The Champagne Room has been pulling an enviable guest list lately: queer punk cinema icon Bruce LaBruce, actor Jay Baruchel with his wife, designer Rebecca-Jo Dunham Baruchel, and award-winning author Téa Mutonji have all taken a seat, with DJ baddie Miss Bashful among the names still to come!
This week the chair goes to Canadian filmmaker Blake Mawson, who came ready to talk horror, queerness, and the pole and wig he worked long before any festival came calling.
What do strippers and independent filmmaking have in common? Both come down to protecting your autonomy and a healthy distaste for censorship. Oh, and he calls his mom mid-taping to get his birth time so the hosts can pull his big 3! 🤩 Check out the latest episode of The Champagne Room above!
Interior Motives brought Hamzah & Martin from Slushy Noobz onto the show for a full Canadian Edition, and the hosts are doing what they always do: staring at someone’s bedroom and fridge photos and trying to guess their whole life from them. Check it out above!
Mitch and Greg of ASAPScience‘s SideNote podcast just dropped an episode on gay cruising, tracing the practice from ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics through Renaissance-era crackdowns to modern hookup apps. There’s also a genuinely wild 1970s sociological study in there, which found that many men seeking anonymous public encounters were otherwise living outwardly straight suburban lives.
The science portion makes the case that while same-sex behavior is common across the animal kingdom, cruising is a uniquely human response to social oppression and shame. Interesting! Check them out above!
Téa Mutonji takes over the Champagne Room in the latest episode of the talk series from the team behind STR*PPER NEWS, w/ hosts Andrea and Ariel.
A celebrated Congolese-Canadian author, Mutonji has built a body of work rooted in truthful, character-driven storytelling about friendship and self-discovery. In this episode, she traces her path from aspiring actor and bartender to professional writer, and reflects on how her identity as a queer, bilingual Black woman shapes the stories she tells. She talks about the weight of public perception after Shut Up You’re Pretty became a Canada Reads finalist, why she now guards her privacy and boundaries, her sobriety, her refusal to believe in writer’s block, and her pull toward the unpolished side of human intimacy. She also discusses her forthcoming novel, My Person.
Check it out above and follow on YouTube and Instagram, or subscribe to their Patreon for bonuses and early access!
Bruce LaBruce takes over the Champagne Room in the debut episode of the new talk series from the team behind STR*PPER NEWS.
A pioneering Canadian filmmaker and queercore provocateur, LaBruce has spent decades testing the limits of censorship, taste, and institutional power. In the debut episode, he covers the strip club scenes of 1990s Toronto and Montreal, run-ins with customs and police, shadow banning, self-censorship, and his recent film The Visitor. A conversation that goes exactly where you’d expect—and then further. Hosts Tony and Nikki ask all the right questions!
Watch above and follow on YouTube and Instagram, or subscribe to their Patreon for bonuses and early access. Support small business! 🥂
And if you haven’t already, read the latest OMG.BLOG Q&A with Bruce here.
Rupert Everett is the best type of A-list guest. He’s been through the highs and the lows of fame and come out of the other side wiser, stronger, and with no qualms about speaking his mind.
Plus his new book ‘The American No’ was born from failure (a collection of brilliant short stories that were TV and film ideas). We talked about: ‘learning to die’ professionally; his love for fragile but strong women such as Paula Yates (with whom he had a 6-year affair); coming out in Hollywood; Madonna; My Best Friend’s Wedding with Julia Roberts and Cameron Diaz; why Oscar Wilde is a Christ figure, how drugs have ruined his brain and using hyper-sexuality as an escape.
Check out the Hollywood icon and star of everything from Cemetery Man to Netflix’s Emily In Paris above!
A brand-spankin’ new teaser for The Champagne Room, from the behind Str*pper News (one of the planet’s last-remaining trustworthy news-sources) introduces the upcoming interview series as “the hottest club on the internet,” and is launching next week! With red curtains, coy glances, champagne and big grins, the trailer feels like stepping behind the velvet rope…
Stylish, cheeky, and built around the idea that anyone might have a story worth hearing, the show promises weekly interviews with unexpected guests: Artists, actors, celebrity guests, activists, neighbours, dads, and everyday characters! This feels like more of a late-night hangout than traditional talk show, which we LOVE.
Check out the teaser trailer below and make sure to like, subscribe and SHARE:
