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From Idol to Family: An Interview with the Legendary Peaches Christ and Mink Stole

James Macfarlane James Macfarlane
1 Apr 2026

Scotland and Comedy Editor James Macfarlane had a fabulous time interviewing cult icons Mink Stole and Peaches Christ about their upcoming show 'Idol Worship'. They talk everything from the origin of their friendship, what to expect from the show and why this will be the first and final time they bring the show to the UK.

This is the most revealing Peaches show I’ll ever do.

Peaches Christ and Mink Stole! How are you?

Mink Stole: I cut my thumb last night on a knife, but other than that, I'm absolutely fine.

Peaches Christ: I think none of us are fine right now, wherever you are in the world, especially if you're an American, it's a hellscape. But outside of the obvious, I’m doing well!

Let’s talk about Idol Worship. It’s being described as ‘part interview, part concert, part storytelling’. How did you find the balance between those elements when you were building the show?

Peaches: It started 25 years ago as a conversation before a midnight movie screening as part of my Midnight Mass movie event. Mink was the first icon I'd ever invited, and I fell in love with her. I couldn't believe that she was willing to do a show with me! I had the audacity to ask her to do it again and again. From there, I asked her to be in a movie and, for part of the movie promotion, we decided to sing a duet. That led me to ask her to be in a big drag show and then we had enough material to do a show, Idol Worship, without a screening of the movie. That’s when it transferred into just the two of us on stage. Mink sang and we had movie clips. That was about ten years ago. During the pandemic it evolved again and became much more about our friendship and working relationship. So, it’s truly evolved over time.

Mink: It became a mutual admiration, because I have so much admiration and respect for Peaches. When she asks me to do things, they're fun, they're good and they're well done, so I always say yes. She takes good care of me and it's always a positive experience.

The show itself celebrates Mink and her legacy, as well as the creative partnership between you. How did you decide what parts of that history you should be including on stage and what to leave out?

Peaches: That's a great question. To be honest, it’s very difficult. Mink lets me almost exclusively decide what to highlight about her. If she doesn't like something or she's tired of a particular story, because we've told it a million times, then we’ve got a thousand more. So much so, in fact, that the conversational part of the show is truly impromptu. We know we're going to talk about Pink Flamingos and about me being exposed to Multiple Maniacs and the sacrilege in that film. We know that we're going to connect some of these dots. But it does change. I'll tell you that, for the fans, the iconography that we are celebrating is, of course, Connie Marble, Peggy Gravel, Taffy Davenport and Dottie Hinkle.

You described the show as an ‘uncensored exposé’. What does being truly unfiltered in a live performance look like to you both?

Mink: Well, it's uncensored in that we talk about things that are perhaps not family friendly. Words do fly out of our mouths on occasion.

Peaches: It's not so much that Mink and I are being outrageous, we're really not, but you might think that us discussing parts of our lives and our work, for some people, we might need that uncensored caveat to refer back to. We've never gotten complaints, but we've definitely seen people's shocked faces, if that makes sense.

So, with the film clips and the live music and the storytelling all woven together in this show, what kind of experience do you want the audience to take away?

Mink: I think we want them to go away thinking that they actually met us and that they got to know a little bit about us and what we're like in our real lives.

Peaches: I think this is the most revealing Peaches show I’ll ever do. I'm sitting there in full drag, but a lot of what I'm talking about is my inner child and what my reaction to discovering her was like before I discovered Peaches and how it led to becoming Peaches.

In this show, you're seeing a lot more of Joshua. And I like that because, when I started drag, Peaches was armour. She was a disguise and a way for me to rebel and to protect myself. I love that this show's become that sort of deeply personal. I agree with Mink, I want them to get to know us. I actually want them to see a different version of drag. I'm lucky as a Gen-Xer to have been exposed to all other kinds of drag. Don't get me wrong, I really am entertained by RuPaul’s Drag Race, but for some people, that's their only view of what drag is or has been. I love it when the young people sit with their blue hair realising, ‘Oh shit, we had no idea’. Young people being turned on by the same stuff that turned me on is so brilliant.

Is there anything that you've learned about each other on a personal level throughout doing the show?

Mink: So, we both grew up Catholic and the way that Catholicism did damage to us as children is something that we've been able to explore a bit. I had some very cathartic moments that have informed Peaches' catharsis, big time. We have been instrumental somehow in helping each other and my talking about it with Peaches on stage still helps me because there's always that lingering feeling like you've got a crucifix tattooed on the back of your neck.

Peaches: It's like having to be deprogrammed and that takes a lifetime. I learned so much from Mink. But you also have to remember that I met Mink at 24 years old. She’s literally watched me grow up. I'm 52, so I'm sure she's seen me really evolve. And I would say that the thing that's been lovely as far as the evolution of working with Mink is just what an incredibly good friend and mentor she's become. I call her one of my drag mothers because she, Cassandra Peterson and John Waters were such incredible showbiz mentors to me in a very nurturing way. I feel like they have taught me how to show up and be gracious and to really enjoy getting to know people who I've inspired.

Years ago, there was a fan who had a tattoo of Mink. She hadn’t seen this very often. Now it happens regularly. Pretty much wherever we go, someone's going to have a tattoo of Mink and Mink's looking at it going, ‘You put that on yourself?’ She was so baffled by it but she’s changed lives.

Mink: I found it very hard to accept at first.

How does it make you feel now, Mink?

Mink: Well, it's incredibly gratifying. I feel very responsible now for these people, that somehow I can't do anything wrong in my life that would justify them having to remove the tattoo.

Peaches: I mean, I always think about the Harry Potter fans...

Back to the show, it's the first and last time that you're bringing Idol Worship to the UK. What makes this seem like the best time to say goodbye to the show?

Mink: We had planned to come in 2020, but the pandemic hit. It was an earlier iteration of the show, so, in a sense, I'm actually really happy that we didn't bring it then, because what we're bringing now is better.

Peaches: We were scheduled to be in London in March 2020. That's how close it was to happening and this was something she and I were so looking forward to. One of the things about the show is we do at the end kind of talk about our personal lives. Mink has intentionally decided to slow down some because of getting married and wanting to enjoy a different life. The idea of touring, it's hard. It's Mink, me and my husband, the three of us going from theatre to theatre. We do our best to really make it comfortable for Mink, but, at the end of the day, just getting on stage is hard, let alone the movement from city to city, the packing, the unpacking, all of that stuff. When we were planning our London show, I thought if we're going to go to London, let's go all over the UK. And that's what happened.

Speaking to you today, it’s obvious that you have such a lovely friendship. I want to know your favourite thing about the other person?

Mink: First of all, Peaches has such enormous ambition, talent and determination, which I admire enormously. However, I think I am most taken by Peaches’ kindness. She’s really kind and generous, not just to me, but to everybody that I've ever seen her work with. There may be some things that I haven't seen, but I have never seen her be cruel.

Peaches: Thank you, Mink. I will say that my answer is very similar, but I'm going to frame it like this. It's kind of like when I met my husband. I used to think that in order for me to marry someone, they're going to have to like the same movies, they're going to have to like the same music. I used to think all those things were important. When I met my husband, he had no concept of who Peaches Christ was. He did not know who John Waters was. He was open to learning everything about me. What bonded us was our view on humanity, our kindness, our sense of how to treat people and our sense of what's important in this world to live a good, fulfilling life. Mink and I bonded over the same stuff.

I think we're basically saying the same thing. When you work with someone and even if they're talented and you admire them, but they don't treat people the way you think people should be treated, it's very hard to sustain a relationship, even if the work is great. So, if you think that I'm nice and you look at the people that I work the most with, especially Mink, but you could look at Jinkx Monsoon, Bob the Drag Queen and a bunch of others, the people that I'm really connected to as family, what you can discern is they're probably similar people.

James Macfarlane

James Macfarlane

Broadway Baby's Comedy Editor and Scotland Editor. In a previous life James did the same thing for ScotsGay. But we poached him.

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