoverGirl was signed, and Bruce Jenner came out as Caitlyn Jenner. But all the while, Lepore has been watching, and changed along with the world while still remaining true to herself. When conversing with her about everything from sex to social media, she feels like your ageless best friend. The only time she dated herself in our conversation was when she said she listened to Pandora's "Liberace Radio."
“Getting older doesn’t scare me because I think that I look better than I did 20 years ago,” she said matter-of-factly.
In the past, Lepore never used to leave the house without a getup, but now she'll go to Yoga For the People in just lipstick and sunglasses. In her spare time, she watches Feud and still bedazzles all her own clothes. Her favorite emojis are the lipstick, heart, and kiss. And she's up on politics: “Trump is wack and his wife has terrible wigs," she said with a laugh. "His hair is also terrible. They need more gays in their life.”
As for social media, Lepore has over 214,000 followers on Instagram and 56,000 on Twitter. She's also been on Tinder for the past few years, and prefers it to OKCupid, where guys apparently weren't as forthcoming about their height. “The guys I've dated from Tinder were definitely better guys than I would have met in real life," she said. One sent her a $4,500 pair of Louboutins and another man in Italy, whom she had plans to meet in Rome the following week, said he'd been jerking off to her since she was 16. Now, that's commitment!
With the help of social media, Lepore has also developed a younger and more global fanbase far beyond New York. "I think Instagram is great, especially for kids, because you can be anything and still find a role model," she said. She also mentions the merits of YouTube and Google, where unlike when she was going up, you can ask anything without fear of retribution.
It may seem counterintuitive for a woman of such expensive body parts to feel so real, but it is precisely because she's been through so much that she's always had to know exactly who she is and what she wants. She is not a doll part but rather a pillar, as well as something money can't buy: An ageless soul.
Before parting ways, I ask if she would like to live forever if she could. By the end of our conversation, she made Benjamin Button-ing look not only plausible, but also way better than Brad Pitt.
“Probably, yeah," she said. "If I could look cute.”
Long live Amanda Lepore!
Miley Cyrus, Stella Maxwell, Paris Hilton and More VIPs Party Like It's 1989
From left: Giamba shoes. Victoria’s Secret teddy; J.W. Anderson skirt; Uncommon Matters bracelet; Alexis Bittar ring. Moschino bralette and necklace; Hervé Van der Straeten earrings. Daang Goodman for Tripp NYC jeans; Dsquared2 boots.
From left: J.W. Anderson dress; Forest of Chintz earrings; vintage YSL belt from Albright Fashion Library, New York. Saint Laurent by Hedi Slimane dress; Sequin bangles. Balmain jumpsuit and belt. Canali tuxedo; Dolce & Gabbana shirt. Christian Benner jacket; Calvin Klein Underwear T-shirt.
From left: Emilio Pucci shirt; Dolce & Gabbana skirt; Chanel earrings from Depuis 1924, New York; Noir Jewelry ring. Tom Ford jacket and bow tie; Valentino shirt.
From left: J.W. Anderson trousers. Ashish dress; Yazbukey earrings. Versace dress; House of Flora London bracelet.
Saint Laurent by Hedi Slimane dress; Oscar de la Renta earrings; CZ by Kenneth Jay Lane bracelet. Back, from left: RVDK/Ronald van der Kemp jacket; J.W. Anderson trousers. Daang Goodman for Tripp NYC jeans. Boss jacket and trousers. Saint Laurent by Hedi Slimane jacket; Dsquared2 pants. Beauty note: Feather those lashes with Nars Audacious Mascara in Black Moon.
From top left: Fausto Puglisi dress. Rodarte dress. Blumarine dress. Versace blouse. Christopher Kane dress. Diane von Furstenberg dress. Moschino jacket. RVDK/ Ronald van der Kemp jacket. Boss jacket; RVDK/Ronald van der Kemp blouse. Camp Collection shorts. Versace dress. Victoria’s Secret teddy. Ron Dorff trunks.
From left: Christian Benner jacket; Calvin Klein Underwear T-shirt; Guess jeans. Versace blouse; Ann Demeulemeester pants. Alexandre Vauthier gown. Beauty note: Paint ’em black with Zoya nail polish in Willa.
Moschino bra; Faith Connexion bra (worn as skirt); Lisa Eisner Jewelry bracelet. Tom Ford jeans; Brioni loafers. Beauty note: Toss on some MAC Glitter in 3D Lavender for an all-over twinkle.
From left: Balmain dress. Sandro T-shirt. Lisa Eisner Jewelry bracelet. Haider Ackermann top.
From left: Neil Barrett jacket; Sportiqe Apparel for Playboy T-shirt; Zadig & Voltaire jeans. American Apparel tank top; Camp Collection shorts. Alexandre Vauthier dress.
From left: Louis Vuitton shirt and skirt; Christopher Kane shoes. Zadig & Voltaire skirt; Vetements boots. Juan Carlos Obando blouse and pants; J.W. Anderson boots.
From left: Louis Vuitton shirt and skirt; Christopher Kane shoes. Zadig & Voltaire skirt; Vetements boots. Juan Carlos Obando blouse and pants; J.W. Anderson boots.
From left: Blumarine dress; R.J. Graziano earrings; (from left) R.J. Graziano bangles, Patricia von Musulin bangles; Eddie Borgo ring. Fausto Puglisi dress; Sequin earrings; (from top) Sequin bracelet; Janis by Janis Savitt bracelet. Beauty note: Stay slick with Malin + Goetz Firm Hold Gel.
Givenchy by Riccardo Tisci top.
Louis Vuitton top and skirt. Emilio Pucci dress. Paris Hilton’s own dress. Haider Ackermann top.
From left: Moschino skirt. Daang Goodman for Tripp NYC jeans. Alexander Lewis blouse; Anthony Vaccarello skirt. Victoria’s Secret teddy; J.W. Anderson skirt.
Versace dress. RVDK/Ronald van der Kemp jacket. Zadig & Voltaire top and skirt. Anthony Vaccarello dress.
No. 21 gloves.
From left: Giorgio Armani top. Faith Connexion bandeau and leggings. Calvin Klein Jeans jeans. Philipp Plein dress. Monique Lhuillier dress.
Canali tuxedo. Lisa Eisner’s own clothing.
Balmain dress. Levi’s shorts.
From left: Louis Vuitton top and skirt. Emilio Pucci dress.
Marques’ Almeida tank top. Chic Freak London swimsuit.
Ben-Amun by Isaac Manevitz bangles, Alexis Bittar bangle.
Alexandre Vauthier dress; Lizzie Fortunato earrings. Beauty note: Just wing it with Estée Lauder Little Black Liner.
Moschino bra; Faith Connexion bra (worn as a skirt); Lisa Eisner Jewelry bracelet.
From left: Neil Barrett jacket; Sportiqe Apparel for Playboy T-shirt; Zadig & Voltaire jeans. Tom Ford dress. Nike tank top; Camp Collection shorts. Au Jour Le Jour dress; Versace sandals. Haider Ackermann tank top. Loewe jacket and skirt.
Vionnet dress. Emporio Armani suit; Giorgio Armani shirt. Delpozo dress. Canali tuxedo; Dolce & Gabbana shirt. Monique Lhuillier dress.
From top left: RVDK/Ronald van der Kemp blouse and skirt. Juan Carlos Obando blouse and pants; J.W. Anderson boots. Giambattista Valli dress. Versace blouse. Oscar de la Renta dress.
Camp Collection shorts; Saint Laurent by Hedi Slimane skates. Emanuel Ungaro dress. Valentino dress; Eres swimsuit; Manolo Blahnik sandals. Anthony Vaccarello dress.
From left: Saint Laurent by Hedi Slimane dress. Camp Collection shorts; American Apparel socks; Saint Laurent by Hedi Slimane roller skates.
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1/31From left: Giamba shoes. Victoria’s Secret teddy; J.W. Anderson skirt; Uncommon Matters bracelet; Alexis Bittar ring. Moschino bralette and necklace; Hervé Van der Straeten earrings. Daang Goodman for Tripp NYC jeans; Dsquared2 boots.
Photography by Mert Alas and Marcus Piggott. Styled by Edward Enninful. - Reviews by Amos Lassen
http://reviewsbyamoslassen.com/?p=56934
Word count: 538“Doll Parts” by Amanda Lepore with Thomas Flannery— Living Her Life
Leave a replyLepore, Amanda (with Thomas Flannery). “Doll Parts”, Regan Arts, 2017.
Living Her Life
Amos Lassen
Amanda Lepore is a legend. She is regarded as a working piece of art and for thirty years has been the queen of New York City nightlife. She is one of the most famous transsexuals of all time but we see that the road to where she is today was rocky and filled with bumps alone the way. She tells us that when she was young and transgender, she was used to being hated and all she really wanted to do was to exist. She freely admits that all she ever wanted to do was to be able to control herself and she “focused on not letting other people’s opinions have any effect on me whatsoever, and that’s how I’ve lived my life ever since.” In Hebrew, we say “Kol HaKavod” or all the honor to her and she has certainly succeeded.
Amanda Lepore opened the door for so many others and, in effect, she was one of the main people who is responsible for he trans revolution that we are now experiencing. But we also know it was very difficult and that is what she shares with us here.
I have never seen or met Amanda Lepore and to be honest, I always thought of her as some kind of freak but then I lived in Arkansas where everyone who is not like backwoods Arkansans is a freak. Reading this gives me a totally different look at her and I feel terribly guilty that I prejudged Lepore even after hearing others speak so highly of her.
I love having had the chance to sit down and have an intimate chat with Lepore here (even knowing that others were having the same chat did not bother me). I think that once we get to know someone, it is that much easier to like and respect him or her. We owe Lepore a great deal since she was there when others shied away from the spotlight. She certainly made it easier for others to follow her but she is a true original and I doubt we will see another like her. I am sure it is not easy to be famous for being a transsexual and Lepore tells us what it was like “back in the day”.
I love that Lepore has “a sense of divine certainty, humor, and charm” and her fan base is large and filled with celebrities. She is devoted to glamour and she shows it. Her best quality, it seems to me, is that she is so fascinating. She has managed to
establish herself as the most original and glamorous image in the transgender world; “a self-creation that governs her own splendid reality.” She is fearless flashy and outspoken.
Amanda Lepore has been at the cutting edge and is the cutting edge of culture. She began with the era of Club Kids and she has broken rules and remade her own.
- Windy City Media Group
http://www.windycitymediagroup.com/lgbt/BOOKS-Doll-Parts-Talking-with-Amanda-Lepore/59156.html
Word count: 795OOKS 'Doll Parts': Talking with Amanda Lepore
by Owen Keehnen
2017-05-17Nightclub superstar and trans-visibility pioneer Amanda Lepore has just released her heavily illustrated and visually luscious new memoir, Doll Parts.
In the book, Lepore tells the harrowing story of being a New Jersey child growing up with a mentally unstable mother and absentee father who trusts the vision she has of herself from a very young age.
Windy City Times: Wonderful meeting you, Amanda. I really enjoyed Doll Parts. What made this the right time to write your memoir?
Amanda Lepore: Thank you! I was actually approached to write my memoir about four years ago by an author, it was not something I was thinking about at the time.
WCT: What is the biggest misconception people have about you?
AL: I think they focus more on my looks—the plastic surgery—and they don't think or realize how down-to-earth I really am. I am the opposite of what people generally think.
WCT: You mention in the book that early on you wanted to physically be a combination Jayne Mansfield, [an Alberto] Vargas girl and Jessica Rabbit. Has that composite of yourself changed at all in the passing years?
AL: No.
WCT: Reading Doll Parts, you seem so self-assured at a young age regarding your gender identity—asking for gender-confirmation surgery at 10 and having your operation at 17. What advice would you pass on to a young person, maybe not so self-assured, facing the same issues?
AL: Self-confidence is important no matter who you are. If you are transgender, there may be a lot of harassment. It is very important to stay strong no matter what and stay true to yourself.
WCT: You also mention that beautifying takes up 90 percent of your time. What is the other 10 percent?
AL: Yoga.
WCT: In Doll Parts, I was impressed by your toughness. You've endured a lot—a mentally unstable parent, bullying, being kicked out of school, domestic abuse, eating disorders, being surrounded by addiction, some scares as a dominatrix, etc. How do you view those hardships now and what makes you a survivor?
AL: I just deal with situations at the moment, so I do not have to stay focused on anything negative. I stay away from negativity and bad people, and keep myself surrounded with positive influences and happy people.
WCT: An exception was you were in the orbit of the Disco Bloodbath/Party Monster murder by being in the employ, as well as a friend of, Michael Alig. What was the biggest lesson you took away from that entire experience?
AL: Don't become a drug addict and don't kill anyone.
WCT: You refer to yourself as a preservationist. Would you care to explain?
AL: Taking care of myself really well, physically and mentally. It's something that is very important to me.
WCT: When did you first realize you had arrived as a nightlife celebrity?
AL: When people starting writing about me as the "girl of the minute," and when we did the Joan Rivers Show.
WCT: What does Amanda Lepore, the "girl of the minute," do on an evening at home?
AL: Rhinestone my outfits and accessories with Swarovski.
WCT: You mention wanting to live a glamorous life like a movie star. What has been your biggest Hollywood moment in the limelight?
AL: Any time I am surrounded by tons of photographers and flashes going off, it feels like a Hollywood moment.
WCT: What about you that makes you an ideal subject and muse for photographer David LaChapelle?
AL: David said that I was what he envisioned as his ideal woman, before he even met me. When I work with him, I listen to what he wants and follow directions well in order to carry out his visions.
WCT: What is something that is always in your refrigerator?
AL: I don't have a refrigerator. I order in.
WCT: How would you describe yourself in a personals ad if you couldn't use any physical descriptors?
AL: Independent, hard-working, very knowledgeable in cosmetics and the plastic-surgery industry.
Windy City Media Group does not approve or necessarily agree with the views posted below.
Please do not post letters to the editor here. Please also be civil in your dialogue.
If you need to be mean, just know that the longer you stay on this page, the more you help us. - Filthy Dreams
https://filthydreams.org/2017/07/27/plastic-fantastic-lover-amanda-lepores-doll-parts/
Word count: 2406Plastic Fantastic Lover: Amanda Lepore’s “Doll Parts”
Posted on July 27, 2017 by Emily Colucci Leave a commentAmanda Lepore isn’t afraid of exposing herself. Whether showing up to chic events near or completely naked or purring over club hits like “Champagne” (“I drink champagne in the morning/I drink champagne in the afternoon”) and “My Pussy” (“My pussy is famous/My pussy is expensive”) with Larry Tee, Lepore puts herself (and her pussy) out there.
Naturally, her recently published coffee table book/memoir Doll Parts is no different. “The reasons I have such thick skin (figuratively, physically my skin is basically translucent) is that at the age of seventeen, I got my pussy. It was all I ever wanted out of life and everything since then has just been a maraschino cherry on top,” she writes in her introduction. And as a trans woman, this willingness to speak about her much-manipulated body cannot be understood as anything less than radical, particularly now.
Yesterday, I was all set to write up this review of Lepore’s book, which is filled with fabulous photos, club gossip, beauty tips, Marilyn Monroe idol worship and yes, lots and lots of plastic surgery tales. But then, our Tweeter in Chief decided to tweet out policy and strip the rights of trans people to serve in the military, jeopardizing the jobs of 15,000 plus trans people who currently serve. I’m not sure I can put into words the difficulty of writing in a time when the ground seemingly shifts on an hourly basis.
However, Trump’s bizarre attempts to rouse up his base and shore up a distraction worthy of both the Russia investigation and the Trumpcare circus inadvertently emphasized not only the importance of Lepore’s Doll Parts, but Lepore as a fearless trans figure. While more Jessica Rabbit than G.I. Jane, Lepore’s buoyant and infectious personality (Richie Rich described her to photographer David LaChapelle as “only having one mean bone in her body and she had that removed”) and her unwavering dedication to herself–her identity and the way she wants her body to look–certainly deserves to be celebrated. Lepore isn’t just a Downtown superstar; she’s a trans pioneer–one that paved the way through glamorous excess.
Amanda Lepore on Joan Rivers
Just think of the baby trans people and other gender fluid viewers who might have caught Lepore sitting with her fellow club kids on The Joan Rivers Show in the 1990s–a downright heroic appearance in which Lepore declared she didn’t have time to work since she spends so much time getting ready to go out at night. While the other club kids were dressed like clowns in a K-hole, Lepore looked like something out of an old Hollywood film, devastatingly beautiful and deeply transgressive. She resembled the second coming of Candy Darling, if Candy partied at Limelight rather than Max’s Kansas City.
Of course, Lepore is probably best known for, as she introduces herself in the first line in the book, having “the most expensive body on earth.” Even her publisher Judith Regan admits in Jacob Bernstein’s write-up in the New York Times that Lepore’s appearance is what sold her on the book. And Lepore’s elaborate look–one that has been snipped, tucked and tailored to match her idealized vision–is stunning and sometimes, startling. It always seemed as if Lepore was made out of plastic–more Barbie than Mattel could dream. With all that money spent on her body, of course, the book contains a staggering selection of images. She didn’t go through all that to just have you read!
Photographed by Vijat Mohindra
But, it would be a mistake to consider Doll Parts simply a picture book. I’ll admit, I never knew much about Lepore’s personal story–how she came out as trans, her transition, her move into clubland, etc. Therefore, Doll Parts importantly illuminates the experiences behind her doll-like form. Lepore’s wit and honesty pervades her memoir, giving her the ability to make even dark subjects like her abusive ex-husband to murder an enjoyable read. Beyond just the tough subjects, Lepore doesn’t hesitate to spill the tea, including a wink and a nod at a quickie with Kanye West. It’s not that big of a surprise–Lepore was perfecting the hourglass form before we even knew who the Kardashians were.
Lepore has always been a pro at setting the scene–there’s a reason she’s a nightlife mainstay. She does the same in Doll Parts, introducing the book lavishly:
“I wrote this entire manuscript longhand, with a feathered pen, on Chanel No. 5 scented paper, in a big pink mansion, just like the one Jayne Mansfield had. I worship Jayne Mansfield. Everything she owned was pink. Except for Mickey Hargitay; that beefcake was Hungarian.”
In first section of the book, Lepore delves into her childhood in Wayne, New Jersey. Even though she was then Armand Lepore, she knew early on she was a girl. In particular, Lepore’s mother, who also suffered from paranoid schizophrenia, seems to have readily accepted her as trans early on. Amanda recounts a traumatic experience with a haircut when she wanted to grow her hair out long as a child. Rejecting this feminine presentation, her dad forced her into the barbers. “’Mom, you know I’m really a girl right? I don’t want a boy’s haircut.’ She glanced at me and said, ‘I know,’” recalls Lepore.
Most queer people have a moment of interpellation–a spark of recognition when seeing other queers–while watching a movie, television show or looking up “lesbian” in the dictionary like performer Reno admitted in a recent performance I caught at Dixon Place. For Amanda, this formative moment was watching a late-night talk show: “I heard a term I never knew existed, and yet it knew me: Sex change. My legs became still. My heart started to beat to a new rhythm. SEX-change-SEX-change-SEX-change. There were three women on stage, all in various states of transitioning. Two were still rather masculine, but the third one was beautiful. She had curly blonde hair and stunning cleavage that jiggled as she talked. The host asked about her breasts and she said they were natural: ‘I swear,” she said, “I took hormones and they grew.’ I wanted to be that woman.” Running to tell her parents, Lepore continues, “Proclaiming myself a girl was not new to them. Mom had come to an understanding about it long ago and Dad was sure it was just a phase I’d grow out of. But now everything was different to me. A sex change. Sex change. Such a thing existed! I had seen it with my very own big brown eyes, right there on the television.”
Amanda eventually did get her pussy, paid for by her abusive ex-husband Michael’s father, as well as her first breast enhancement. Before that, though, she began taking hormones courtesy of a stripper Bambi, who worked with her friend. Trading hormone pills, as well as tips about tucking and cinching her waist to look more feminine, Bambi became a source of both info and pills, but not exactly the trans mother Amanda dreamed of. It’s a testament to how far Amanda was willing to go to both seek other trans people and develop her desired body.
Amanda and the club kids
As the narrative continues, Lepore finally escapes her violent husband, running away to New York. Here, the content becomes more familiar–at least to most Filthy Dreams readers. This ranges from nights at Disco 2000 with Kenny Kenny, Armen Ra, Michael Alig, James St. James, Sophia Lamar and those other crazy club kids, photo shoots with David LaChapelle for whom she acts as a muse, and walking fashion shows covered in pink lipstick. Never one to shy away from a little gossip, Lepore has some interesting insight into many figures in the Downtown nightlife scene including the notorious “Party Monster” himself: “Michael Alig could have been the next Andy Warhol. He was bright, creative and he had something to prove. If only he hadn’t become a drug addict and murdered and dismembered someone…” Oh that little thing!
In between these chapters, Lepore adds some tidbits on her favorite hair products (bleach), her favorite non-blondes (Lana Del Rey-“’Will you still love me when I’m no longer young and beautiful?’ I’ll be beautiful when I’m 100 and so will Lana. Oh, and she has great nails; we have the same nail technician.”), and advice for stage engagement (“Find your light. I had a homing beacon implanted during my last eye lift that automatically takes me to the best light in any room. I suggest you do the same”). Where else can you read a memoir and get some much-needed beauty tips. Thanks Amanda!
My Own Marilyn; 2002 Chromogenic Print © David LaChapelle
Of course, references to vintage Hollywood divas are peppered throughout the book from Jean Harlow to Zsa Zsa Gabor to the apotheosis of Lepore’s role model worship–Marilyn Monroe who she famously embodied in a photograph by LaChapelle. Speaking on Monroe, Lepore reflects, “She was self-made, like a transsexual in a lot of ways.” Naturally, Lepore resembles an even more exaggerated Marilyn, taking Marilyn’s beauty to its absolute limit. Like Marilyn, Lepore’s own self-fashioned identity and body is what makes her such an icon.
In Doll Parts, Lepore recalls a moment when she attended an Antony (now Anohni) and the Johnsons concert with X’s over her eyes, shielding recent surgery scars. After the show, Ahnoni got on the ground and gushed, “You’re an even more extreme performance artist than Marina Abramovic.” “It wasn’t on purpose,” Amanda quipped, “I just really needed to get out.”
Now throughout her career, Amanda has pushed back against the notion that she’s an elaborate, cartoonish persona (something Michael Alig would often mistakenly infer). I mean, her aesthetic does naturally lend itself to think pieces, but she has always insisted that this is just her own notion of beauty that she’s sought to attain at any cost–financial, physical or otherwise. “I have my own ideas of what beauty is. I look exactly the way I want to look,” she explains.
And yet, I’d argue that Lepore is truly a performance artist, but just one who subversively sees no division between art and life. She makes Orlan look like a light weight. So you got horns, yawn! Amanda went to Mexico to have two ribs removed in order to achieve her impossibly tiny waist, making it look like she’s perpetually wearing a corset. And it wasn’t without suffering. She describes entering the Mercer Hotel after her recovery: “I knew what Frankenstein’s monster must have felt like. Parents shielded their children, grown men fainted, women held up rosaries to ward me off.”
Photo: David Nguyen
Admittedly, some could see Lepore’s beauty obsession as just mere vanity, but Lepore seems to find some significant and sincere personal fulfillment through perfecting her image: “A lot of people think that I’m addicted to plastic surgery. But the truth is, if I’m addicted to anything, it’s beauty. I suppose plastic surgery is part of that. My first psychiatrist said I was ‘body conscious.’ The reality is the more work I put into my look, the more right I felt. The more loved I felt. Hormones, makeup, growing my nails, anything that increased my femininity. Even buying an eyelash curler gave me a sense of hope, happiness and acceptance.”
And as a trans woman, self-love and self-making is a glorious form of rebellion. “If you happen to be young and transgender, then you’re used to people being hateful towards you when all you want to do is exist,” she writes, “Through all the insanity in my life, there was only one thing I could control: myself.”
Which is why reading the New York Times’ Amanda Lepore, Transgender Club Diva, Tells All About Her Plastic Surgery was so infuriating as the writer Jacob Bernstein hints at Lepore as a troublesome figure for the trans community. He declares, “A person who parades around the global party scene in rhinestone encrusted outfits that show off her heavily augmented figure can seem like an inconvenient spokesmodel…” Oh please.
Bernstein found Debbie Downer Denise Norris–an activist and founder of the Association of Transgender Professionals to further question Lepore’s status as a role model: “Ms. Lepore deserves credit for ‘fearlessly expressing’ herself decades before the topic of gender diversity became a central cultural debate. At the same time, she added, Ms. Lepore can seem like a Dorian Gray figure who draws unwanted attention to the ‘pressure’ trans women face to ‘conform gender expression to societal norms’ without showing much regard for coming off as ‘intelligent and articulate.'”
Norris continues, “The only way we can judge Amanda is through the eyes of 1987…Doing that, she becomes a bookmark to how much we’ve changed in 30 years.” Um…please explain.
Particularly in the queer community, there is a cannibalistic drive to criticize people who, through their own actions, tacitly created space and possibility for the increased visibility of queer lives now. One of the reasons that organizations like the Association of Transgender Professionals can exist is for the bravery of people like Amanda. Sure, her form of radicality meant appearing on The Joan Rivers Show talking about getting kicked out of Disneyland, but, like Amanda’s description of watching the trans women on late night TV, these representations matter.
At the heart of it, Lepore is the exactly the role model we need–wholly unapologetic about being herself. And as Miley Cyrus is quoted in Doll Parts, “I hate everyone but Amanda Lepore.”
Tags: Amanda Lepore, Armen Ra, book, book review, club kids, David LaChapelle, Doll Parts, James St. James, Kenny Kenny, Michael Alig, Sophia Lamar. Bookmark the permalink. - Observer
http://observer.com/2017/04/amanda-lepore-discusses-sex-change-and-more-in-new-book/
Word count: 1857Amanda Lepore, Confessions From Loving Life as a Living Doll
In an exclusive interview the star shares the secrets of her path to womanhood
By Peter Davis • 04/20/17 8:00amAmanda Lepore. Victoria Janashvili
It’s just after 11pm on Easter Sunday and transsexual model/singer/performance artist/nightlife personality/muse and now author Amanda Lepore is almost ready to leave for work. Sheathed in a custom-made skin-tight, sheer dress trimmed with powder blue marabou feathers, her bouncy, balloon-like breasts bulls-eyed with crystal pasties, Lepore’s work look is part Jayne Mansfield, part Jessica Rabbit. It’s as if Russ Meyer and RuPaul had a baby. This evening Ms. Lepore will appear at the club promoter Ladyfag’s weekly party Battle Hymn, and well, she will just be herself. And get paid for it.
Amanda Lepore makes her living simply being Amanda Lepore. The 49-year-old (born on November 21, 1967, she celebrates on Dec. 5 because her real birthday is “way too close to Thanksgiving and too hard to celebrate.”) was famous for the sake of fame well before Kim Kardashian ever made a sex tape or a reality TV show. Her cartoonish Alberto Vargas appearance, the result of numerous plastic surgeries, has made Ms. Lepore a transsexual poster girl, modeling in campaigns for Armani Jeans (alongside actor Ryan Phillippe) and M.A.C. Cosmetics and posing for photographers Steven Klein, Terry Richardson and David LaChapelle who discovered Ms. Lepore in the 90s and made her his muse. Since meeting Mr. LaChapelle, Ms. Lepore has recorded a solo album (2005’s Introducing… Amanda Lepore), made cameos in music videos for Elton John and The Dandy Warhols and appeared in the films Party Monster and Zoolander. Ms. Lepore’s latest project is her most personal and for someone known to arrive at parties completely naked, her most revealing: a memoir. Penned with a ghostwriter, Thomas Flannery Jr., “Doll Parts” charts Ms. Lepore’s path from a feminine boy growing up in suburban New Jersey to a teen bride to her sex change operation at 17 and her move to New York where she toiled as a dominatrix, joined the club kid scene and eventually became who she is today: an internationally known trans-icon that counts Lady Gaga, Pamela Anderson and Christian Louboutin as fans. “I hate everyone but Amanda Lepore,” Miley Cyrus once said.
Lepore. Josef Jasso
“I’m not a writer. I was really nervous that it wasn’t going to be good,” Ms. Lepore said, speaking of her memoir as she reclined cat-like, on a bed in her dressing-room size apartment at Hotel 17 near Stuyvesant Square in Manhattan. Towers of Christian Louboutin shoe boxes (size 38) flank a wall. Leopard pillows are strewn everywhere. A large gilded mirror hangs above her bed. “I didn’t want it to be heavy or depressing. I was worried that it wouldn’t be funny, or fun.”
Ms. Lepore’s memoir is not all champagne and sequins. Her mother, a German-American housewife suffered from schizophrenia and was routinely hospitalized. Her father, an Italian-American chemical engineer abandoned the family when Ms. Lepore was 14. “I have a really good memory and the early part is not all good memories. I didn’t like doing it at first. My mother is always on my mind.” Ms. Lepore paused and straightened a bejeweled half-glove. “I don’t think about the past – especially those years. I live in the moment.”
Born Armand Lepore, at 10 she saw a program on television about gender reassignment surgery and announced to her parents that she wanted a sex change. “I thought I was a girl,” she admitted. At 15, she befriended Bambi, a transsexual stripper, who traded her hormones in exchange for sparkly G-strings and bikini tops that Lepore designed at home. With her disapproving father out of the picture and macho brother never home, she started dressing as a girl. Her mother bought her Revlon lipstick and a padded bra. She dropped the r from Armand, added an a, and became Amanda. “I was always Amanda, even when I went by a different name,” Ms. Lepore writes in “Doll Parts.”
Lepore didn’t want her memoir to be heavy or depressing. Wouter van Gens
At 16, Ms. Lepore met a man named Michael, who was a decade older, but still lived with his parents. After Michael discovered Amanda was really a boy, his father – who harbored a secret crush on his son’s girlfriend, paid for her sex change. At 17, Ms. Lepore had her gender reassignment surgery in Yonkers, New York. She married Michael a year later. Soon after, Ms. Lepore’s mother died suddenly of cancer. She saw her father and brother for the last time at the funeral. She decided to run away from her husband, who had become controlling and jealous, and move to New York to become a star.
When Ms. Lepore arrived in New York, she found a job as a dominatrix at an S&M club called The Key. “It was ridiculous,” she said. “It’s really acting. I became really good at it. So for David LaChapelle, I was able to model for him better because he’s so demanding and direct so I could get right into it. I think that’s why I was a really good model.” Her ability to act—often as a spaced-out floozy—made her the toast of the club kids, who then hosted debaucheries parties at places like Limelite. “Amanda can be a bit of a ditz, but a lot of times that’s just an act,” observed Michael Musto, who chronicled the nightlife scene for his Village Voice column at the time. “She can actually be quite cunning about manipulating people – or stage time – which is one of many Marilyn Monroe-like things about her. The woman isn’t stupid!”
Ever ambitious, Ms. Lepore is currently recording a second album with the gay rapper Cazwell, who wrote a few of the tracks, including a gangsta rap song. She still goes out clubbing three or four nights a week. It takes her two hours to do her hair and makeup (she is a pro at this point, having once worked at the makeup counter at Patricia Field) but the “prepping – shower and the moisturizer thing” takes just as long or longer. “I probably take longer than drag queens to get ready.” She travels constantly, flying all over the globe from Vienna to Sydney making public appearances. It helps that she doesn’t do drugs and rarely drinks, often sipping ginger ale from a champagne flute because it looks glamorous. “I’m sure if I had done a lot of drugs, I wouldn’t remember stuff. The doctor told me when I first did hormones that if you drink or do drugs the hormones aren’t going to work as much. That always stuck with me. I mean I tried everything, but I was never into it. I could never do coke. My nose would run. It didn’t make me feel good. I never liked being out of control.”
Lepore’s looks. Courtesy Amanda Lepore
Ms. Lepore confessed that she just had eye surgery to makes her eyes bigger and more “doll-like.” In addition to a nose and boob job, a forehead lift, butt implants and having her lips inflated, Ms. Lepore had her bottom ribs broken in Mexico so she could achieve a smaller waist for a more hourglass figure. At 5ft 2inches, her measurements are 38-22-38. It’s been reported that the total cost of all her cosmetic surgeries is over a million dollars, but she doesn’t have an exact tally. “Fortunately everything was at it’s best when I had it done,” she claims. “I didn’t have to do silicone injections in the boobs and things like that. They had implants by then. In those ways I was lucky. And the sex change was really good. I didn’t have to fix everything.” Susanne Bartsch, the party hostess, recalls going through customs in Dubai with Ms. Lepore. “A group of female Muslim custom agents were gagging over her and wanted to know all about her boobs. They asked permission to touch her body. Amanda totally complied and was giving them beauty lessons. They were in awe, and all the while the men were looking on in envy. Amanda was so in her element.”
Having such an over-the-top, instantly recognizable look makes it near-impossible for Ms. Lepore to ever go unnoticed, even during the day when she treks to yoga class or runs errands in “ballet flats and high-wasted leggings” with no makeup on. Her notoriety and extreme beauty also make it hard to date. “I don’t have relationships for a very long time,” she sighed. “I’m famous so that gets in the way. They either really like the spotlight and having a trophy girlfriend or they will not really be crazy for it.” Lately she’s been using the dating app Tinder. “I got more choosey. I love Tinder because if you don’t like them, you can just un-match.” She tried OK Cupid too, but they deleted her account. “They would have problems with my profile pictures—maybe the cleavage.” Asked if she will ever marry again, she lets out a deep throaty guffaw. “It doesn’t look good. I work at night. It’s harder. Older guys fall asleep.” Recently she’s been face-timing with a 28-year-old Italian man whom she matched with on Tinder during a trip to Milan. They plan to meet for a first date in Rome.
“Doll Parts” also includes tip sheets on how to flirt with men, bleach your hair, do your nails and command a stage (“Visuals are just as important as talent. Generally, even more so.”) In many ways, Ms. Lepore is the exact opposite of Caitlyn Jenner. “I saw [Ms. Jenner’s] series and no one has makeup and they were wearing Birkenstocks. I was like: ‘this is really bad! Why aren’t they enjoying what’s fun about being a girl?’ I didn’t really understand the politics of it. It was weird for me.” She took an exaggeratedly dainty nibble off a gluten-free cookie while chatting. “After seeing the Caitlyn Jenner show, I think my book is an alternative where you can be hyper-feminine and enjoy not being so serious. I’m sure every girl doesn’t want to be a politician and activist and wear Birkenstocks.” She rolled her heavily made-up eyes. “I’m sure they want to have fun and wear high heels and saturate themselves with makeup and perfume and enjoy that part of being a girl.” Ms. Lepore then stood up and admired herself lovingly in a full-length mirror. She stroked her Monroe style bob. “I like women who transform themselves. It’s what I do. My high is looking fabulous.”
SEE ALSO: Kim Kardashian and Kanye West Will Celebrate the Holidays in Hidden Hills
- Gay Book Reviews
https://gaybook.reviews/2017/06/23/doll-parts/
Word count: 641Doll Parts
Review June 23, 2017 0 COMMENTS Lenaribka
4 stars, Contemporary, Dreamspinner Press, Non-Fiction, Transgenderreview master
Title:Doll Parts
Author: Amanda Lepore, Thomas Flannery
Publisher: Regan Arts
Release Date: April 18th 2017
Genre(s): Transgender, Nonfiction, Autobiography
Page Count: 208
Reviewed by: LenaRibka
Heat Level: 1 flames out of 5
Rating: 4 stars out of 5
Blurb:“If you happen to be young and transgender, then you’re used to people being hateful toward you when all you want to do is exist. Through all the insanity in my life, there was only one thing I could control: myself. On the outside, obviously, but on the inside, too. I focused on not letting other people’s opinions have any effect on me whatsoever, and that’s how I’ve lived my life ever since.” —Amanda Lepore
Spend an evening getting intimate with Amanda Lepore, the internationally renowned walking work of art and New York City’s reigning queen of nightlife for three decades.
Paving the way for today’s “trans revolution,” Amanda is one of the world’s most famous transsexuals. In this poignant and revealing memoir, Amanda takes off the makeup, peels back the silicone, and reveals to the world the woman she truly is, all with a sense of divine certainty, humor, and charm.
“I hate everyone but Amanda Lepore.” —Miley Cyrus
“Amanda is pure heaven on earth, a dream come true. I adore her!” —Francois Nars
“Amanda is truly a living work of art. I’ve never witnessed such devotion to the art of high glamour. In my book, she is a glambassador of the very highest order, a true fascinatrix!” —Dita Von Teese
“As an Icon, Amanda is one of a kind because of her unique and singular look in the art of fashion. She has established herself as the most original and glamorous image in the world of transgender.” —Patricia Field
“Amanda Lepore is a self-creation that governs her own splendid reality.” —Steven Klein, photographer
Amanda Lepore is a recording artist, model, rule breaker, international LBGT icon, the reigning queen of NYC nightlife, and a self-made woman. She has been the photographic muse for pop culture visionary David LaChapelle and countless others for decades. Doll Parts is her first book.
I have to admit, I have never heard about Amanda Lepore before, though she looked familiar to me. Most likely I came across the pictures of her on the internet. I have to say to my excuse that I normally don’t read the tabloid press and don’t watch news about it girls or boys or self-proclaimed celebrities. But I made an exception for an American transgender woman.
It was an interesting read, not because the writing was great, but because her life is worth it to write about and also read about. Would I consider her as an inspiration or a idol for all transgender people? Probably not. For me it is rather Bobbi Logan. It is not very fair, because Bobby is a fictional character and Amanda is real, but those who read this series, know for sure what I mean.
Still – my recommendation. Read almost in one sitting. A big thank you to my GR friend Juxian who attracted my attention to this book. And you won’t do anything wrong purchasing it. An unbeatable price-performance ratio!
If you won’t get a hardcover, it is better if you can read this book on a device that gives you possibility to enjoy art photography (and kindle it is NOT).Buy Link Amazon Global Author Link GoodReads More Author Reviews
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