Pepper LaBeija
Chantal Regnault
Pepper LaBeija was born on November 5th, 1948.
In the 1960s, her father caught her in drag and told her mother she was becoming a woman. Her mother burned all the women’s clothes in her closet, including a mink coat. She moved to NYC as soon as she could.
There are conflicting reports on when exactly she succeeding founder Crystal LaBeija and became mother of the House of LaBeija. Some reports say 1971 or 1972 and some reports say 1980. She regined for over 25 years.
She starred in the 1982 documentary, TV Transvestite. A film that centers on the 1982 House of LaBeija, held at a Harlem Bingo hall.
In 1990, she starred in Paris Is Burning with director Jennie Livingston calling her the heart of the film.
She spoke on her gender identity in the film saying, “I have been a man, and I have been a man who emulated a woman, but I have never been a woman…I can never say how a woman feels. I can only say how a man who acts like a woman feels.”
In 1993, she told the New York Times in 1993, "I love the movie, I watch it more than often, and I don't agree that it exploits us. But I feel betrayed. When Jennie first came, we were at a ball, in our fantasy, and she threw papers at us. We didn't read them, because we wanted the attention. We loved being filmed. Later, when she did the interviews, she gave us a couple hundred dollars. But she told us that when the film came out we would be all right. There would be more coming. And that made me think I would have enough money for a car and a nice apartment and for my kids' education. Because a number of years ago, to please my mother, I took a little break from being a 24-hour drag queen, and so I have a daughter, 15, and a son ready for college. But then the film came out and -- nothing. They all got rich, and we got nothing."
She was known for her signature runway “Egyptian Effect” and won almost 250 trophies in her ballroom career.
In the mid-90s, as a result of suffering from diabetes, both of her feet were amputated, and she became bedridden. Making one last ballroom appearance and performance in 2001.
Towards the end of her life, she started going by her birth name again, William Jackson and had two children with a woman she loved and lived with.
Pepper LaBeija died from a heart attack on May 14th, 2003. She was 53 years old.