TS Madison is arguably one of the biggest names on social media! The iconic TS Madison made history as the first transgender to have their own reality show, TS Madison Experience on WE tv. A social influencer rock star, to date, TS Madison has netted millions of followers (and increasing daily) on Instagram, Twitter, YouTube and other multiple media platforms. And yes, she can host!
Madison has built her social media influencer name by walking in her unapologetic truth, as an openly transgender. She rose to fame in 2013 after going viral following the release of a Vine clip titled New Weave 22 Inches. Where she went viral for showing her nude body and challenging norms.
After becoming a viral sensation, Madison signed a recording and media contract with Pink Money Records in 2014 and released her first single “Feeling My Fish” shortly after. In 2016, Madison released her debut album,The New Supreme, and appeared with Ellis Miah and RuPaul on the song, “Drop”. In 2021, she collaborated with Todrick Hall on the song, “DICK THIS BIG”.
With World of Wonder, she starred in two web series, Wait A Minute and LEMME PICK YOU UP and she has also made multiple appearances as a guest judge on RuPaul’s Drag Race.
Her ability to interact with her followers “the Maddie Mob” on a more personal level by regularly posting photos of her life and experiences, has made her adored, even more.
As an activist tackling stigma through storytelling, Madison uses her celebrity status to advocate for both the trans community and LGBTQ rights.
Her body of work in television and film for which she is known include Trans-Me, The Lady in the Locket (2017), The Comedy Show (2016), Zola (2021) and Bros. (2022).
She recently inked a deal with Fox Soul TV to launch her new show, Turnt Out with TS Madison, which debuted on Tuesday, January 11, 2022. The new show discusses pop culture news, the black church, transgender equality, plus-size women fashion tips, her risqué dms and cinema’s hottest releases. Through TS’ lens she explores the intersections that make us all unique in today’s world.
I had the pleasure of chatting with TS Madison to dish on what her new show is all about and to learn who would be some of her dream guests and an exclusive on a major project in the pipeline for her. FULL VIDEO INTERVIEW AT THE END
Here’s our chat:
DAVID LOPEZ: How is ‘Turnt out with Ts Madison’ different from any of your previous projects?
TS MADISON: It’s different from my other previous projects because it’s a combination of all my previous projects, all of them. You get the opportunity to see all the facets of Ts Madison in a one hour special. You also get an opportunity to really see me having human moments with people. It’s a lot of fun, it’s a lot of laughter and healing and therapy. Because each time that I have the opportunity to work with a guest or interview a guest, or bond with them in our conversation, I always take a piece of me or find a fragment of me or find something that kind of mirrors me and the learning experience that I take from that is that we are all no different from each other. It’s like, we really are all the same.
DL: What are some of the conversations you hope to have on this?
TS: Oh, lots of the conversations center around people’s individuality because I think that we need to respect everyone’s individual being and understand that we are all individual creatures. We have lots of similarities and we have lots of things in common, but we are our own individual person. And when people really get to know a person these are characters, characteristics, and traits that are unique to them and to me, you know? So a lot of the conversations are most definitely geared around who you are authentically.
It’s also geared around, you know, bridging the gap in between the communities like CIS/HET people and LGBT. It’s learning.
DL: I’m really excited to see what you have in the store.
TS: I have to say, I have to pat myself on the back. I, I really think Episode One was a very strong entry into the series because we touched on everything there and we clapped and had fun and laughed.
DL: Who is the guest that you would absolutely love to have on the show?
TS: I always say Jennifer Lewis is a guest that I would love to have on my show. I would love to have her because I know that we would bond so greatly. She and I spoke on the telephone. I’ve talked about it with her that whenever I got my own talk show that she would be one of my dream guests.
She called me. She got my number from Shangela. And she said the pandemic has got that word. You know, she ain’t doing all that and she’s taking care of Jennifer. Jennifer don’t play. I want someone that is hard to break because I’m laughing. You can laugh with me. I’m going to tell a joke, whether it’s bad or nasty, that will loosen you up. I’m gonna find a comfortable, sweet spot for you. Then I’m going to ease on in like, ‘Alright, girl!’ deep in there. I’ll tell you about me if you tell me about you. So I really want to get a guest that’s kind of hard to crack.
Oh! Candace Owens! She may crack at another place. She may be a good one to crack.
I want Lil Boosie. I want him because I really want to have a real, extensive conversation with him. I want to start out by letting him know, ‘I enjoy your artistry. I don’t like you. And I don’t know you to dislike you, but what you displayed to the public. I don’t like it.’ I would really explain to him why he’s such a contradiction. Before you can talk about what a community does to the children of the world, you need to start out with what you do to the children in your home, because children are impressed on by what goes on in the house before they even see anything else in the world.
There’s a lot of toxic masculinity and toxic femininity that is embedded into children and indoctrinated into children through the home. What people really don’t realize is that this stuff is passed down generationally.
My first conversation with Lil Boosie would definitely start out with, ‘Why did you do that to yourself? Why did you damage your son and nephew by allowing a grown woman to perform sexual acts on them while they are in their teenage years? You don’t know the damage that you have caused their families throughout life, because they’re going to grow up and you’ve created womanizers.
You’ve created an emotional disconnect from a man, a boy and a woman, because now this boy is not going to have any emotions. Connection to any woman, because his first experience with a woman had no emotional connection, had no love, had no feeling, no anything. It was just come suck me, come hunch me. Down the line, he may marry a woman, but this is always going to impress him because these things that happen to you in your childhood stick with you all the way through adulthood.
I wouldn’t make him feel bad about it. I wouldn’t try to make him understand that this was passed to you, to your dad or your uncle, whoever it was who thought that he was making you a man, but he’s made you, he made you a detriment. The same way you say LGBT people are a detriment to society.
You are created to be a detriment, look at your lyrics and your songs. Look at how you fetishize and fantasize women. Look at how you’ve caused the incarceration of the black man. Before you speak on anything that an LGBT person or queer person has done to influence kids in a malicious way, start in your house.
Let’s start there.
DL: Absolutely girl, that sounds like a whole hour show.
TS: I would have the fun games with him. I would do fun stuff with him. I would make him laugh. We probably would laugh and kiki and stuff like that. I don’t know how to segue into stuff like that with people, but that is most definitely one of the things that I would really smother him in, making him look at the lens that he’s the same lens he’s looking at the queer and LGBT people through. I will make him see himself through that same lens.
DL: What do you hope that the viewers will take away from the show in general?
TS: Personally, I hope viewers will take away humanity from the show. I want the viewers, while they’re watching the show, to look past the fact that I’m a trans woman and instead look at the fact that I am a talk show host who happens to be trans who is bridging the gap between communities and really showing people how less different they are than they think.
DL: In your opinion, how has the dialogue about the trans community primarily, trans women of color, evolved over the last few years?
TS: I mean, we’ve had bits of changes, but we still have a long way to go. I do see a rise in deaths among black trans women, trans women of color. That death toll is still high. But, I also see us being more prominent in film and television.
It starts to make me wonder the more visible we become, is it becoming more dangerous? Because it seems like the death toll just constantly rises each year. Is our visibility a part of that? Being more vocal, you know. I don’t really live stealthily. I can’t live a stealth life honey, I’m TS Madison!
I wonder about that, but I do think that there’s lots more work to be done. I do think that that we need to definitely bridge the gap between CIS black women and trans black women more. I think we need to do that. And I think that we’re on the right path, but we just need to work more.
DL: What would you say to someone from the LGBTQ community who is looking for an outlet or platform to express themselves?
TS: Well, the way censorship is nowadays is insane. I used to say YouTube because that’s where I started chronicling my day-to-day life and talking about the things that happened to me. I live a very busy life and in my life before this was a bit more obscure. I don’t know how vocal, I would say you could be in today’s social media place. With all the censoring, it’s getting out of control. I do feel like censoring is sometimes a necessary thing.
People’s pronouns and the way people live their life, we should respect these things, but we shouldn’t be so censored to where we can express our own self and our ideas and how we believe.
I remember my channel got deleted and it hurt me so bad, but my channel got deleted when I went through a debacle back in 2017 with some things that I don’t like to bring up, but I used to have videos that dated back to the year 2006 of me just like chronicling my life, chronicling me going grocery shopping, chronicling me as a black trans woman going through my day to day and allowing people to see me in public. You know, we don’t we really run into trans people like that, you know?
Because that will open trans people’s lives. A lot of trans women have lived stealth lives. I was on that chronicle, ‘Hey, y’all it’s me TS Madison. I’m in the grocery store. Oh, this man is following me. Hi baby. Do you know I’m TS?’ I would do things like that. This is how I garnered the following that I had because people who were so caught up and swept up into my honesty and my authenticity.
So I would tell a queer person to try YouTube, but watch what you say now.
DL: Are there any other projects on the horizon that you’re able to share?
TS: Ooh I can’t share it much, but there are more projects that are on the horizon. I will say that I’m bringing an adaptation of one of my manuscripts to life and it’s going to be brought to a mini series and I’m really excited about it. It’s a major network, a major director, two major directors! And I really cannot wait for this. This is one of the projects that I’ve really been waiting for for a couple of years now, because what’s going to happen is I’m not going to be in front of the camera, but my story will be in front of the camera and it will be graphically played out and I’m so excited to see that.
Come into fruition, kind of like a Veneno situation. I’m so excited for it.
DL: Before we go, is there anything else that you’d like to share with the instinct reader?
TS: I’d like for you readers to make sure that you are following Fox Soul, YouTube, TS Madison. Honey, y’all know how to find me. I’m always on the Instinct Magazine. But I also want you guys to follow all of your dreams and know that anything that you believe in is possible. You just got to walk in it, know that it’s yours and go grab it.
Watch the full video interview here:
A native of Miami, Florida, Madison’s story of growing up trans and sharing about her life on social media platforms has reshaped the way that the pubic conceptualizes transgender and gender-nonconforming identities and experiences. She lives in Atlanta, Georgia.
Check out Turnt Out with TS Madison on Fox Soul every Tuesdays at 8pm EST | 5pm PDT
