Washington Heights Says Her Dad New Jack Called Her "My Gay F-Cking Son"
On today's episode of The Wrestling Inc. Daily podcast, Washington Heights, rising drag star and son of ECW legend New Jack, sat down with Wrestling Inc. Managing Editor Nick Hausman to discuss her father's reaction to a recent Vice profile done on her. She said that she has not heard directly from her father New Jack, but she has read and heard comments he has made after the Vice profile was released.
"I have not heard from him directly, but I have heard things that he's had to say about what I've allegedly put on the internet," Heights revealed. "I know he reached out to my sister and had some not nice things to say to her about me, and then I found out that Vice reached out to him for a comment on the article. And he watered down everything that he said, and there's been a couple of Instagram accounts who posted things and tagged him in it.
"And he said something like, 'don't tag me in this silly s–t.' Like I said in the article, I wanted to get a reaction out of him, and I wanted to see if we could possibly, best case scenario, talk things out [and] work on our relationship, but from the Facebook Live that he did, which Vice censored–he said, 'there's a lot of things with my name on it' and 'you little fa–ot motherf–ker. You're not my son. You're a bi–h.' Once he said that, I was like, 'okay, so I know where he stands,' but he still never reached out to me directly. I had people send me that video and be like, 'hey, just so you know, he said this.' I'm like, well, doesn't surprise me."
Hausman asked Heights if New Jack has always expressed homophobic views. She noted that while her father does not want to speak to her, she had heard from her sister that he would defend her if someone made a comment about her being gay.
"There was one time he said something–my sister and I were like living together. She moved in with my mom and I when I was in high school, and he's very short-tempered," Heights said. "And I forget what we did, but we either did or said something he didn't like, and he said something along the lines of 'y'all are disrespectful. And I don't want to talk to you or my gay f–king son,' but then a few years after that, my sister said, he's also said that if anyone had anything to say about me being gay, he would put them in their place. But I never heard him defending me."
Heights said she is close to her older sister and is looking to reconnect with another sister in the family. However, she said that she does not know about the other siblings in the known family of five.
"So at one point, he told me he had a football team worth of children, but I think we narrowed that down to five," Heights noted. "So I'm close with my oldest sister Brandi. We grew up together, and then I recently reconnected with my next youngest sister Ashley, who I believe lives in Ohio. And we're actually working to possibly meet within the next like six months or so, but the other two, I don't know who they are, where they are or what they look like."
Heights also discussed the world of drag. Hausman noted that the drag world is much more competitive than most people would know, and Heights taled about the awards she has won as well as the state of the industry during the COVID-19 pandemic.
"In 2018, I won Best Show Host. My show won Best Drag Show," Heights stated. "The bar that I work at won Best Venue, and then I won Drag Performer of the Year in 2018. And then 2020, the show won Best Drag Show again, and then the bar won Best Bar, but I would say it's become less competitive especially with the pandemic. It's become more of let's all work together, find ways to perform [and] I guess get people to come out and support us and show we're still here even though some venues are closed.
"We've done shows on sidewalks, in front of buildings and parking lots. I did a show where we were performing mainly on the sidewalk, and the crowd was in an entire lane of the street. And we didn't have it blocked off or anything. People were just standing there and cars are driving around like it was normal. It's an interesting field to be working in right now."
Heights also explained how she got the name "Washington Heights". She told a story about how she was given the name by her drag mother Brooklyn Heights.
"The way drag names and drag families work is if you don't have a name, you'll have what you call a drag mother who will be your mentor, and my drag mother's name is Brooklyn Heights," Heights explained. "And we were at a show one time, and I was like drunk and being stupid. And she was like, 'if I ever had a drag child, you would be my only child,' and I was like, 'well, what will my name be?' And right off the bat, she was like, 'Washington Heights,' and so I texted her the next day. I was like, 'were you serious about that?' She was like, 'yeah girl.' So I took on the name Washington Heights."
When asked if she would want to be on "RuPaul's Drag Race", Heights was not against the idea, but she talked about how her main goal is to "share my art and stupidity with the world". She then talked about the eccentric things she has done during her shows.
"I would love to be on 'Drag Race', but I don't know if I want to be famous," Heights admitted. "I just want to be a well-known, and I want to travel. I just want to share my art and stupidity with the world. I'm a very sarcastic dry sense of humor person. I do really dumb things during my shows.
"I'm known for wearing camo Crocs during my shows and riding Lyme scooters around instead of walking or performing or dancing. I just like to do, I wouldn't say different things, but things that make people be like, 'oh, I remember her. She's the one who wore the camouflage Crocs,' or, 'she's the one who rode a Lyme scooter around the venue.' That's about all I want to do."
You can follow Washington Heights on Twitter @WashyHeights. Washington's full interview aired as part of today's episode of our podcast, The Wrestling Inc. Daily. Subscribe to get the latest episodes as soon as it's released Monday – Friday afternoon by clicking here.