Hatewatching: RuPaul’s Drag Race winner Bianca Del Rio hits the Tampa stage with Rolodex of Hate

Roy Haylock, who is better known as the unfiltered queen of hate Bianca Del Rio, is bringing his brand of no-nonsense comedy to Ferguson Hall at the Straz Center in Tampa Nov. 15 with the show Rolodex of Hate.

“Rolodex of Hate is a collection of hateful moments from my life, hateful thoughts that I’ve had, and I put it all into a show,” Haylock says. “It is more stand-up than it is a drag show. It’s explaining where my hatred comes from, how I use my hate in my everyday life.”

Haylock started touring with Rolodex of Hate in November of 2014, just five months after being named the season six winner of RuPaul’s Drag Race, and hasn’t stopped since.

RuPaul’s Drag Race made Bianca Del Rio a household name, but it was something Haylock was originally not going to do.

“It was one of those things where at first I didn’t think I wanted to do it,” Haylock says. “I thought I was too old, and I thought it was more for the younger, lip-syncing kind of queen. And then it was this moment of, ‘why don’t I give it a shot, what do I have to lose?’ It was all kind of a whirlwind. I got my first audition in just in the nick of time, and then I got a call a few months after and I had five days to pack my shit and get to L.A. to start filming.”

Haylock became the first Hispanic winner of Drag Race and still remains the only contestant on the series to never place in the bottom of the competition, a bit of trivia that Haylock just recently found out about.

“Yeah, I heard that on Instagram, and then of course a bunch of people were like ‘well technically,’ but yeah, I guess I was never in the bottom in group and apparently I was the only one but I don’t know all the loopholes in Drag Race trivia,” Haylock says.

Haylock has been doing drag as Bianca Del Rio for 20 years now, spending 10 years in New York and in his home state of Louisiana doing drag for 10 years in New Orleans.

“[New York and New Orleans] are both different,” Haylock says of the drag scenes.“In the South they get more into the production and there are dressing rooms and in New York there’s no space for anything. So in New York it was just one outfit, a much smaller bar, no theatricality like we had in the South. They are very different animals and you just adapt to whatever environment you’re in.”

Haylock used his environments to form Bianca Del Rio into a storm of insult and hate, but he says it is more an extension of him rather than a character he created.

“I’ve always been a little snarky and talked back a lot,” Haylock says. “It was just a pass to get away with murder. Things you could never say you can totally get away with in drag. It wasn’t something I sat down and thought, ‘How am I gonna have her be?,’ it is something that has completely evolved, and the power of television has made it a little more for me and given me more opportunity to be hateful, which I kind of like.”

Television, more specifically RuPaul’s Drag Race, showcased Bianca Del Rio at her spiteful best, but as with any reality show, you hear talks of show creators and editing showing the contestants in an untruthful light, which Haylock shoots down.

“I think anyone who complains about the editing on any of these shows is an asshole,” he says. “That’s just part of the deal, and usually it’s the people who lose who bitch about the editing. It’s 12 to 14 hour days and they edit it down into an hour, but of course if you’re crazy, they’re gonna use this, and if you’re an asshole, they’re gonna use that. If you cry they will use it, if you have dental issues they will use it, all of that is gonna play out on the television. That’s what you signed up for.”

Haylock admits that it isn’t all fun and games when you are competing to be America’s next big drag performer.

“It’s not an easy thing, the show. It’s not for sissies,” he says. “I don’t know if I could ever do it again or would do it again, but it was definitely a good choice, and I encourage a lot of queens to do it because it changes your world if you have something to offer. There are a lot of useless queens of course, but if you can accept the challenge and you showcase your work, then it can change your life.”

So after becoming the season-six winner, did Haylock tune in to see the next season of drag performers?

“I never watched it consecutively,” Haylock says. “I was travelling a lot overseas, and it was too much work to try and find the show and download it illegally, but now it’s on Netflix, so I might sit back and watch it now that I got a chance to meet a lot of them. But while it was airing, I was kind of here and there and everywhere.”

While he hasn’t had the chance to watch it in its entirety, Haylock says he was rooting for Orlando’s hometown queen, Ginger Minj.

“I got his style and his sense of humor and that kind of stuff, but it’s one of those things where you never really know,” Haylock says. “Besides the fact that it’s a competition, it’s also a TV show: They can do whatever they want. So it wasn’t a question of whoever won is the most talented, and best of all, they pick whoever they want, but he was in good company.”

Since obtaining worldwide fame, Haylock says that he’s fascinated by the loyalty and craziness of the show’s fans.

“Everywhere, I can’t believe the people who watch the show and that they know who we are. That’s the most shocking thing to me,” he says. “I get letters from people asking me to marry them, and you have no idea who they are, and some of them are from women which are always a treat. They apparently are not aware that I am gay. I’m just fascinated, especially in these areas of the world where the show doesn’t air, and they go out of their way to find it and support us. It’s amazing.”

Something else that amazes Haylock since taking Bianca Del Rio on the road with Rolodex of Hateis the question of what is a Rolodex?

“I discuss what a Rolodex is in my show. I encourage everyone to do it. It’s pre-Google days,” Haylock says. “I have had several people on social media ask me what a Rolodex is, because people are idiots, but I am fascinated by it. It also shows how old I am, because I do remember Rolodexes, but it’s just a collection of cards with people’s information on it, for me I have a collection of hate on my cards and I just go through them during the show.”

Between shows, Haylock is attempting to bring Bianca to the big screen, wrapping production on Hurricane Bianca.

“We filmed it in July for 18 days, and it is filled with cameos. Rachel Dratch is in the movie; Alan Cumming, Margaret Cho and RuPaul are all making appearances in the film. It’s in editing, and from what I’ve heard, it will probably be out next summer after they make all the magic happen,” Haylock says.

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