HIS CHILDHOOD: Tell me a little about living in rural Virginia. Would you call it a normal childhood? First of all let me just tell you that the word “ru-
ral” is really difficult to say for a kid with a speech impediment. Growing up, I couldn’t say words with Rs or Ws in them. Thank god I had four years of speech therapy. Do I think I had a normal childhood? Absolutely
not. I don’t even know if there is a normal child- hood anymore. If there is, I’m kind of glad I didn’t have it. I’m from a mixed-race family, which is awesome. Usually when I tell people I have a sister named Reketa, a lot of people, once they get to know me say, “I get you now, I know why your are the way you are.”
ad in the newspaper: “country star wanted for a new show on the strip.” I thought “let’s go.” I have never been so hungry for a job in my life, I went for the interview and it was the worst performance I had ever seen—the show was calledBareback—a topless country show. It was supposed to be sexy but it was the most ridiculous thing you have ever seen, topless girls country dancing with boobs bouncing in the un-sexiest ways. Chippendales saw me there and, in short, stole me away. Thinking it might be hard to fit in, I was really
intimidated. But they were also looking for a gui- tar player and my best friend James (hisAmazing Race partner) plays, so we did the audition with 400 other dudes. We thought, “Crap, what did we get ourselves into?” Somehow through the
“Where I’m from BEING DIFFERENT was a bad thing, now I know being different is a BEAUTIFUL THING!
Different is how you grow; different is howYOU PROGRESS.” I have a very cool, eclectic family and I love
that about them. We grew-up color blind, which is amazing—how the whole world should be. It was definitely hard in the South growing up in a mixed-race family, you were automatically an outcast. I can’t believe the things people would say to me at such a young age. I would be like, “Why are people picking on me? I don’t under- stand, for just having a little brother and sister that are a little more tan than I am?” I think it was kind of a test-run for being gay, because the whole thing came up again, people pointing and saying “you’re different.” Where I’m from, being different was a bad thing, now I know being different is a beautiful thing! Different is how you grow; different is how you progress.
CHIPPENDALES: How did you end-up in Vegas working for the world famous Chippendales? I was in New Orleans singing and this windy
bitch called Katrina (laughter) came by and messed me up. She turned my world up-side down—I had no idea where to go or what to do. A friend said he was going to Vegas. I had never been and I didn’t know anything about it, but I had nowhere to go right then because everything I knew had just washed away! So I jumped on a plane and went from a hurricane to the desert with no car, no money and one bag of clothes. I got real lucky during that first week. I saw a big
34 RAGE monthly | MARCH 2013
three-day audition, he got the guitar job and I got the job as a singer, so off we went. The Chippendales guys couldn’t have been
cooler. The best thing about them is that the guys really don’t take themselves too seriously. The job requires that you look a certain way and perform on stage but you can’t have an ego—which is what’s great about these guys—none of them have that. They are like my brothers. James and I are still there and these people are my family.
You have mentioned before there was some kind of turning point for you, that it was time to resign from Chippendales. But you’re still there. What happened? Chippendales is the “Ultimate Girls Night Out.”
There was never anything that said, “You can’t be gay,” it was just the way it was. There had been a gay guy or two before… I had been searching a lot and I think for me I just felt that I couldn’t do it anymore. People saw me on billboards, on the side of buses, in magazines and would say, “look there’s Jaymes Vaughan pretending to not be gay.” That’s how you get “successful,” you have got to hide yourself; you can’t be yourself and I thought that was doing more harm than good. I have a nephew that’s 13 years old and seeing
him at that age reminded me of a friend I had who killed himself around. It reminded me just how hard it was at that age for me and how badly we need positive role models. Not that I am saying the Chippendales guys are necessarily role mod- els, but being yourself is. The thing I’m pushing is
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