Leslie Jordan Is the Breakout Star of Quarantine

From ELLE

They say it's important to have a routine in quarantine. You know: add a little structure to your life, fight back madness with a calendar alert and some such. If that's your strategy, the best thing you can do for your continued health, happiness, and prosperity is to check in with Leslie Jordan's Instagram twice a day. Most celebs—let's be honest—are floundering a little bit in self-isolation. Most people's home lives aren't terribly interesting and, apparently, that's even true when the home your life takes place in is a huge Los Angeles mansion. What are you going to do? Take me on a tour of your empty spare closet with no decorations save for the Grammy you won for a song you don't like again? Pass! Until stars get desperate enough for attention that they'll open up their Panic Rooms, I'll get my entertainment from the strange live broadcasts of my Grammy-less friends and, surprisingly, from the regular broadcasts of a character actor stuck in a Chattanooga AirBnb.

I've known Leslie Jordan for years as Karen Walker's nemesis Beverly Leslie on Will & Grace, as well as Brother Boy in the cult film Sordid Lives starring Delta Burke and Bonnie Bedelia (an essential viewing experience), but I never thought of him as someone who would a) have a social media platform or b) have nearly 2 million fans on said platform or c) be the only remaining bridge between myself and sanity. Jordan has the delightful, sometimes biting, Southern charm of a real life Steel Magnolia and his brief videos fall somewhere between the good gossip you get from a catty relative at a funeral and the hazy ramblings of your favorite uncle who forgot the reason he called you in the first place. In a word, it's perfect. We are definitely in the Golden Age of poorly thought-through online content, but while others work on professionalizing their Lives and adding panache to their Zooms, Jordan is going in the complete opposite direction. He films himself with his face pressed up close to the camera, often lying down; he starts some videos mid-thought; he ends whenever he feels like it. In short, it's like a real FaceTime with someone you actually want to hang out with.

"Well, shit," he said to start a video in early April, "Just having to make up things to do to pass the time." WHO CAN RELATE? It seems like every other Instagram Live video begins with the friendly but self-conscious "Hi guys!" That's all well and good but it's a little cheery for the current moment. We're all pivoting to "Well... shit." in 2020.

Jordan, a 64-year-old gifted cabaret artist, definitely knows what kind of show he's putting on, but that doesn't make it any less appealing. Even when he's probably just doing a bit, it's still the best little bit you ever did see. Take this reworked vaudeville joke... please.

Did that story actually happen? Does it matter? It still kills. "Burger King." I'm dying, y'all. Leslie Jordan comes by his folksy charm authentically, giving the same funny warmth to a story about living in Tupac's old apartment (he thinks!) as he gives to performing a baritone ukulele song (with no strumming!). He even makes watching porn at breakfast seem like an adorable quirk.

Of course, this isn't a new feature of quarantine. Leslie Jordan has been making these slice-of-life videos for a while. But they've definitely increased in frequency and absurdity since he moved into an AirBnb down the street from his mother and twin sisters in mid-March. He narrates his life with the same laconic derangement that is gripping all of us, creating mini-dramas out of the mundane and barely blinking at the extraordinary. Indeed, if there were any voice that I'd choose to talk me through self-isolation, it's Jordan's Southern-fried lilt. Well, maybe him tag-teaming with the other great Leslie J. on social media, Leslie Jones. Can you imagine the two of them parsing reality for us? Him, horizontal and giggly, whispering about breakfast porn; her towering over him, excited for everybody, screaming at the TV. What other quarantine moods do you need?

Everything is so serious and so much, why can't we fill our days with Leslie Jones flipping out about a Tony-winner's ponytail and Leslie Jordan talking about generously offering his jail cell to Robert Downey, Jr.?

We may not get to see our real life friends for a while, but daily check-ins with the Leslies, the internet's BFFs, is just what the doctor ordered. Well, that and a mask and washing your hands and staying inside and... well, shit.

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