A Hot Minute with Diana Ross

Feb 10, 2026

This is the third of our Black History Month interviews with local black queer icons. This week we feature A Hot Minute with drag legend Diana Rhoss.

Editor's Note: this is the third of our Black History Month interviews with local black queer icons. This week we feature A Hot Minute with drag legend Diana Rhoss which originally appeared in the June 2025 edition of Outlife757 Magazine.

Q: When did you discover drag culture and what did that mean to you?

A: I had a great friend, Buddy Williams, who knew all the drag performers at the time. I was 15 or 16, but Buddy took me under his wing and introduced me to all these people, and I started hanging out with them. About that time, I came up with an impression of Diana Ross. I started spending more time on the party circuit with these people, and they always asked me to do Diana.

Q: What’s so interesting about what you’re telling me, this was Hampton in the 60s, right? Was there something about the black culture in Hampton at that time that made drag a more acceptable?

A: I don’t know. But I did have a friend Bonnie who lived in drag and was married, had a husband and lived with her grandmother in Hampton. I was just fascinated by her because she had just the right hair style and her makeup was perfect. Her grandmother raised her and told her, “If you’re going to do it, do it all the way. Don’t do no half dressing.”

Q: You had many great shows at the Q Club. What was one of your favorites?

A: I wanted to do a production number of Barbra Streisand...and Other Musical Instruments. Have you ever heard that? My friend Steve Malik was a choreographer for the Virginia Beach Little Theater, and he lined up dancers and designed the sets. He even made my costume and the costumes for all the people who were involved in the show. Everything was in black and white. It was pretty magical.

Q: You’ve been arrested three times for “cross dressing” in public.

A: Speaking of big shows of the Q, we would hold dress rehearsals and afterwards walk over to the old diner that was next to the Greyhound Bus Station. In those days we had to wear one item of men’s clothing that would prevent us from being busted for being a crossdresser. This night I didn’t take my hair or makeup off, but I did put on jeans and a man’s shirt. We were minding our own business and talking to all the great customers at the diner, and suddenly two cops walk in. They point to me and my friend Carol and order us outside, and Carol is freaking out. Of course, I’ve been to jail twice already, so it was just the same old thing to me.

Q: How did that turn out?

A: It was amazing. Tony Pritchard came to get us in his limousine, and we can hear the guys in the jail yelling out the window, “Who is that? Who are those girls? And they got a limousine!”

At the trial, the patrons who were at the diner that night filled one side of the courtroom. We hired a lawyer from Lambda Legal, and when he was done arguing the case, the judge said to the officers, “I don’t want to see this in my court ever again. This is a waste of the court’s time. These people are not criminals. They can wear whatever they want, whenever they want.” And that was that. Victory, victory, victory.

Q: How are you feeling about the next four years?

A: Like everybody else I don’t know. We don’t know what’s going happen, and I am in wait and see mode, but ready to fight. It won’t be the first time