It’s Frankie Grande, Bro

Frankie Grande isn’t sure if he can claim swole, or gains, or even say bro to me.

We’re cackling together as he finds a seat outside his gym at a nearby Starbucks, having realized bench-pressing would not be conducive to an easy interview between us. The sun has written a golden warning of spring across his face, but there’s another light too, bursting out of him in smiles and laughter. I ask if I’ve projected his own happiness back at him, what with his upcoming memoir and a spate of recent Tony nominations for Titanique and last year’s glitter-ified album, Hotel Rock Bottom.

“I'm having the time of my life. I'm enjoying the things that I'm in, the places that I'm in. I'm standing behind the decisions that I make. I'm not being governed by fear anymore,” he says, squinting. “It's like, if you don't like it, then go fuck yourself kind of energy.”

Since piercing the entertainment mainstream on Big Brother in 2014, he spent much of the ensuing decade “worrying about what other people think. And now I actually don't spend any time doing that, which is really cool.”

Frankie Grande has, in his own words, evolved. This is evident in the numerous photos of him displayed here; he is quite swole, bro. I joke that at a time when gay guys are putting down the wig and picking up the weights, he’s kept the wig on, piling it up with rainbows and hairspray. “[Critics will] be like, ‘Oh, look at that fucking faggot. Look at him on stage in his fucking little thong shaking his litle fucking ass in a fucking full beat with seven inch heels twerking for Jesus.’” He throws his head back, laughing, before growing serious again. “I do it to protect the people behind me.”

Those people, the “little queerdos,” need a “Glitter Jesus, "to borrow from his album, to show them someone who can be “insanely femme” and totally themselves onstage, at the Tonys, on television.

It is easy to mistake the energy as being something akin to Teflon. One walks away from their conversations with Frankie Grande thinking nothing must stick to him, not the comments on Instagram — “some of the most homophobic shit I get in my life is from gay people” — or the things people have said about him in the press. No, he is something closer to a nuclear reactor for homosexuality, taking those things, splitting them apart and producing an abundant energy source. “Back in the day, I was doing it as an act of defiance and drinking and using in order to accomplish that task. Today I do it very consciously, to inspire others, to protect others, and I don't have to self-harm in order to get it done, which is lovely. It's coming from a genuine place now.”

So, what’s the next dream? Besides winning, of course. “I think one day, Ariana [Grande] and I will co-host the Tonys. I think that’s a great bucket list moment.”

In the meantime, there’s photos of Frankie Grande to look at and an entire interview to read below, on scary looksmaxxing freaks, sobriety, the lost nights at Splash Bar’s “Musical Mondays” in the early 2000s and more.

You're just about to release your book, you have your music out. You’re back with Titanique after being back with Rocky Horror last Halloween. How are you handling it all?

I feel amazing. I kind of feel like Frank-N-Furter was kind of the start of the Frankie-ssaince. Well, actually, that's a lie. It was the music first. It was me getting to put out my own album. And then after that it was Frank-N-Furter , right? That's my fucking role. I'm just so connected to that play. And then finding out during that that I was coming back to Broadway with Titanique was fucking insane. And now my book is coming out on June 23rd. So it's like, holy dicks, man. What the fuck?

How are you feeling being Broadway’s favorite ingénue at this point?

I don't know if I'd be considered the ingénue — more like the seasoned crackhead, but I'm really grateful. It's really cool. I've never originated a role. This will be my first time performing at the Tonys, and I just can't believe that it's happening. That's definitely been a dream of mine since I was a small child and I didn't actually think it was going to happen for a long time. I kind of gave up on it. I was like, well, Broadway doesn't take me seriously anymore because of reality TV, and so it's been really nice to return, prove everybody wrong and be part of this unbelievable production.

I'm going to perform at the Tonys for the first time in my life. I was saying, there's a limited amount of opportunities for reality TV stars on Broadway. It's limited to Chicago. Everyone thinks you're stunt cast, but everyone forgets that I started on Broadway. And so it's really nice to come back and prove that I'm starcast, and not stuntcast.

Obviously Broadway is very gay, but it must be nice to go to the Tonys with a production so heavily enmeshed with gay culture and references.

This is, I think, [one of] the only shows this season that doesn’t have a straight cisgendered old white man at the top of the bill. It's really fucking nice to have that. Even the other gay shows this Broadway are still produced by straight people. So this is so nice to have a big leading producer who's a lesbian out and proud, and me being the gayest of the gay as a co-producer. No, a co-lead producer. And it's just like, what the fuck, bro? This is such a gift. And I also love that our piece speaks to everyone. Geraldo Rivera came to our show the other night and he had the time of his mother fucking life. I watched Geraldo Rivera have just pure joy. We infected that man with queer joy, and that just speaks to how amazing our show is.

As someone who's followed your work for a long time, you always are having fun. Everything about you is fun. I think it's a through line in all your work, but now more than ever, and maybe it's just with all of these projects you've got going on, you seem to really, really be enjoying yourself, and putting a lot of yourself into the work, especially going from the music to now. Am I just projecting on you, or do you feel that also?

No, I do feel it. I feel like I'm at a stable place in my life. And I think sobriety is a thousand percent the reason for that. There's no mystery, coming up on nine years sober on June 16th, that's the reason. And I'm glad that people are seeing it. I think people are understanding that I'm having the time of my life. I'm enjoying the things that I'm in, the places that I'm in. I'm standing behind the decisions that I make. I'm not being governed by fear anymore. It's like, if you don't like it, then go fuck yourself kind of energy.

I love being in that place, because it's so much of my life I spent worrying about what other people think. And now I actually don't spend any time doing that, which is really cool.

I'm curious if you've had any other pinch me moments of late, especially now being back at Titanique.

It was really cool to have John Chu come see the show, and who else has been there? Lin Manuel Miranda. I feel like I go up and down the aisle and I always see somebody that I've revered, and it's so interesting to see them, to know that they're there to see us. It's a really cool feeling. And even having The New York Times there, and having the Post — these people are coming to see the work that we're presenting to the world and that is such a cool gift we get to have. And for the show to be so well received, those are some really big, beautiful pinch me moments. The Tony nomination… what the fuck?

I was reading your Interview piece last year, and you were talking about how Madonna helped with your queer discovery. And I'm curious how you're feeling now that Madonna's back.

It's the best thing in the world. Spotify said that last month I listened to Madonna for 623 minutes and I'm pretty sure 620 of that was her new song, “I Feel So Free,” just on repeat. And I'm just so thrilled. I mean, she's never gone. I feel like I was just at MSG seeing her [for the Celebration tour.] I feel like she was never really gone, but the fact that she's releasing new music and it's being well received by the younger generation makes me really happy for her. And she's the queen of Zero Fucks Given. She taught me Zero Fucks Given. I didn't learn that by myself.

Madonna always said, "You're not a star unless you're equally loved and hated." And I've used that as my mantra moving forward in my life for all time, because I still get a shit ton of hate, mostly from within the community, which is so fucked. The LGBTQ+ community needs to fucking sort their shit out. We are the most auto-cannibalizing community in the world.

No wonder we get fucking picked on all the time. It’s because we pick on each other.

On that note, there were many people who were aware of you prior to you joining reality TV, with Big Brother. But then you were opened up to a mainstream audience. I’ve read and listened to you talk about how that experience opened this very out, loud and proud gay person to a lot of homophobic abuse and just plain abuse online, with people’s opinions, gay people and their opinions…

Amen!

Do you think, looking back now, with space from that experience and all these years between now and then, that the same thing would happen now were you to go on Big Brother for the first time?

I don’t think the world has gotten kinder at all. I think we've reverted backwards. Look who our president is. Look at what the top down is telling us.

The top down is telling us that it is okay and in fact rewardable to be a bigot, to be a racist, to be a Nazi, to be a monster. You can be the President of the United States if you just treat everyone in your life like a piece of fucking shit. And so I think we've gone backwards significantly. I think I would get worse hate going on Big Brother now, than any other time. And I want to be clear, I don't think that is something that is only affecting Republicans. Of course not. I think everyone has been given permission to let their racism, let their homophobia, let their Zionism, whatever it is that we are fighting or whatever the systemic systems of oppression in this world are… they are no longer passé, and don't need to be hidden anymore.

People have been empowered to be their ugliest version of themselves since Trump has been reelected, especially. And so I don't think that we are in a better place. I think we're in a worse place.

I think in the early 2010s, especially as more and more gay people were showing up on TV, I used to think, look at us as a society. It's interesting to look back at moments like that and be like, wait, maybe it would be worse now. That's actually crazy, because even back then it felt horrible to see.

I also think that that's still why we haven't moved on or moved forward in our casting on shows like Big Brother or Survivor. There's still the token gay on every single show on CBS and it's just like, ugh, for God's sakes, when are we going to have more than one archetype to show how queer people interact in this world on shows like that, which would be really helpful, I think, to the world.

I think you brought up a good point about how us as gay people really cannibalize our own. You've talked in interviews about how that time definitely did not help with your addiction, being exposed to so many people and all of their opinions. And a lot of those opinions did come from gay people. One through line in all of your work is how unapologetically gay you are, with your music, with what you wear, just how you are, the kinds of events you do, everything about it is gay and you've never shied away from that. How do you keep that through line in the face of so many different gay people's opinions, because it's not something many gay celebrities seem capable of.

It’s definitely true. It’s like, how do I do it? I think that my whole philosophy is that the only way to combat it is by me holding the course. I do understand that my fans and the people that look up to me do need me to be this person. It’s like, I have a song on my album called “Glitter Jesus.”

Let me be the one that you fling your slings and arrows at, so that I can protect the line of little queerdos behind me who need somebody like me, who requires somebody to look up to and be like, "You know what? Maybe gay people will like me if I'm femme and will like me if I'm girly." Maybe I don't have to be fucking trade, masc-presenting Orville Peck, in order to have the gay community lift me up and exalt me. And I'm hoping to be that for those people.

So be like, "Oh, look at that fucking faggot. Look at him on stage in his fucking little thong shaking his litle fucking ass in a fucking full beat with seven inch heels twerking for Jesus” — and not a drag queen, as a male identifying performer who just happens to be insanely femme. I do it to protect the people behind me.

I have the privilege of existing without doing self-harm to myself at this stage in my life. Back in the day, I was doing it as an act of defiance and drinking and using in order to accomplish that task. Today I do it very consciously, to inspire others, to protect others, and I don't have to self-harm in order to get it done, which is lovely. It's coming from a genuine place now, whereas in the past it was coming from a fuck you kind of place.

I don’t give a fuck. I don’t want to say fuck you to anybody. The gay community will still come around, and it's a very specific subset of the gay community. I do think it's interesting. I saw on one of my posts that somebody was like, "Why are you being so homophobic towards him?” He said," I can't be homophobic because I'm gay." And I was like, Bitch-

Please, please!

Wait, what? Actually, some of the most homophobic shit I get in my life is from gay people. What the fuck are you saying?

As an editor of an often-referred-to-as gay magazine, I would say I disagree with that sentiment based on our own Instagram comments. [Laughs]

I’m sure you’ll get them for this too! I also love that we’ve chosen to present me as trade on this. Let’s see how this goes. It’s a lovely experiment.

Of course so many people do associate you with the glitter and the makeup and the gay of it all, but then here, we presented you with a different vibe. I'm curious what you thought when you saw the styling deck, because of course we're being tongue-in-cheek about it, which I think you probably understood.

I loved it, because again, my whole life has been, over the past 12 years, a kind of a social experiment since I went into the Big Brother house. And so I love this element of the social experiment as well. Let's see, let's see. I'm excited because again, PAPER, I love you guys. I've wanted this forever, since I saw Kim Kardashian pissing into a bottle from her tits — pissing into her ass from a bottle nestled between her tits. And so the idea of this being the way to be shocking with me makes the most sense. What are you going to do that I haven't done? What are you going to do? I'm basically Madonna at this point. What are you going to put me in, less clothing? I don't know, show my asshole? It's been done. Everyone’s seen everything.

I haven’t presented trade drag ever… Can’t wait to see how this turns out!

I wanted to ask selfishly, because when I became an editor, I had a short list of people and you were on it. Wouldn’t it be so fun to dress Frankie up like trade? It’s just so cheeky.

It is so cheeky! But I love it. I felt I am also a queer person that embraces all sides of my gender always. I've always been somewhere in the middle. Look at me right now. I'm in fucking tank top. I'm at the gym. I'm fucking crushing it, bro. I'm doin’ mad gains, y'all. So in my life I am all sorts of things. It's just in my performance, I really do gravitate towards femme presenting, but that doesn't preclude me from doing trade drag.

Well, thank you for the headline. Frankie Grande Has Mad Gains, Bro.

Am I allowed to say I’m swole, yet?

I mean, to use evil straight terminology, you’re looksmaxxing right now, maybe?

So scary! It’s so scary. Looksmaxxing is so scary. What are they doing to themselves, and we’re rewarding it? Ew, the gays are rewarding it? We like every single post from those little scary neo-Nazis that are smacking their bodies with hammers? What the fuck is wrong with us? Guys, stop!

I used to wonder what was going to happen when ketamine broke containment out of the gay scene. I never thought it was going to be 19 year old nazis smashing their faces in with hammers. I did not envision that trajectory.

Neither did I! Never in a thousand years would I have figured that one out. Never would have predicted that. Not on my bingo card.

I was watching your “Boys” video with Mistr, which brought the biggest smile to my face, because again, it’s the steamroom, and just how gay the video is. Selena Estitties, of course. Hello! I’m curious: at different points in your career, have you ever gotten advice from anyone to be like, “Tone it don’t, don’t open up that much?” Obviously we know other gay entertainers receive that advice. “Don’t talk about the bathhouse. Don’t talk about what goes on in WeHo."

Yes. And I will say beautifully and amazingly, it never came from my record label, which I was so grateful about. They knew who they were signing. I think that's the beauty about getting a record contract at 41 is they knew exactly who they were signing. So it was really lovely that they supported me through all of this. I remember Wendy Goldstein being like, "Oh my God, it's like Nicki Minaj’s ‘Anaconda’ video except with men." And I was like, "Exactly Wendy. That’s exactly correct. Maybe I'll be MAGA one day too. You never know. Be on stage with Trump at the UN.”

I know where it's coming from and it's coming from a place of fear. It's coming from a place of: you're not going to succeed if you do this. You're going to be shot if you do this. Don't be such a martyr. Don't be such an example. That's why “Glitter Jesus” was such an important song for me because it was like: I get it. I understand that putting myself out there in this type of way opens me up to criticism and opens me up to failure and opens me up to a potential attack. But at the same time, I feel a need to do it and I feel a calling to do it and it makes me proud and my art makes me proud.

So, you’re now going to the Tonys with Titanique. I’m curious, in your heart of hearts and fantasy land: you’re at the Tonys and you’re performing anything and you get to perform it alongside anybody. In your fantasy, who do you see yourself singing with?

Wow, a crazy question that I’ve never thought of… I do want to do something with my sister. I think that would be really beautiful. I think the whole world forgets that both of us started on Broadway, so it would be really nice. One of our songs that we always love to sing is “The Song That Goes Like This” from Spamalot. I think it’d be really fun, in another five years or so, she and I co-host the Tonys together, or something.

That’s obviously happening now that you said it. That’s manifesting.

It will be really fun, because I think it’s so funny how everyone forgets that we started on Broadway. It’s like, no bitch, we showed you guys 20 years ago that we had what it takes. So why are you so surprised? Why are you all acting like this? I think one day, Ariana and I will co-host the Tonys. I think that’s a great bucket list moment.

Do you have a first memory of the Tonys, watching it, or a performance that you go back to, or a moment from the Tonys that you always think about?

So for me, everything stems back to Musical Mondays, do you remember Musical Mondays, at Splash Bar? All those Tony numbers, and us just watching them as little gays. I didn't understand what I was until I went to Musical Mondays and I was like, I'm a theater fag. I get it now. I didn't understand what I was. I had no representation. This was in the fucking what? Oh, 2000s. So I didn't know. We didn't have no TikTok or Instagram or anything. So I was like, I don't fucking know what I am. I was 19 years old and I was like, this is where I belong. So my Tony memories come from that. So Jennifer Holiday, every single Musical Mondays ended with her version of “I Am Telling You,” fucking Sutton Foster, everything she ever did.

I remember so vividly a chorus line. That was the time of my life. All my earliest Tony memories come from that. I vividly remember Idina Menzel performing “Defying Gravity” as well, the craziest performance of all time.

There comes a point in some parties where I’m like, “Okay guys, we’re all going to sit down and watch Sutton Foster do ‘Anything Goes.’”

Yep, that’s exactly what it was. It was Sutton Foster’s “Anything Goes,” it was never Patti LuPone. Sorry, Patti!

The belt in hers is crazy, but Sutton’s version — it’s the tapping!

It’s the tapping.

When I’m alone, it’s “Sunday in the Park With George.” That’s the Tonys performance I watch to hurt my own feelings.

I’m so unfamiliar with Sunday. I can’t wait to watch my sister in it a thousand times.

For people who haven’t seen Titanique and maybe are just hearing about it for the first time, god forbid, what are you most excited for new audiences to take away from it? Now that it’s on Broadway and going to the Tonys?

I mean, multiple people have left saying it was the funniest thing they’ve ever seen in their lives. At a time in this country where we are at a severe lack of comedy, a severe lack of joy, I think this radical defiance of just having a good fucking time with a bunch of fucking queerdoes on stage is what the world needs a bigger dose of. And so I'm grateful that we have 1400 seats a night to fill it up. I hope that everybody comes and gets their shot of happiness and queer joy because, man, do we need it? And I hope it becomes a unifying force. I always make my music, Madonna always makes her music, for the dance floor, for the whole community to gather, all letters of the community, especially the motherfucking Ts. Let’s fucking go. Let’s fucking support our trans siblings because this is crazy fucking time for them. Find a safe space for them to come and celebrate.

Photography by Stefano Ortega
Story by: Joan Summers

Styling: Liv Vitale
Makeup artist: Taylor Levitan
Hair artist: Kemi Kamugisha

Styling assistants: Hadley Susa & Jack Doczy
Photo assistant: Mariano Cayo

Executive Creative Director: Jordan Bradfield
Executive Creative Producer Angelina Cantú
Senior Editor: Joan Summers
Chief Creative Officer: Brian Calle

Graphic Design: Composite Co