André Leon Talley[1] cries when he recalls how haters in the fashion world called him “Queen Kong” — and he thinks he knows who coined the nasty nickname.
In the tearful climax to the documentary “The Gospel According to André,”[2] the 6-foot-6 fashion editor didn’t name anyone as he talked about learning that the fashion set in Paris was calling him “Queen Kong.”
But in “Loulou & Yves” — Christopher Petkanas’ oral history of Yves Saint Laurent and his muse, Loulou de la Falaise — Talley points the finger at Clara Saint, a longtime head of p.r. for YSL.
“I hate to call a woman a bitch, so instead I say ‘cruel’ and ‘evil.’ She invented the name Queen Kong for me, which I consider racist,” Talley told Petkanas.
Saint, who went to the Paris airport in 1961 and rescued Rudolf Nureyev from the arms of the KGB, denies it.
“It is a fake story. I didn’t create this name [Queen Kong],” she told NPR[3]. “I never used it in reference to him, and I am not racist.”
References
- ^ André Leon Talley (pagesix.com)
- ^ the documentary “The Gospel According to André,” (pagesix.com)
- ^ told NPR (www.npr.org)