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After appearing on the 11th season of RuPaul’s Drag Race, the first season of Canada’s Drag Race: Canada vs. the World, the sixth season of RuPaul’s All Stars and now the 11th season of All Stars, Silky Nutmeg Ganache, known by many as the Reverend, is undoubtedly a legend.
Born and raised in Moss Point, Mississippi, Ganache bears all in this episode of “UNCLOSETED with Spencer Macnaughton.” She speaks about her relationship with gender, her 100-pound weight loss, what it’s like living as a queer person of color in a red state and why she’s calling on allies to stand up for the trans community.
Watch the full interview above or read the transcript here:
Spencer Macnaughton: Hi everyone, welcome back to UNCLOSETED with me, Spencer Macnaughton. Today, I have the great privilege and pleasure of sitting down with a Drag Race legend, the Reverend Dr. Silky Nutmeg Ganache, who has competed on the 11th season of Drag Race, the first season of Canada’s Drag Race vs. the World, the sixth season of RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars and now the 11th season of All Stars. Silky, it is honestly a privilege and a pleasure to sit down with you today. Thanks so much for speaking with me and Uncloseted Media.
Silky Nutmeg Ganache: Well thank you for having me.
SM: You’re on the 11th season of Drag Race now and you have really been just described online as a legend, as a real one, as a lip sync assassin. What’s the journey been like for you since you went on that first season of Drag Race, now many years ago?
SNG: Honestly, it’s been more of a journey that the world has gone through with me. I feel like when I first got on Drag Race, like eight or nine years ago, I was a little girl. I just started doing drag. And I didn’t always do the best to show myself in the best light, but I was there and I was present. And I think me being there and present is what has led me to be on television and invited back multiple times. So, I think now I’m in a place where you get to see the fully realized me of who I am and what I represent. Y’all have literally watched me go as a little girl to this grown woman now. And I can’t be more excited than anything.
SM: And I think you talk about, like, you couldn’t be fully realized, you know, on the first season. What’s changed and how do you think you’re able to be more authentic Silky now?
SNG: Well, I was literally trying to find my place when I first got on, with a combination of trying to have a career. I wasn’t trying to win Drag Race.
SM: I think that’s interesting because I think so many people are out there trying to be an influencer or be a celebrity. What have you learned? What makes good TV? What do audiences respond to?
SNG: You being your authentic self. People are trying to be an influencer. And I think the cameras don’t lie. At all. I never tried to make good TV; I was just good TV. I was myself, you know? And even when I wasn’t myself, the cameras didn’t lie about it. All Stars [season] six, I was eliminated early. I wasn’t in the mental space to compete. So yeah. Influencers, if it’s meant for you, it’s meant for you. You know? You can’t force yourself on anyone.
SM: Some would argue it’s hard to be your authentic self when you’ve grown up with the background that you’ve grown up. I mean, you grew up in the middle of the Bible belt as a queer person of color in Moss Point, Mississippi. What was your upbringing like in kind of realizing who you were and developing into the kind of amazing star you’ve become?
SNG: You know, right after I was on season 11, our original season of Drag Race, we were at the family reunion. I was at my family reunion, and it’s on a dirt road in Mississippi—Lexington, Mississippi—at my grandmother’s ranch. And they’re on the microphone, and we’re having a good time, the drinks are flowing, they’re dancing. And the family reunion for me is not just family. It’s more like a family friend. It’s like a community event. And you know, the people on there was just like that crazy individual you saw on television. That’s what we’ve been dealing with our whole lives.
SM: I love it.
SNG: So for me, I just always, who I was, even at church growing up, that was me. If you ever seen the movie “What’s Love Got to Do With It” and Tina Turner’s at the beginning of the movie singing “This Little Light of Mine.” And she’s adding her own flavor and style. And they kick her out of church. That was literally me, like, as a kid. Like, I add my own flavor and style to everything. And if you didn’t like it, that was your problem to deal with. It wasn’t mine.
SM: I feel like that’s an amazing perspective to take. Did you grow up in a church where you were hearing messages about being gay or identifying with a different gender expression?
SNG: Well, first of all, what’s understood needs no explanation. I never announced it growing up or… Everybody knew. And it had gotten to a point because when I was in high school, I was very popular. So with the personality that I had, nobody ever bullied or messed with me; I was just who I was. And people seem to gravitate towards it. I’ve had more adversity as a Black person than as a queer person in my life. Because of course, when you first see me, you notice the color of my skin. You don’t notice that I’m queer. And... No shade, I’ve always looked like this. So I have been passable as a woman my whole life. So most people thought when I was in high school, they thought I was a little… They always called me a butch lesbian. Because I wore a little mohawk with a taper fade. It wasn’t until I went off to college that I—actually wasn’t until my 30s—that I started to just accept the femininity of who I am. So when I turned 30, I can remember it was just that I accepted the femininity, because I always kind of shied away from it.
When people ask me what’s my gender identity, I always say Roger the alien. I’mma wake up and be what I want to be that day. If it’s for you, it’s for you. If it’s not, it’s not. I’ve never claimed to be trans or anything. I’m Silky. I ain’t got time to be explaining. If you like it, like it. Come on over here. If you don’t? Stay over there. It’s always been that with me. My pronouns are she and her though.
SM: For cis people, right? Like me who knows gender from, you know, that I feel like I’m born with the sex that matches my gender identity. How do you view gender in between your own ears and how you express it out to the world?
SNG: Honestly? I don’t. I feel, and this is just me, and it may get me canceled or whatever, I feel that we put too much into it when it comes to gender identity. I don’t feel like everybody deserves to know my true gender. And maybe this is a old outdated Mississippi theory for me, and I think about it in a way of what’s between my legs is my personal business.
SM: And I love what you say about gender is personal, folks shouldn’t [be] getting involved and that kind of thing. Somebody who has definitely gotten involved is President Donald Trump, who has introduced a spate of executive orders, policies, laws to roll back trans rights, to roll back the rights of people who identify as anything other than cisgender. And he also just released a new counterterrorism strategy last week that actually highlighted trans people, linking them completely falsely, there’s no evidence to back this up, to terrorism, right? And another thing he didn’t even mention was the threat of white supremacy, even though we know that’s one of the biggest threats in America right now. As a Black woman who presents perhaps differently than a cisgender person, where are you at right now seeing this come out?
SNG: Honestly, where I’m at in life, I don’t care. I’m not scared. I’m no longer raising my blood pressure over the things Donald Trump say. Just as he’s done it for queer people, he’s already done it for Black people and he’s not gonna stop. And I realize that even in the queer community, we always say, “It’s a safe space.” I no longer consider clubs, bars, safe spaces.
SM: Why not?
SNG: Because half of them are owned by Trump supporters. Half the people who work for them are Trump supporters. And so I have realized that where I’m at in life right now, I’m gonna do everything I can to make a safe space around me and with the people in my close corner. I know that it may sound insane because I have a platform and I have a voice and I should use it to fight and come back all the time. However, for me, I feel like as a Black person in America, the time is not for me, as a Black queer person in America, to continue to be on my soapbox. It’s been my lifetime journey to speak out and to speak against all of this. I’ve done it my entire life. And now? I tell people cause—I always get criticized for this—and I’ll be like “you need to have that same energy to white men in this community.” It’s time for them to speak up.
SM: You need allies to come in with a catcher’s mitt and stand up and take the microphone for a hot second.
SNG: Oh yeah, that’s where we at. Where is the white cis men in the community speaking up? And so until it becomes important to them, I’m just gonna sit back. And I’m not gonna say too much because the scariest part about it for me is, I bought my home here in Houston. And when it came for Donald Trump’s election, I was the only person—I live in Harris County. And I had a Kamala Harris sign on my yard. Everybody else? Donald Trump, Donald Trump, women for Trump. Women’s for Trump? Girl be about a [pedophile] in this neighborhood? And I kept my sign up until it magically disappeared when I was gone, maybe like five months until his presidency. I live by myself. I don’t want to put myself in a safety risk of my home or my life being threatened. So it is time for me to sit back. And this is the only way I have learned to grasp the idea of peace. And I encourage every Black person, queer person, Black queer person in America, to find that peace because I’m no longer raising my blood pressure. Because the more I speak out it seems like we don’t always have the allies or the advocates to speak out with us.
SM: I think a lot of people share that sentiment right now of allies needing to step up. And you’re, you know, in Houston, which is still a very red state in Texas. And I hear what you’re saying about a lot of the owners of the queer bars are Trump supporters, right? So when you go in as a drag performer in some of these spaces that you know are owned by people who might have a MAGA flag on their front porch, what goes through your mind thinking this is not a safe space for me?
SNG: So now that I have gained the notoriety that I have, I automatically assume every place is not a safe space. I assume that every space is owned by a Trump supporter. And people are like, “How could you walk into these bars knowing that first off, they had a Trump sign or Make America Great Again on the bar?” You know my Black [ass] ain’t walking in.
SM: Right.
SNG: That’s first. That has not happened. However, I feel like in the time that we’re in now, it’s my duty to go and give people an hour and a half show that will make them forget about the status of this world. It is my duty to go in to make them feel good to just forget what is going on in their real life problems. It is my duty to go in and let my trans sisters know that sis I see you, and this too shall pass. I feel like it’s my duty to go in and let these bars know I’m collecting money from you. And that’s what I’m doing. You are a check, you may support Donald Trump, and you may profit a little bit off me. But guess what? You publicly paid me. I feel like a lot of Trump supporters are cowards cause you’re making money off this community. But you’re not really telling that you’re voting against this community. So I let it be known everywhere I go that, you know, this is who I am, this is what I represent, this what I support. And if you don’t like it, that’s on you. But I came in, I uplifted my community and I hit the door.
SM: I love it. I love your perspective on this. I mentioned I recently interviewed your friend Peppermint, who was also a finalist on Drag Race, and she and I had a really interesting conversation. We talked about how MTV is owned by Paramount, and Paramount is now owned by billionaires, the Ellisons, who are Trump loyalists. And I asked her, should RuPaul’s Drag Race stay on Paramount when it’s owned by the Ellisons, right? And I want to read you what she said and then see what you think. Peppermint said,
“It would be a wonderful surprise to see anyone on that show speak out against sort of what is happening in our country with regards to the control of politics and policies and the intersection again, of money with politics, especially as it’s related to the Ellisons and the purchase of Paramount, we’ll know when the takeover is complete, when RuPaul is like, ‘I love Larry Ellison,’ because that’s probably what’s happening. They’re gonna get a script. That’s what I envision happening, is they will try to either cut Drag Race or use it as a tool to parrot what they want to say.”
Pretty bold statement from Miss Peppermint over there. What do you think?
SNG: Right now, as long as RuPaul’s Drag Race using the platform to unite people, as long as they’re using the platform to pay queer artists, I’m good with it. And I’m in a place right now where I don’t want to misspeak on that issue. I think as things unravel, we’ll speak up a little bit more. But for me, as long as we collecting those dollars, queer artists are being seen, our stories are being told, I’m OK with it.
SM: I appreciate it. I respect it, and I get it. I want to pivot. You recently posted late last year that “being born and raised in Mississippi under Southern values, I used to be ashamed of saying, ‘I want love after coming out.’” And you got really vulnerable about, you know, having a kind of shitty situation with an ex and then that inspiring a weight loss journey where you said you were officially 100 pounds down. You’re no longer ashamed or embarrassed to be who you are. You’re proud to be, quote, “Black, femme, fat and fabulous.” I think you inspire a lot of people. What made you want to post that? And what does that kind of moment in time represent for you in your journey and Silky’s journey?
SNG: I was ashamed for a very long time, like being Black, being queer and being raised in the Church. There are so many people that say that “the gays are going to hell.” And I used to believe that, and I lost my grandmother a few weeks ago. And one of the things that she had instilled in me is that you live heaven and hell on this earth. And being plus size people had, you know, they don’t think that fat people deserve love or to even exist at times. And when I wrote that, I wrote that in a place of taking back my power. That status was a way of me reclaiming myself and what I want for life. I wanna be loved and I wanna have kids one day. But now I’m no longer in a rush to do it. I’m gonna take a page out of my grandmother’s book and I’m going to live heaven on this earth, and I am gonna live and I’m going to enjoy. Why should I have one boyfriend when now I got a roster?
SM: I love it.
SNG: You know, you can’t do the job, I know somebody that got it, you know? And I feel like that’s where we heading in life. I think that’s the more progressive way of dating. You know, you can date multiple people. The southern me want to say, you know, you date one person and you committed to that one, and now I’m like, no until somebody proves that they’re committed to me, I’m dating multiple.
SM: What’s your dating game right now? If you’ve got a roster, I think people might want to know, like, do you do the Grindr, the Hinge? Are you on none of that? How do you meet people?
SNG: Um, I travel. Despite what the world thinks, you know, being plus size, there’s a lot of people that like plus size down low, you know?
SM: Oh! OK!
SNG: You know, they don’t like to tell they friends that they really into the big girls. But I have never had a issue pulling guys, ever. As it pertains to dating apps, I feel like everybody’s moving more towards “let’s hook up.” So I don’t get on there often. The last three guys I dated, I met in bars. But I would like to also say, I have a book coming out about dating and relationships in the next couple of weeks.
SM: I did not know that.
SNG: And it’s called my—yeah! It’s called “My Man, My Man, My Man. 10 Red Flags to Let You Know That Your Man Is Really a Fuck Boy.“
SM: I want to know two things: What is the biggest red flag that you look out for? And then I want to know what is Silky’s perfect first date.
SNG: Oh my goodness, one of the biggest red flags to where I’m at now, if a guy meet me and he start talking about Drag Race. It confuses intention. Because are you a fan or are you trying to become a friend? So when you say RuPaul’s Drag Race, it’s a deal breaker. My perfect first date? Honestly, it’s just a nice dinner, just a ni—I’m simple. I require car service. I require you to put in effort to introduce me into your world. And trust me, the life that I live, you would enjoy it and I don’t have to do too much explaining. You would enjoy it cause I eat The Capital Grille, Ruth Chris Steakhouse on a Tuesday night if I want.
SM: Yeah, OK. OK, yes.
SNG: You know, because I’m in a place of enjoying life the way I want to enjoy it so, yeah.
SM: I love it. I want, like, the headline of any dating profile to now be “I require car service.”
SNG: Yeah! Send me an Uber, send me a Lyft, like if you’re serious.
SM: So funny and I’m excited to read that book and we can definitely plug it in the show notes. But I wanted to circle back because you did mention something about DL guys, right? You probably know that folks who are not out, especially in the Bible Belt, especially queer people of color who are not fully out, are part of what’s fueling an epidemic of HIV resurgence in the country, right? Curious about your experience there? What can we do better? Anything to say on that?
SNG: Yes, I would first like to start off by the use of trade on Rupaul’s Drag Race is not accurate at all. You know, they love to say “the trade of the season.”
SM: What do they mean by that? They mean like the hottest person in not drag kind of thing?
SNG: Yes, the hottest person not in drag. And that is not the term. The trade historically is a word used by Black trans women to say that this guy likes trans women, and they would sometimes trade him off. Because if a guy likes trans women, the girls will always let you know, you know? But what people don’t realize is trade is a touch of danger. So trade will literally kill you.
SM: Wait, that’s a bold statement. What do you mean by that?
SNG: You asked about DL. DL trade will kill you. If you told anybody, if they were outed, look how many trans girls dated like a straight guy, trade, and then all of a sudden they have died because the guys could no longer, like, accept or live with themselves or their families found out. So when we use the word trade on Drag Race, I always try to advocate them to be like, “Girl, you wear a broach and we call you girl, you’re not trade.” I try to do it as a way of educating people like trade will literally kill you. So let’s not use that term unless we’re gonna use it appropriately.
SM: And what about like, when you’ve kind of, you know, if you’ve interacted with DL guys or anything like that, what do you think folks need to be mindful of, or aware of, as it relates to safe sex in a moment when, you know, there is PrEP access, but, you know, HIV is still alive and well?
SNG: I used to date DL guys. I don’t do it anymore because I’m in a place in life I’m not gonna be anybody’s secret. DL guys have that touch of danger. Half the time, you don’t know who they’re sleeping with, and they lie. DL men lie. And if they can lie to you, and 9 times out of 10 be living with their baby mama, don’t have a job, come do the nasty to you, put you through the mattress? You have to protect yourself by having safe sex. And a lot of DL men don’t like that. And it does spread disease. HIV, gonorrhea, herpes, it does. But I’ve gotten to a place where I can’t do that anymore to myself because I can no longer be someone’s secret. At all. I’m not anyone’s secret.
SM: I also wanted to ask you, you know, you’ve been candid, like I mentioned in that vulnerable post about your weight loss journey, and we’re in a space right now with all the GLP-1s. You know, there’s a huge new kind of conversation about weight loss. Um, and I’m just curious what you think about that. I feel like every other person I know is on one now. I don’t know. It’s a big moment in time for the conversation around weight loss and I’m curious your thoughts.
SNG: Considering that I am a person that has tried every diet on this planet, if people need help, let them get the help that they need. There’s so many people that downplay or are so nasty and rude to people that uses this. And it shouldn’t be like that at all, and I’m a person that needed help all my life. And it’s so crazy because first, people are criticizing you for being fat, and now they wanna criticize you for the way you lose the weight. And I’ve never gotten that. I lost my weight by going to the gym. And then I got some cosmetic surgery after I lost a lot of weight. And so, I’m down like 100 pounds now. And I wanna lose a little bit more, but there is nothing wrong with help if you need it.
SM: I did want to say this when you mentioned, and I’m so sorry for your loss of your grandmother because I know she was absolutely integral to you. She taught you about the importance of education. What did she mean to you and what has she taught you about this life?
SNG: Thank you. My grandmother honestly taught me how to be glamorous. She was a preschool teacher. And I watched my grandmother get up every morning, do her makeup, wear perfume, do her hair. Even to her older age when, you know, her health declined. And if she needed to go to the hospital, put my makeup on first and make me look good. But that was the woman she was and she taught me to never give up on myself. And I think that’s really important, especially in today’s world. But I honestly will take “you live heaven and hell on this earth.” That will forever be engraved in me. Absolutely.
SM: That’s beautiful. Last question cause some people who might be in your shoes in one way may think, you know, I’m an underdog because I’m queer, because I’m Black, because I’m plus size, because I’m these things, and they might not have the confidence that, Silky, you have, right? Easier said than done to get to where you’re at, you know? What’s your message to people who might be in similar shoes thinking, “I can’t do this”?
SNG: Well, if you say you can’t do it, you’d have already lost the battle. You have to take a chance on yourself because in reality, nobody in this world owe you a damn thing. And I’ve learned over the years, you have to give yourself grace. You have encourage yourself, and you have fight for all your dreams. And so if you’re not gonna take a chance during investing yourself, you have lost the battle. You have to start investing in yourselves right now. You never know what may happen. Do it.
SM: Dr. Silky Reverend Nutmeg Ganache, you’re amazing.
SNG: No, thank you so much and thank you for having me.
SM: You’re fantastic, and yeah, thank you so much for speaking with me and Uncloseted Media today. And for those who never want to miss an episode of our podcast, you can subscribe to Uncloseted Media’s YouTube channel or listen wherever you get your podcasts.
Read all of Ganache’s books here.
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I love Silky! What a great interview, taking no prisoners...