Bad Boy Cameo on Drag Kinging, Joy, and Positive Masculinity
The Kings of Joy Show Episode 7, Season 2.
Danica Lani: Ever looked in the mirror and thought, "I'd make a damn fine drag king." Welcome to Kings of Joy, the drag king podcast where gender isn't something to fear, it's something to play with. I'm Danica Lani, the King Coach, mentor to over 150 first-time drag kings, and I'm taking you backstage into the unruly, magical world of drag king transformation. If you're craving confidence, community, and a crew that gets it, you just found your crown. Connect with us on Instagram at Kings of Joy for behind-the-scenes content and updates. We'd love to hear from you. In this episode, I had the privilege of speaking with Jo aka Bad Boy Cameo. Jo has been performing since she could stand up. A prolific improviser and storyteller, Jo was an actor with Playback Theatre Sydney for 18 years, including two years as artistic director. You may have seen Bad Boy Cameo's auditions at Drag Kingdom, Queers of Joy, The Imperial Hotel, Miss Wolf, or Hot Nonsense. Bad Boy Cameo never gives up, always strives to make an impression, and has a damn good time doing it. Hello. Welcome, coach.
Bad Boy Cameo: Yay. Snaps. I'm here.
Danica Lani: Joe aka Bad Boy Cameo is in the house. Welcome. Welcome to Kings of Joy show.
Bad Boy Cameo: So happy to be here. Look at this like gold records and everything. I'll be signing them at the end.
Danica Lani: Oh, that's a good idea. We should do that. Absolutely. Well, thank you for being here and I wanted to start with—let's start with your origin story. Like what was it that had you want to be a drag king?
Bad Boy Cameo: I manifested Kings of Joy. I totally manifested it. So, 2022 was a really hard year for me. My marriage ended and I went into severe depression and there were lots of like really hard things going on. And New Year's Eve 2023, I was looking up into the stars and I said 2023 is my year of joy. And I decided to just, you know, I'm very career ambitious and I was like, I'm throwing all that to the side this year. I'm just going to have fun. And the other thing I was like, I was like, I need to find queer community because I'd always known myself as bisexual, but I had been in a relationship and married to a man for a really long time. And so coming out of that marriage, it was actually really hard to find—harder than I thought to find my queer people. And so yeah, 2023 I was like, I've got to find community and this is going to be fun. And I think at first I was—cuz I like going to the gym and I was like, oh, maybe I'll join the soccer team or hockey team or something. And then I was visiting my cousin and he had also been divorced and we were sitting down and he said, "There's something I need to tell you." And he said, "I'm gay." And I said, "Well, I'm bi." And he said, "I thought so cuz a picture of you at Mardi Gras was a dead giveaway." Um and then I said, "What are we doing at this straight pub then? Let's go to a gay pub." Um so we—he then said, "Okay." And we went to this gay pub and there was a drag queen performing and I was watching the drag queen perform and I had this flash of—I was volunteering at Mardi Gras the year of Pride where there were 80 drag kings or whatever, however many there were—the world record. I had seen the drag kings and but I was watching this drag queen and I turned to my cousin and I said I want to be a drag king. And he's like, "Awesome." And then we go home and we're on YouTube like googling drag kings and found Hugo Grrrl and—and then I came back to Sydney. I was talking to my partner and I was like, "I'm going to be a drag king." And he goes, "Have you heard of Queers of Joy? They have drag kings." So I went on the Queers of Joy Instagram page and then discovered Kings of Joy, which was a five-week how to be a drag king program run by Chris's wife who I knew must be amazing if they were married to Chris. So next Queers of Joy was being advertised and I think at that stage I didn't realize how often they came but I just had this pull that I needed to go to that Queers of Joy and I couldn't get a babysitter—cuz I'm a single mom—and my mom had promised to babysit for my sister which is fine and then I but I was still in this severe depression and it was a really down day and mom—I'm going to cry—and then mom called and she goes "Your sister has COVID so I can babysit your kids tonight." And I was like, I didn't want my sister to have COVID, but it meant I could go. And I just—I can't tell you when I walked into the Red Rattler to watch Queers of Joy, the just like relief that my body went through to be in that room with my people. It was like I found my people, you know, this amazing space of trans, non-binary, lots of neurodiversity. Like the fact that they acknowledge neurodiversity at the beginning, if you have ADHD or autism and you need to leave, that's okay. That hadn't been anything I'd heard before. So I felt like, oh, this part of me now has this safe space. And I remember going up to you, Danica. We hadn't met. We had emailed and someone else was talking to you and I was just in full like—I just I need to talk to Danica right now. I need to be on that course. And I also—and I remember the introduction as well. And I love that you—you know, because there are only six spots or something for the course and you prioritize people of color and trans and non-binary people which I totally believed in but I was like I hope there's still a spot for me. I was so willing to give my spot up. But I was just like so happy that there were six of us that wanted to do the course. So I just—yeah. And from that first rehearsal, all of those wonderful humans in that—they're now my brothers. And then being added to the WhatsApp group for Kings of Joy. And so I'd gone from, you know, my friendship network being suburban moms who were married to men who were very supportive of me but didn't really want to go to gay pubs, right? To then having this wonderful community of people that I could say, "Hey, I want to go, you know, watch a show at Imperial or I want to go to Iconic" or like had these group of people that were like, "Yes, we're there." How that just instantly changed my life for the better and then just hasn't stopped since.
Danica Lani: It's such an incredible story, Jo. Particularly the whole manifestation—that you know what a powerful manifestor you are. You create this whole thing and then stepped into it and at the same time I was you know in parallel creating a community that I didn't have cuz I didn't feel like I had a place where I belonged in Sydney not being from here and having moved here and not knowing anyone. Finding it hard to tap into the community. Finding it hard to tap into the queer community, find my place. So yeah, eventually creating the community and you know alongside Chris who had this whole vision for Queers of Joy being a space to platform trans and gender diverse artists. But of course cuz we'd met doing a drag king group. It was like come on let's give that away. It was so much fun being in a drag king crew. Let's give that away to other people. And so yeah that you could step into that space and we co-created it together. And what did I say to you the other day? I was like, I think the fog lifted at the right time for us to connect.
Bad Boy Cameo: Absolutely. Yeah, it was perfect timing.
Danica Lani: Yeah. And so out of that, you invented a persona. Um, tell us about your drag king persona.
Bad Boy Cameo: Okay. So, the first one actually we created was the Art Professor Traeverse who came out of because as part of the course, you know, you ask us to really tap in to parts of ourselves and our cultural history. And so being um my ancestors from England and Ireland and tapping into that kind of Shakespeare world and I was an academic and that at the time felt really authentic. But the problem with the professor was that he was too serious. He was very serious. Even though I created him as like this poet, it was like he just stood there, you know, didn't work.
Danica Lani: Yeah. He didn't have the full expression, did he? Access to a full expression.
Bad Boy Cameo: Yeah. Um he needed a bigger—a bigger pond to swim in. So the Art Professor wandered off into the Forest of Arden and then Bad Boy Cameo was created and we created it together in a conversation and I found this other part of myself that was like just so desperate to perform. And never—from the time, you know, was six was on stage and never stopped performing. And so created Bad Boy Cameo, who was a '90s actor on Home and Away, four-part spot called Bad Boy Cameo, where he tried to murder Alf through milkshakes. And the funniest thing is when I tell people this, they think it's true. Like they think I was an actor in Home and Away which is like a quintessential Australian TV soap. But the character—so and then that's the last time Bad Boy Cameo has ever been paid to act was when he was 16 in 1995 and then ever since then he continually auditions and so all of Bad Boy Cameo's drag performances are auditions for a role. And the beauty about that is it allows me as a performer to just be whatever I want.
Danica Lani: You have—I mean so many versions of Bad Boy Cameo have come through. Give us some examples of some of the routines that—
Bad Boy Cameo: So, the first one I was in the gym and I was like listening to Eminem and I was like, "Oh, wouldn't it be funny to do Eminem as King George?" So, we did "Without Me" when I was dressed as King George in full wig, right? Yeah. And the brocade coat with the lace cuffs coming out the edge, pants and boots and—yeah to but also you know singing that as well as doing the seven deadly sins as part of it. We had Barbies kissing and cupcake boobies and things. So that was so good. And then um I don't even—I can't even remember the next one. Oh, then the next one—Footloose! Like what a classic. Love Kevin Bacon. Love Kevin Bacon so much and wanted to be Kevin Bacon and so asked you to create a Footloose medley for me.
Danica Lani: Yes. And I love that. I love that so much because it's so—it harks to Jo as well. Like Jo in the 1990s loving Footloose Kevin Bacon and dancing in front of my cousins and my you know long-suffering aunties and uncles and parents—like it allows that kind of fun to come out as well, you know.
Bad Boy Cameo: Yeah. And taking some of those classic Footloose moves, you know, and putting it into a routine—like there was some kind of slide or something that you'd always wanted to do like, "Okay, we're putting that in the routine." Yeah. And the running—and I think at the time you had this other idea for the end and I'd said no, no, we have to do the classic like "Everybody Talk"—that one.
Danica Lani: Yeah. We should do it for the camera because otherwise people—can we? Yeah. Yeah. Everybody talk. Boom. Boom. Everybody talk. Everybody talk. I don't even know if I'm singing the right lyrics but it's something like that. It was in the '80s. Whatever.
Bad Boy Cameo: Who knows? Yeah.
Danica Lani: Yeah. And so what's opened up for Bad Boy Cameo since you know doing Kings of Joy and discovering you know creating Bad Boy Cameo?
Bad Boy Cameo: Um, I think the best thing for like me, Jo, has been I was always mistaken for a boy. Like often mistaken for a boy as a teenager and was always like a source of shame. And also would have—because I'm quite ambitious—people say to me, "Oh, you're so masculine" as an insult. "Um, you need to step into your femininity more." And so being a drag king has allowed me to kind of really step into that masculine and find the positive masculinity that exists in me. And embrace it. Yeah. So rather than, you know, squashing it and maybe it was coming out sideways—you know, maybe it was coming out a bit the wrong way—but being able to step into it has just meant that I have a much better appreciation of my body and who I am and my self-expression and have gone from wondering what clothes I should wear in the morning, you know, cuz I'd often look at dresses and I have jeans and I like both. And I was like, what do I do today? That judgment's gone. So, I am now like, okay, it's a suit day today, right? You know, and the hair's going up and there's no makeup, or this is a dress day and my favorite dresses come out and the hair's straightened and there's makeup and I love both of that. So, it's—yeah, that's what it—it's a side effect that I didn't realize would happen from doing drag. Because it was just going to be fun. Like, it was just fun, but it's had all this other transformative experience for me that I didn't expect at all.
Danica Lani: I love it because, you know, Kings of Joy as a program really is a journey. It's a gender journey. It's exploring gender on our own terms. There's a girl, there's a boy, that's it. And that's just not the truth of how we can experience life. And gender is something to not be afraid of. It's something to play with. So you can draw on, you know, your femininity. You can draw on masculinity, androgyny—like so many gender expressions that you can draw on your inner gay boy, you know, like whatever it is, like sexuality as well. So—
Bad Boy Cameo: And actually, just as you were talking, I was like, "Oh, that's the other thing that Bad Boy allows me to do is like step into all of that, too." Um, he isn't just stuck into one version of masculinity. He's playing in all of the spaces, which has been really amazing. But I—the other thing that I found is I always thought I was quite progressive and that even though I was married to a man like had gay friends and always was out to safe people um that I was queer. Um, but going into Queers of Joy and then Kings of Joy was realizing this whole community that I hadn't really thought about, you know, non-binary, trans masc, trans men and um hearing different pronouns. So, when someone told me they were she/they, I was like, "Oh, you can do that?" And that I still—when people—and I find when people ask me my pronouns I always say "in discovery" because she/they is like interesting because I go oh that fits because there is a part of me that feels that it's—I'm not either. Um so that kind of exposure to this different world and um you know meeting Max and the No Milk in My Tea has also been a real—I didn't know there were so many people that wanted top surgery or even that that was something that was offered. Um so it's why I always buy the t-shirts and wear them and talk about it because I thought—there's part of me that's like I should know, I should have known that. Right. You know, I felt like I should have known that considering who I am. And the fact that I didn't means oh, we need to expose this. I think people would understand the community a bit more if people like actually met, you know, gender diverse people and different range of pronouns and things. [cite: 432, 433, 434, 435, 437, 438, 439, 440, 441, 442, 443, 444, 445, 446, 447, 448, 449, 450, 451, 452, 453, 454, 455, 456, 457, 458, 459, 460, 461, 462, 463, 464, 465, 466, 467, 468, 469, 470, 471, 472, 473, 474, 475, 477, 478, 479, 480, 481, 482, 483]
Danica Lani: Yeah. Max is one of our early Kings of Joy, Max aka Maxed Out and created a fundraising platform called No Milk in My Tea, which we love, to support individuals going through gender-affirming surgery. So, yeah, that's been you know, an important part of the community as well, like seeing people branch out and you know, Kings of Joy is intentionally designed as an uplifting community. You know, and that's been an important core value for us and I'm sure you can speak to that too. Now you know you're a Kings of Joy producer now. So you're on the producing team helping create these events in Sydney but yeah what has that meant to you about the culture of our community?
Bad Boy Cameo: Uh you know I actually wanted to ask you this—how do you think you've created such an inclusive community? Because as a bisexual woman and I think a bisexual woman who's older, over 45, um it is hard to be acknowledged as legitimate or—I'm not experimenting or you know I kissed a girl before I kissed a boy—like trying to give my credentials all the—um, it is hard. And but coming into Kings of Joy and hearing you say, "I don't care who you sleep with. You want to step into your mask, you're welcome." And but it is a very queer community. So, you've been able to create a really inclusive space for all sexualities and genders. And yet, it is, you know, sapphic—you know, it's still very sapphic queer, which is important, too. So, yeah, how do you do that?
Danica Lani: It's a good question. You know, I'm passionate about building community. And one of my top strengths is "includer." I'm an includer. And so, I just have to include people, find ways to include people. It just rubs me up the wrong way to leave someone excluded. Um and so yeah, I think that's part of it is really saying—staying true to if we say we want diversity, we actually have to allow for diversity. And that means allowing for different experiences, different lived experiences, different points of view. Not just within the queer community, outside of the queer community as well. Allowing it all to coexist together. Cooperate with each other—in particular in large cities, you know, where it's like there's so much diversity and yet we manage to cooperate in a way that has things work generally. Yeah. And so intentionally creating a community that's based on values like joy, like uplifting each other, means that—it is so authentic for me to say I actually don't care who you sleep with. That's your choice. I empower you, know, and as your coach like I empower you. I don't care how you identify. If you identify this way or that way, great, I will empower that because that's your choice. No one else gets a say over your sexuality, right? That would be a weird thing if we're like, "Oh, no, you are, you know—" like "your sexuality is this or that." However, what's not accepted is that there's an idea that you have a say over someone's gender. Why? No, you don't. Only you get to say what your gender is. You get to say what your pronouns are. No one else has a say over that. No one. And so it's creating a drag king—it's an invention, you know, that you get a say over. Um, and I think when you empower individuals in that way, um, in an environment where there's camaraderie present, there's like mates, there's like romance, even brotherhood—if we could use that gendered word, but you know, like it's a culture of we're exploring masculinity. Predominantly as AFAB people, but also um you know there are some AMAB trans fem women in our community as well who have chosen to explore gender and explore masculinity on their own terms now. And that's a beautiful circle to come back to because masculinity belongs to us all. It's available for us all to explore. It's not about what sex you were born. The gender is something that we can all explore.
Bad Boy Cameo: Yeah. And that's been so important for me as someone who has two sons as well growing up in an era where there is a pull, particularly for white boys, to be a certain way. Um, I think that me embracing my masculinity has allowed them to—they probably wouldn't say this themselves, but I see it. They can then be the sweet boy cuz I'm a sweet boy. Bad boy is such a sweet boy.
Danica Lani: Yes, boy.
Bad Boy Cameo: Bad boy loves everybody. He's very lovable and endearing. Yeah, he is. So it is such—there aren't many queer spaces and I think—if I may make a call out to the rainbow alphabet to really think about you know—I get triggered when I hear this like "oh the LGBTQI+ community is so open and accepting" and I'm like no you know we're just as much as [expletive] as everybody else like—yeah, we exclude too. We have opinions. And that's okay. But thinking that you're open I think then blocks who you are actually excluding. And um I feel really fortunate that I found Kings of Joy. And so I—when I was hosting the other day and I was saying to the audience if you want community like we are here for you just even if performing is not your thing just do it once then you're part of the gang you know. But it is something so so special.
Danica Lani: Yeah. I truly value it. I mean this is the community that I want to be part of. Go ahead and create the community you want. Great. And what would you say to any aspiring drag kings?
Bad Boy Cameo: I think that, you know, take your time. The beauty of drag kinging being underground is that you do have that freedom that maybe drag queens don't have, although I think they're also kind of stepping out of the mold, too. Um, take your time to explore. Really think about your expression. And I love that in Kings of Joy, we don't do toxic masculinity. We think about that—like what kinds of masculinity aren't we seeing in the world? You know, can you show that, like a diverse side? Um, and kind of embrace the underground nature of it and support each other. I think drag kings do even outside of the Kings of Joy community. Um, I know I try and go and see other drag kings as much as I can. Supporting each other, you know, being a good audience member, showing up. Um, and you get inspiration too, you know. So, that's what I would say and that you can change. So, you know, the Art Professor and Bad Boy are so different and that's okay. And maybe Bad Boy will retire one day. Maybe he will finally get a job with Hugh Jackman and just be too busy.
Danica Lani: Land that epic role that he was chasing. Another one, you know. Yeah, that's right. And the beauty of it is that you've literally invented your drag persona so you could invent another one—which is what you did. You reinvented. Which is beautiful. Beautiful process. So, if you had a magic wand, Jo, aka Bad Boy Cameo, what would a thriving drag king scene look like? Like what does that look like?
Bad Boy Cameo: I think it—look, you know, I met some wonderful people this week and I told them I was a drag king and they said, "What's a drag king?" So, I think a thriving community would be that when I say to people I'm a drag king, they know what a drag king is. So, there's so so many drag kings out there that that's not a question anymore.
Danica Lani: Interesting. Yeah. It's an interesting interaction, isn't it? That moment where you say, "Oh, well, I'm a drag king" and you see them—they're like hang on what did you say? They're like I know what a drag queen is and then you have to reference that and go well you know a drag queen—a drag king is the opposite of that, even though that's not technically exactly true, but yeah it's a good starting point.
Bad Boy Cameo: Yeah and I think also like this week it's starting to happen where there are so many drag king events on or drag king adjacent events on that you know you can't go to them all—like I remember 3 years ago I was scrambling to find anything that was any event on really, any sapphic event on, let alone drag king. So you know that there are multiple things on and I can't make it to them all. That would be great, you know, or that we're traveling to Brisbane because there's a massive lineup or that the drag king float at the Mardi Gras is big and up the front or there's multiple actually, right? Multiple drag king floats, not just one, because there's lots of drag queen floats. So, yeah, all of those things.
Danica Lani: Yeah, that's a beautiful vision. And you know, I would want to acknowledge you because you've been part of making that thriving drag king scene happen. You know, stepping into being a Kings of Joy producer and helping make these events happen with Drag Kingdom, our bi-annual showcase reunion of all the Kings of Joy at our spiritual home, the Red Rattler in Marrickville in Sydney here. Um, but also, launching Boys Night Out, our regular monthly drag king show, which given there's a team of us, we want to make sustainable and want to keep going so that people don't burn out. And from hosting to performing to producing in the background, helping gather kings and schedule rehearsals and wrangle people—all of that stuff that you're doing in the background is making this thriving drag king scene happen.
Bad Boy Cameo: And it's such a—it's just such a joy—to be cliché—but it is it's just such a joy. And outside of work and family, Kings of Joy and being a drag king allows me to have fun, be a bit political, make a difference to other people, have a laugh, have a cry. So, it is that, you know, I love all parts of my life, but being able to be a part of Kings of Joy makes all of that possible, too, because I've come more into myself since becoming Kings of Joy. I'm much more accepting of my body, who I am, how I express myself now that I'm a part of this community.
Danica Lani: Isn't that beautiful? That's a beautiful thing. And for kings who are just starting out or people who want to start out and become a drag king, where would you recommend they start?
Bad Boy Cameo: Come to a Queers of Joy event. And I think watching because the new Kings of Joy always perform at Queers of Joy. So, Queers of Joy is a good place to start because you'll see people doing it for the first time and that might make it less scary for you, right? Um, so I think that is a really good place to start. And then of course coming to see Boys Night Out or all the other shows too that are happening in Sydney anyway—Hot Nonsense—and I know Melbourne have a great drag king scene. So yes, going out and watching other people, talking—I mean, come and talk to any of us. I mean, everyone is so amazing. So, yeah.
Danica Lani: Great. Yeah. So, go to your local drag king shows, meet and go up to the drag kings and speak to them. Um, I've also got a free resource that can help people get started for aspiring drag kings, which is a name guide, claiming your drag king name. And I use a lot of examples from the Kings of Joy community of different names that you could create and you know test them on your friends and family and chosen family and see how it goes. But um yeah, that's available too.
Bad Boy Cameo: Yeah, you could put your coffee name—maybe I should order coffee as Bad Boy Cameo.
Danica Lani: Oh, I love that. I love that. Yeah. Go to your local café, order your coffee as your drag king name and tell us what happens.
Bad Boy Cameo: Yeah. I'm George Bulgers or I'm Chase Cox or—
Danica Lani: Chase Cox.
Bad Boy Cameo: I'm Dildo Baggins.
Danica Lani: Dildo Baggins. What about um—yeah.
Bad Boy Cameo: Boy Michael had like—hi, my name's Po Try. Fine China. Yeah. Gym Junkie. Bad—Brad Armpit. That's a good one.
Danica Lani: Armpit. A-R-M-P. Yeah, that's right. You spell it like awesome. Oh, well, thank you so much, Jo. What a joy to have a conversation with you and Bad Boy Cameo. And yeah, thanks for being here.
Bad Boy Cameo: Thank you.
