On The Tonight Show, the always yummy Nick Jonas tells host Jimmy Fallon about the time he ate a marijuana lollipop and popped a NARB before presenting at the Young Hollywood Awards.

That’s a “No Apparent Reason Boner” for the uninitiated.

“Every man gets on from time to time,” explains Nick.

So, while wearing a red suit on the red carpet that left very little to the imagination, Nick then had to hide his full-on stiffy, so that in every picture he can be seen standing like this:

Jimmy, of course, had the photographic evidence…

Ha! Watch Nick tell the story below.

And here’s a link to a pic without his hands in the way…

… and another…

…and another.

The post Nick Jonas Explains His Awkward Red Carpet Boner to Jimmy Fallon appeared first on The WOW Report.

Monday in London, members of ballroom houses Khan and Revlon (Jay Jay, D’Relle and BamBam) joined the vigil in Soho, and decided to show support by voguing in the middle of Old Compton Street. (via The Fader)

Jay Jay: Vogue is a dance outlet that comes from the ballroom scene, and within the ballroom scene there’s many categories, but it was for the queer people of color, black, Latino, et cetera, to come together in this world — it was for queer people of color to create this feel of a ball. A place where everyone feels comfortable, a place where there’s no judgement. [Yesterday], I called everyone and was like, “let’s vogue down!” — because there’s so much upset and sadness and that is happening, and voguing is uplifting. It’s an outlet for pain.

D’Relle: I think why it was so important to me was because I was in Florida only a week ago, and left my friends out there. We needed to do something to show our support and solidarity because although it was in Orlando, it could happen anywhere. I called Jay Jay and we both agreed we need to go down there and vogue. Why vogue? Vogue — like Pulse — was for the black and Latino gay community, and is an expression of strength, freedom, and unity.

Jay Jay: Vogue always brings people together, no matter if you can vogue or you can’t vogue, you always love it, you always find some kind of love for it. People come together as one community, and they forget about all the negatives. That’s what voguing does, and that’s why we brought it to Soho — it was such a sad day in the beginning, and we wanted it to not just be sadness and pain. It is sad, it is painful to see this, it’s painful to understand it. But we need to come together and empower.

The post #OrlandoUnited: House of Khan & House of Revlon Voguing In London In Support of Victims appeared first on The WOW Report.

Andy Pettitte
Bif Naked
Chloe Dao
Courteney Cox
Eileen Davidson
Elizabeth Reaser
Helen Hunt
Ice Cube
Idalis DeLeon
Jake Busey
Jim Belushi
John Varvatos
Johnny Hallyday
Julie Hagerty
Leah Remini
Mary Carey
Michéle Laroque
Nadine Coyle
Neil Patrick Harris
Polly Draper
Tory Burch

The post June 15th: It’s YOUR Birthday, Bitch! appeared first on The WOW Report.

June 15, 1973– Neil Patrick Harris is a master magician. For realz.  He is on the board of the Magic Castle, a private club in Hollywood, where magicians from all over the globe get dressed up in formal attire to share secrets about their art. It takes a special type of person to do magic: The Magical Extrovert Nerd. Harris:

“When you go to a magic conference, and you spend time with 500 magician people, you start to realize … trends. It’s the coolest hobby in the world, but people tend to get into magic because no one would talk to them.”

Harris was already a magic nerd before he became teen heartthrob on Doogie Howser, M.D., the 1980s era television series drama about a very young surgeon.  But for me, the real magic came when Harris casually became an out & proud gay actor who can host award shows, play a womanizer on television, walk the red carpet with his cute husband, David Burtka, and then get cast in films as a sinister straight guy. That’s a terrific trick, coming out of the closet without ruining his career.

Harris is a living, breathing variety show. Working on stage, film, television, doing comedy and drama, singing, dancing, joking, and of course, performing magic. In his 40s, he remains boyish and breezily likable, in the manner of Cary Grant, or even Hugh Grant. Harris is really our first out of the closet actor to become an A-list star.

Stunning in his versatility, in Harold & Kumar Go To White Castle (2004), Harold & Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay (2008) and A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas (2011), Harris played a fantastically filthy version of himself, and then he turned around and appeared, or his voice did, in a sweet film for kiddies, Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs (2011) and two Smurf movies (2011, 2013). On Broadway, he played Lee Harvey Oswald in Stephen Sondheim’s dark musical masterpiece Assassins, and online he starred in Joss Whedon’s Emmy Award nominated Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog.

Award show magic: Harris won Emmy Awards for hosting the Tony Awards in 2009, 2011, 2012 and 2013. He also hosted the Primetime Emmy Awards in 2009 and 2013, but somehow didn’t win a Tony for doing so, but he hosted the Academy Awards in 2015, the first openly gay man to that job. He played the title role in the rock musical Hedwig And The Angry Inch on Broadway in 2014 and took home a Tony Award for his performance. His husband, David, had to build him a special shelf for all those awards!

He loves working on stage, starring in plays like Proof (2002), musicals such as Cabaret (2003), Rent (1997) and Company (2012).

Doing research for this #BornThisDay tribute, I watched Harris’ YouTube clips: that hilarious Les Misérables duet with Jason Segel, his charming Fairy Shoe Person on Sesame Street, his turn in Prop 8:The Musical, sweet Tobias in Sweeney Todd The Demon Barber Of Fleet Street (2001), even an Old Spice commercial where he dances through the halls of a hospital wearing a stethoscope, saying: “I used to be a doctor for pretend”.

He should have won some sort of award for coming out of the closet. It was its own kind of magic trick. It’s a reveal. For most of show business history, coming out was part of the aftermath of a scandal. Think Elton John or George Michael. Even Ellen DeGeneres, whose famous “Yep, I’m Gay” Time Magazine cover stalled her career until she returned, triumphant as host of her own daytime talk show. But, I really appreciate that celebrities can now be more casual about it, forgoing big announcements by making a little mention on page three of an interview: Rachel Maddow, Rosie O’Donnell, Michael Stipe, Adam Lambert, Wanda Sykes, Sara Gilbert, and Cynthia Nixon. Even some long-closeted stars have simply shrugged it off like we should have known all along, including Lily Tomlin, Jodie Foster, and Kelly McGillis.

But it has always been tough for male actors, especially romantic leading men or action stars. Alan Cumming, Nathan Lane, David Hyde Pierce, Ian McKellan did it, but they made a career on stage. Rupert Everett was supposed to manage it, but he never did get cast as James Bond and he moved back to the theatre world.  The common thought has always been that an out of the closet male star could never be a leading man. Straight females could never fantasize about him. Straight dudes could never relate.

Harris has defied those clichés. In 2006, he flung wide that closet door with an upbeat, simple statement in People Magazine and then in an interview in Out Magazine, and in a funny spot on The Howard Stern Show. When Stern asked Harris if he was a top or a bottom, he answered: “Whatever you please, man…” It was all rather magical. Harris possesses an easy going style of masculinity, both non-threatening and seductive. On film, not only can Harris convincingly play straight, he can convincingly play a lady killer (Gone Girl, 2014).

Along with magic, Harris is zany for: variety shows, Buster Keaton, acrobatics, cryptography, treasure hunts, Sondheim, puppets and puzzles. He is obsessed with competitive reality television series.

Burtka and Harris met when Burtka was playing Tulsa in the 2003 revival of Gypsy starring Bernadette Peters and Harris was just down the street playing The Emcee in Cabaret. They dated for a decade before getting married in Italy in a rented castle, with Sir Elton John performing. The happy couple lives with their five year old twins and two rescue dogs: a cairn terrier named Fred and Labradoodle-Wheaten mix named Watson, in a townhouse in Harlem. Burtka is not just a total cutie pie; he is a graduate of the Le Cordon Bleu.

Harris is super talented, graceful and tall, with pronounced cheekbones and sinewy muscles, and with just three expressive wrinkles on his forehead. I should hate him, but I just can’t. He is so damn adorable. Oh, and if, like me, you watched the Tony Awards on Sunday, don’t be alarmed about Harris being bald. He shaved his head for his current role in upcoming Netflix series A Series Of Unfortunate Events.

The post #BornThisDay: Neil Patrick Harris appeared first on The WOW Report.

Yes, just 38 minutes to walk out of a gun shop with a killing machine.

Only two days after Omar Mateen used a semi-automatic rifle to massacre 49 people and injure dozens more, two reporters for the Huffington Post, Andy Campbell and Roque Planas were able to purchase an AR-15 — a rifle similar to Mateen’s in less time than it takes to buy a cart your weekly groceries. Here’s an excerpt from their gun shopping,

We would have been locked and loaded within five minutes, but the gun shop employee we spoke to said the queue on background checks was longer than usual because people were scrambling to buy AR-15s in the wake of the shooting. That’s both terrifying and unsurprising — gun sales often skyrocket after mass shootings.

But the ease with which we purchased our AR-15, a Vietnam-era gun hailed by the military as being the perfect killing machine, was surreal. This, despite the fact that Florida Gov. Rick Scott had declared a state of emergency in Orange County, which includes Orlando.

Gun shop employees were happy to discuss lethality. When another customer looking to purchase a small, .22-caliber handgun noted that it wouldn’t fare well against a “6-foot-3, 350 pound man,” the employee agreed.

“You’d have to hit him in the neck or the heart.”

Said the employee, whom we aren’t naming for this story.

He went on to joke with the customer that he should either pick a bigger gun or use the .22 to

“shoot him in the stomach 15 times, that’d really piss him off.”

Behind him, the TV blared Fox News coverage of the massacre at Pulse nightclub, located nearby. On the wall, a framed photo of President Barack Obama with the caption, “Firearm Salesman Of The Year,” hung next to an array of other long rifles, some of them higher caliber than the AR-15, and some of them more affordable, too.

They’re not the cheapest rifles around — another, higher-caliber carbine hung on the wall at our shop for half the price. But the National Rifle Association calls the AR-15 the most popular weapon in the U.S. “It is customizable, adaptable, reliable and accurate,” the organization says on its blog.

Shop workers told us we’d have to wait if we wanted to buy a smaller gun. There’s a three-day waiting period for handgun purchases in Florida, but that rule does not apply to rifles.

The AR-15 and its close cousins are not made to hunt deer. They’re made to kill people.

All it took to attain one was a driver’s license (the one we used was from out of state) and a few minutes to wait for the background check to clear. We signed state-issued proof of sale documents that asked whether we were felons or drug addicts, and where we lived.

Waiting for the background check was the hardest part — and that only involved a few minutes of idle time. We requested data from the state Department of Law Enforcement on the current volume of background checks for similar guns, but did not get an immediate response. The department has been overwhelmed by public records requests since the shooting, a spokeswoman said.

They plan to return the gun.

If you ask me the NRA is a terrorist organization. I have wondered if gun owners would trade their guns for the lives of the 27 people at Sandy Hook or the 49 killed at Pulse. Somehow, I think not. This issue has come to a head now and we need new legislation. I started this meme on Sunday which I have been sharing on social media. You may not like it. I don’t care. If you agree, share it with the hashtag. #AssholesLoveGuns

(Photos, Andy Campbell; via Huffington Post)

The post In Orlando, Two Reporters Purchased an AK-15 In Just 38 Minutes… appeared first on The WOW Report.

Another nightmare in Orlando. An alligator dragged away a 2-year-old boy from his family on Tuesday night at a Disney resort.

The family from Nebraska was wading at the edge of the Seven Seas Lagoon at Disney’s Grand Floridian Resort when the alligator attacked. The father tried to wrestle the boy away from the gator but was not successful.

Police said that here were “no swimming” signs posted near the lagoon. A dive team and helicopters searched for the child, who was pulled into the water at about 9:30 PM. Police say they won’t leave until they find the boy but this seems rather hopeless.

Walt Disney World has now closed all beaches in its resort area.

Disney’s Grand Floridian Resort

The post #StillMissing: Alligator Drags 2 Year-Old Into Lagoon at Disney World appeared first on The WOW Report.

Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi tried to ingratiate herself to Anderson Cooper on a live CNN interview in Orlando, but I’ll bet she didn’t expect to be challenged the way she was. After Bondi praised Cooper for calling out the names of the 49 victims massacred at Pulse nightclub, he switched gears, pointing out her “hypocrisy” in regard to Florida’s gay community.

“I saw you the other day, saying that anyone who attacks the LGBT community — our LGBT community, you said — will be gone after to the full extend of the law. I talked to a lot of gay and lesbian people here yesterday who are not fans of yours and said that they thought you were being a hypocrite, that you for years have fought—you’ve basically gone after gay people, said that in court that gay people simply by fighting for marriage equality were trying to do harm to the people of Florida.

Do you really think you’re a champion of the gay community?”

Bondi did her best to sidestep the questions, arguing that her opposition to marriage equality simply boiled down to the oath she took to uphold the law.

“I’ve never said I don’t like gay people.”

Bondi filed a brief in May 2014 that claimed,

“disrupting Florida’s existing marriage laws would impose significant public harm.”

Cooper asked whether she was concerned that this kind of language might “send a message” to people like Omar Mateen or other potentially dangerous people who harbor dangerous animosity towards the gay community and already have “bad ideas in mind.”

She then insisted that she never thought gay marriage would cause “harm.”

“Those words never came out of my mouth.“

Cooper shot back,

“That’s what you argued in court. The hotline that you’ve been talking about on television, which allows family members and spouses of the dead to get information, which is incredibly important, and I appreciate you talking about on the air… had there been no gay marriage, no same-sex marriage, you do realize that spouses—there would be no spouses, that boyfriends and girlfriends of the dead would not be able to get information and would not be able to visit in the hospital here. Isn’t there a sick irony in that?”

Is it hypocritical to portray yourself as a champion of the gay community when —I’m just reflecting what gay people told me —they don’t see you as this? It’s just that, I will say I have never really seen you talk about gays and lesbians and transgender people in a positive way until now.”

Watch.

(via Queerty)

The post Anderson Cooper Grills Pam Bondi on Air, “Do You Really Think You’re a Champion of the Gay Community?” appeared first on The WOW Report.

The wife of gunman Omar Mateen could face charges as soon as Wednesday. A law enforcement source told Reuters that Noor Salman, could face criminal charges.

This comes as a federal grand jury has been convened to study possible wrongdoing by Noor, who admitted that she knew about his plans to attack the nightclub, and failed to inform the authorities.

NBC News reports:

“Omar Mateen’s current wife, Noor, told the FBI she was with him when he bought ammunition and a holster, several officials familiar with the case said.

She told the FBI that she once drove him to the gay nightclub, Pulse, because he wanted to scope it out.

Authorities are considering filing criminal charges against Noor for failing to tell them what she knew before the brutal attack, law enforcement officials say, but no decision has been made.”

Mateen’s ex-wife Sitora Yusufiy has condemned him in the media.

Speaking to CNN, Senator Angus King said Noor had “some knowledge” of the attack prior to it taking place,

“She definitely is, I guess you would say, a person of interest right now and appears to be cooperating and can provide us with some important information.“

I say she’s just as guilty if she knew.

(via Pink News)

The post #Orlando: Gunman’s Wife, Noor Mateen, May Be Charged Today appeared first on The WOW Report.

On today’s episode of Access Hollywood Live, RuPaul spoke with Kit Hoover and guest host Bryan Safi about the tragedy that unfolded this weekend at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, FL.

(via Hollywood Reporter)

The post “Love Is the First Step” – RuPaul on the Tragedy at Pulse Nightclub appeared first on The WOW Report.

The time has come, hunties…for you to RuVOTE for RuPaul’s Drag Race for Best Reality Show of ALL TIME in the United Kingdom for Digital Spy. We are currently in first place.

Check it out:

You can vote here!

The post VOTE RuPaul’s Drag Race for Best Reality Show Of All Time In the United Kingdom appeared first on The WOW Report.

World of Wonder Productions stands with Orlando. We wanted to show our support for the victims of Pulse Nightclub and the LGBTQ Community. With this video, we hope you know how much we love you, are hurting with you, and healing with you, Orlando.

WATCH it here:

Featuring WOW Staff,
Kim Chi, Naomi Smalls, Cynthia Lee Fontaine from RDR Season 8
Mrs. Kasha Davis from RDR Season 7
Big Freedia
LA, Bionka, X’ristina, Bambini, and Nya from Transcendent
Madison Hildebrand, David Parnes and James Harris

#WeAreOrlando.

You can support the Pulse GoFundMe here.

The post World of Wonder Make A Powerful Stand In Emotional Video For #WeAreOrlando appeared first on The WOW Report.

Check out the latest videos from our WOWPresents Network! Derek & Romaine, Big Dipper, Jason Carter, Sir Jet, thisISmartinJR, and SO MANY MORE all have new videos from the WOWPresents Network!!! Watch all these and more right now on the WOW Report!

Here are the latest videos from our fabulous partners! Make sure you subscribe to their channels for new videos!

The post New Videos From Derek & Romaine! Big Dipper! Jason Carter! Sir Jet! thisISmartinJR! appeared first on The WOW Report.

Abby Elliot
Arnold Vosloo
Bill Cobbs
Clifton Collins Jr.
Daniel Brühl
Diana DeGarmo
Eddie Cibrian
Eddie Levert
Eileen Atkins
Ian Buchanan
Jenny Shimizu
Joan Van Ark
Joe McElderry
John Cho
Joyce Carol Oates
Justin Tranter
Laurie Metcalf
Missy Peregrym
Phil Mickelson

The post June 16th: It’s YOUR Birthday, Bitch! appeared first on The WOW Report.

Photograph by Raul Jalube

June 16, 1949– Jaime Manrique:

“Lo que ellos más ansían es aplastarme. Les interesa más derrotarme que el futuro de nuestra nación.”

One of my favorite books of 2012 was Jaime Manrique’s Cervantes Street, an engaging, highly readable fictional account of the life of Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra (1547-1666) the brilliant, enigmatic author of what is probably the greatest Spanish language novel Don Quixote De La Mancha. It is easily one of Western Civilization’s greatest literary works. A tale of rivalry and revenge, Cervantes Street is a story of Cervantes’s antagonistic relationship with the man who would go on to write a sort of sequel to Don Quixote. It is kind of like Amadeus meets The Count Of Monte Cristo, mixed in with a dash of Gulliver’s Travels, with a rather extraordinary imagination of the life and era of Cervantes.  By the way, it is also funny and diverting.

Born in Colombia to a rich, powerful father and one of his mistresses, the illegitimate Manrique was never acknowledged by his padre. His trials and tribulations as a young boy are just one of the main themes of his poems and novels. He is also a smart writer of nonfiction including his fascinating mediation on Gay Spanish language authors, Eminent Maricones: Arenas, Lorca, Puig, And Me (1999).

In 1967, Manriques’ mother traveled with him to Florida, where she found work as a domestic and he was an exceptional student at school. He received his BA in English from the University Of South Florida. After graduation, he began writing in earnest and he soon had two novels published, both with bisexual storylines: Los Adoradores De La Luna (1977) and El Cadáver De Papá (1980).

Manrique’s first gay themed fiction was also his first in English, Latin Moon In Manhattan (1992). It received terrific reviews. He compiled and edited Besame Mucho: New Gay Latino Fiction (1997), featuring 17 other Latin writers. He received a Guggenheim Fellowship for his nonfiction.

Our Lives Are The Rivers (2006) is a fiction about Manuela Saenz, Simón Bolívar’s mistress. It won the International Latino Book Award for Best Historical Novel.

Manrique was discovering his own gayness at the same time that he was realizing that being a homo was extremely transgressive in Colombian culture, where machismo is the norm. Visible gay couples were non-existent when he was growing up. He began enjoying pleasurable relationships with other guys while in his teens, but because of the pressures of his society, he felt tormented. He now claims that coming out “took forever”.

He managed to see Ken Hughes’ film The Trials Of Oscar Wilde (1960) as a teenager. Manrique worked his way through the famous gay author’s complete works. He was particularly drawn to The Ballad of Reading Gaol (1898). A high school teacher lent him a book by André Gide and he learned of Gide’s visits to male brothels in Morocco in the company of Wilde. Manrique felt that this teacher was trying to tell him: “Look, these great writers were like you. It will be okay.” But, he was well aware of the ostracism faced by gay men in Colombian society and was terrified of his homosexual feelings as an adolescent.

He was accepted to a fiction workshop taught by Manuel Puig at Columbia University in 1977. Puig is the Argentine author of Kiss Of The Spider Woman (1976), among many other works. Manrique has written that Puig  was “one of the most effeminate men that I’ve ever known”, a disgrace in the Latin culture of machismo in which they both had grown up, but Manrique found him to be the author he most idolized.

Many of Manrique’s poems celebrate the joy men loving men, but also the utter heartache of uncertain, unrequited longing. Manrique also meditates on death in his poetry,  one poem reflecting on our gay martyr Matthew Shepard, the victim of a brutal homophobic murder.

In Eminent Maricones, Manrique describes his own early life and also writes about the lives and works of Reinaldo Arenas and Federico García Lorca, whose books he read as a young man.

Manrique writes: “From my earliest childhood . . . my life has been a struggle to find dignity as a maricón.” He points to Puig, Arenas, and Lorca for setting examples that helped him become a fulfilled human being.

“I hope to be an inspiration to all the maricones, and heterosexuals, who dream of being men and women capable of taking on whatever kind of windmill stands in their way.”

He did not come out of the closet until he was in his 20’s and living in the USA. He says that he was conflicted with internalized homophobia until he was in his 30’s.

“Writing in English has been a huge but exciting challenge. I don’t have English in my ear. I find its syntax perplexing. I continue to learn it all the time. I’ll never be done learning it. I only intuit what is possible to say in English when I read masterful stylists of the language. But I wouldn’t have begun writing in English if I hadn’t fallen madly in love with its suppleness. It is the language of one of the two writers I worship above all others, Shakespeare. The other one, of course, is Cervantes. Furthermore, English is the language of the art form that touches me most deeply: the blues! I feel at home in the blues. Their melancholy, broken-winged quality suits me just fine. There is nothing more heartbreaking and beautiful and deeply felt than Billie Holiday’s singing. To create so much beauty out of so much despair and sorrow and injustice seems a miracle to me.”

He now writes his fiction in English and his poetry in Spanish.

Manrique lives in NYC where he is an Associate Professor at Columbia University. He is a frequent contributor of book reviews to the NY Times and for the Washington Post.

The post #BornThisDay: Writer, Jaime Manrique appeared first on The WOW Report.

In response to the Orlando mass shooting, the hacker-activist group known as Anonymous has hacked into dozens of pro-Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) Twitter accounts and infused them with gay pride.

While Twitter did not admit that the accounts were hacked, images of the hacked accounts and the Twitter account responsible for the hacking seem to suggest otherwise. A Twitter spokesperson told CBS,

“We condemn the use of Twitter to promote terrorism and the Twitter Rules make it clear that this type of behavior, or any violent threat, is not permitted on our service. Since the middle of 2015 alone, we’ve suspended over 125,000 accounts for threatening or promoting terrorist acts, primarily related to ISIS.“

Anonymous hacker @WauchulaGhost has been hacking pro-ISIS accounts since March 2016, but possibly earlier. On June 7, the account was posting porno-related images and

“I love porn”

to pro-ISIS accounts.

Following the shooting at a gay nightclub in Orlando –which the FBI is investigating as both a hate crime and an ISIS-inspired terror attack– the Anonymous hacker started to infiltrate pro-ISIS accounts and then post images of rainbow flags, non-graphic gay porn and slogans like,

“I’m gay and I’m proud.”

The pro-ISIS accounts that were hacked were all renamed Jacked by a Ghost and most linked to CIA.gov. While some of the hacked accounts have been suspended, some still exist, according to CBS San Francisco.

As of yesterday afternoon, the Anonymous hacker Twitter account appeared to still be at it, tweeting its successful takeover of the Twitter account @islamsunna111, with an IP address in Oman, and peppering that account with

“Make love, not war #MoreSex #LessDeath #ISIS #ISIL #IslamicState.”

Remember, you have hate and guns, ISIS, but we’re smart and resourceful. You won’t win.

(via CBS News)

The post Anonymous Hacked ISIS Accounts & Made Them GAY GAY GAY! appeared first on The WOW Report.

There really aren’t words. I have so many questions; Is Trump the new Hello Kitty? Do the Japanese regard him as a friendly monster? Who is Mike Diva? Is this satire or propaganda? Or BOTH?! The visuals here are so shockingly bizarre and inexplicable, to coin a phrase,

“I can’t EVEN!”

Oh, just watch.

The post #WTF?!: This Japanese Video of Donald Trump Is BEYOND Weird. Watch. appeared first on The WOW Report.

Barbara Poma, the owner of the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, spoke to the Today Show‘s Matt Lauer in her first interview since Sunday’s deadly shooting.

She told Matt how she opened the club 13 years ago to celebrate the life of her late brother John, who had died from HIV/AIDS complications, and that she always thought of the club as a “safe and fun place to come be who you are. Simple as that.”

All of that changed Sunday night, though, when her she received  “most surreal phone call”  from the manager of the club informed her they were dealing with an active shooter on the premises. “It was overwhelming.”

When Lauer asked how her mission would change, from honoring one person to now honoring 49, she said she would always have a mission. “We just welcome those families into our families, and we just have to move forward and find a way to keep our hearts beating and keep our spirit alive; and we’re not going to let somebody take this away from us.”

Poma focused on the 49 lives that were lost, but she wouldn’t talk about the shooter: “It’s important to never let hate win,” she said. (via Towleroad)

Watch the interview below.

Differing thoughts about this from Towleroad commenters:

What do YOU think? Leave your thoughts in the Facebook comments.

The post Pulse Owner Plans to Reopen the Club: “We’re Not Going to Let Somebody Take This Away From Us” appeared first on The WOW Report.

Mustafa Farouk, a New Zealand-based food scientist, has concocted a “delicious” (WE’LL BE THE JUDGE OF THAT) high-protein, 50% beef chocolate that he thinks is going to sweep the dessert world. To that end, he’s partnered with Auckland boutique chocolate maker Devonport Chocolates to bring his meat chocolate to the masses.

Farouk says he got the idea of mixing beef and chocolate when he was was looking for the perfect way for people to get proteins and other nutrients in meat, and decided to put it in chocolate because WHY THE HELL NOT?

From Oddity Central:

Farouk took a very lean cut from the hind quarter of a Waikato-raised cow, and turned it into what he calls “chocolate butter”, which I assume is a sort of fine paste, and handed it over to Devonport Chocolates to use in their confectionery. The resulting combination reportedly has a consistency similar to a Turkish delight, and while the food scientist admits you can tell that it’s not regular chocolate, the taste of meat is almost impossible to pick up. In an interview with the New Zealand Herald, Farouk described the taste of beef chocolate as “wonderful”, adding that although people are initially put off by the unique dessert when they here it is 50% beef, once they bite into it and taste the rich chocolate flavor, most agree that it is excellent.

“We knew we could turn meat into different forms, but whether we could actually fool people by making it look like chocolate is what we didn’t know,” Dr. Farouk said. “When you try it now, you don’t know what you’re eating.” He adds that it’s very easy to change the texture of beef chocolate from very smooth to a dessert that has some body, fiber to it, but from whatever feedback they have released so far, the smooth one is tastier.

So far, the meat required to make the beefy treats would cost an estimated $17 a kilogram, and when turned into chocolates, it would retail at $2.50 a cube.

“Devonport are very excited about it and it’s highly likely that we’ll partner with them and try to get it into the market,” he told Stuff.co.nz. “And once people realise the advantages of having this, I’m sure it will take off.”

Next up for Farouk? He is now experimenting with lamb and venison chocolate, to see if they’ll work as well as beef. In the past, the AfResearch scientist also created beef ice-cream, a dairy-free dessert he says was very tasty.

Hmmm.

The post It’s Meat! It’s Chocolate! IT’S BOTH! New “Beef Chocolate” Is Coming soon! appeared first on The WOW Report.

As the world mourns and bleeds for Orlando, so are our RuPaul’s Drag Race queens. You’ve already read our first round, our second round, and our third round, now here’s our fourth round-up of RDR queens’ thoughts on their Facebooks, Twitters, and Instagrams…

1) Although she’s abroad, that hasn’t stopped Alaska from paying her respects all the way from Zurich.

2) Sharon Needles gets real about her mourning process.

3) The Princess took to her instagram to share her sadness:

4) Naysha Lopez put up the heartbreaking image of all the victims:

5) Shangela voiced her words of comfort:

6) Manila Luzon takes to instagram to show love:

7) Mariah Balenciaga gives a shout out to her friend, Eddie Sotomayor.

8) Bianca Del Rio lights a candle online:

9) Courtney Act took to her Facebook to share her kind words:

10) Joslyn Fox shares some tragic, but inspiring words about her fallen friend:

The post RDR Queens React To Orlando Shooting On Social Media Part Four appeared first on The WOW Report.

Start planning your Gay Pride weekend now!!! This year, uber promoter Brandon Voss has three mega events planned for Pride weekend in NYC… Bathhouse, a 70s themed dance party, Bruta Pride, an all new 360 degree nightlife experience from the masterminds behind Fuerza Bruta, and the finale Night of 1000 Queens, featuring some of your fave queens from RuPaul’s Drag Race.

The second Pride edition of Bathhouse will take place Friday, June 24th at XL Nightclub. The Over 16,000 square foot party space will be converted into a 70s-style raucous and steamy bathhouse, complete with an adult theater, locker room, live performances and over thirty men on stage in nothing more then towels. “In the early ‘70s, the bathhouse was a symbol of gay freedom, a place to literally shed one’s inhibitions and secrets,” says event producer, Brandon Voss. “Nearly fifty years later, we’re recreating the experience by inviting today’s generation to shed their inhibitions – and iPhones – with complimentary towels and a clothing check.” DJ W. Jeremy spins.

The next night welcomes the world premiere of Bruta Pride, an all-new multi-million dollar production from the masterminds behind Fuerza Bruta, taking place at the Daryl Roth Theatre. Club fans will be wowed by an interactive 4D theatrical experience, mind-blowing immersive performances and beats by DJ Hector Fonseca.

The main attraction is on Sunday, June 26th, Gay Pride day! Guests are invited to grab their wigs and twirl with a thousand queens at NYC’s largest drag event, Night Of 1000 Queens. Beginning at 9pm at Stage 48, the night will showcase some of the world’s best drag performers from RuPaul’s Drag Race including Alyssa Edwards, Courtney Act, Derrick Barry, Detox, Kennedy Davenport, Naomi Smalls, Raja,Roxxxy Andrews, Shangela, Trixie Mattel, and Willam. Beats provided by Lady Bunny. Get your tix and more info HERE!

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