When Eddie Izzard First Started Wearing Women’s Clothes, He Was a Fashion Disaster

SOUNDBITES — “It’s actually more because, stylistically I was really fucked. I just wore clothes and I had no self-image. As a kid, because you’re younger and you’re thinner, you just have the cute look. Then you think about what you want your look to be, and you think, Actually, I’m a transvestite! But you ignore that, so what do you do? When my standup career was taking off, I was wearing these crap clothes—people said ‘My god, he’s wearing really crap clothes!’ I just had no sense of anything. I had all these crazy ideas [about my act], but the idea of getting in dresses—that I really felt forced to do. When I first came out, I was talking about being a transvestite, and the critics said, ‘Is this just a joke? He’s a transvestite, but he’s also a mess.’ So I thought, All right, I better work on that. If you’re a bloke and you’re wearing a dress, you really better try and have a go, or else what the hell are you doing? I needed a lot of work and a lot of help in that area, and that came from other people.” —Comedian Eddie Izzard, on going from frat guy to cross-dresser (via)