Cassandra Peterson, famously known as pop culture Halloween icon Elvira, isn’t scared anymore — at least not when it comes to saying that, yes, she’s a member of the LGBTQ+ community. Peterson came out in September in her new tell-all book, “Yours Cruelly, Elvira: Memoirs of the Mistress of the Dark,” where she writes about the relationship she’s been in with a woman, Teresa “T” Wierson, since 2002.
Now, Peterson says the reaction from queer and straight men alike has been immense and warm — a response she didn’t think would be quite _this_ positive. “I am just so glad that so many people are interested, you know?” says Peterson, humbled, when we connected recently.
During our interview, Peterson spoke frankly about sharing the hardest, most intimate details of her tumultuous young life and extravagant career in the book, and by the end of the chat, said she was a fan of interviews like this, “where I don’t [go], ‘Yeah, so I began Elvira in 1981.’” Less thrilling for her? Having to recite the most basic elements of her Wiki page: “I want to say, ‘Read the freaking book!’”
And, well, now she can.
RuPaul was right — this memoir is juicy. You’ve spared no detail, it seems. Were you ever reluctant to include anything?
I mean, I thought about doing this book for like the last 15, 17 years, and as I went forward and kept getting closer to actually doing it, I really thought, “I’m gonna talk about everything.” I was most worried about the relationship between me and my mom. But my mom passed away and I felt [laughs] a lot better about exposing that because — that’s strange, you know, here I am protecting my mom who was abusive to me, but I thought if I came out with that book and she read all of that stuff, that would probably kill her, so I didn’t want to do that.
Until now, so much about your life and Elvira has been a mystery. Were you ever concerned that sharing your personal story might affect the overall mystique you’ve built around Elvira?
Oh, yeah. It was on my mind all the time. I mean, that is the main reason for hiding my relationships and my personal life and keeping it very private — that I own and run a business that is entirely dependent upon this one brand. [Laughs.] And if I tarnish that brand in any way, I may lose my livelihood. And I’m not going to start back at square one in show business. Mm, no, I’ve been doing that forever, you know? So I didn’t want to blow it. Finally, I just got to the point in my life when — I just turned 70 years old and I have enough money. I’m comfortable enough that I felt like, “OK, I can risk it now. If my brand does go to hell, I’m OK. I live in a nice place, and I have enough money to last me the rest of my life and be comfortable.”
