Randy Rainbow creates fictional YouTube videos where he inserts himself as the interviewer into real-life interviews, usually wearing his signature sparkly pink glasses. He then drops those interviews into musicals in which he sings new lyrics to his favorite Broadway songs.
The videos first featured celebrities. Then, Rainbow pivoted to mostly politicians like President Trump, or in his latest video, former Fox News host and current Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth.
His videos have been streamed hundreds of thousands of times. He’s hosted three Emmy-nominated television specials and written an autobiography. Now, he has a new children’s book, “Randy Rainbow and the Marvelously Magical Pink Glasses,” illustrated by Jaimie MacGibbon.
Interview highlights
In your autobiography, “Playing with Myself,” you tell of a childhood with a distant dad and lots of bullying at school. In your new book for kids, a young Randy Rainbow, who wears sparkly clothes and loves to sing Broadway tunes, turns the table on the bullies. Is that you in some way repairing your childhood?
“It’s that, it’s many things. It’s a love letter to little Randy, who was struggling to find ways of coping with that bullying. It’s much a love letter to my beloved grandmother, my nanny, who really gave me the tools; the pink glasses are the symbol of these tools, which helped me see the world through the lens of humor and joy.”
Little Randy puts on the pink glasses and suddenly he’s a star in a stage show, and the kids at school love it. When you were a kid, did you wish for that magic to come and rescue you from bullying?
“Absolutely, yeah, and frankly, I still do to this day, continue to find some sort of magical escape from reality. I think many of us do.”
Well, you wear pink sparkly glasses in your videos.
“That’s how this all started. The pink glasses began in the old days of my videos as a sight gag. I thought it would be funny to pretend to be a journalist and pull out these glasses, like journalists do, only mine would be ridiculous.
“Over the years, as I started doing live concerts, people would come and bring their own pink glasses. I’m no fool. Now I sell them in the lobby, but they would email me and people would meet me after the show and say wearing them would get them through difficult times in their lives, people said they would wear them to get through cancer treatment. They took on a life of their own, and over the years I gave them their magical origin story, which was connected to my grandmother. They even got their own song, which was written by the great Alan Menken with lyrics by me.”
This is a book about a sparkly little boy who grew up to be you, a gay young man. And it’s a book for anyone who is bullied. This came out as books are being banned across the U.S. What do you make of that?
“Yes, this will be the top of every list.
“It’s terrible. I really don’t have words. I’m just happy to have something to contribute at this time.”
You and others did so many parodies, and yet we have Steven Hatfill, the man who claimed falsely that hydroxychloroquine cured COVID-19, which is not true. But he was just appointed special advisor in the Health and Human Services office that prepares the nation for pandemics. Can you out-parody reality?
“No, it is beyond parody. Back in the 2016 videos, in a way it was, in the beginning, a little more charming, and it does make it interesting when trying to satirize because it’s beyond the looking glass.”
What do you say to the people who support Trump. Is this book for their kids too?
“None of my work comes from politics. My whole purpose is to be amusing and provide relief. I have opinions, but really the message and mission is to find some joy. That’s how I approached this children’s book, especially.
“Whoever you are, whatever you feel whatever your struggles, it’s about finding the courage through our imagination and creativity to be whoever you are.”
This interview was lightly edited for clarity.
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Robin Young produced and edited this interview for broadcast with Karyn Miller-Medzon and Todd Mundt. Young also adapted it for the web.
This article was originally published on WBUR.org.
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