Cassandra Peterson, AKA Elvira, Mistress Of The Dark, Has Come Out
70(!!!!!)-year-old Cassandra Peterson, who has played the iconic Elvira, Mistress of the Dark since 1981, has come out! In her new memoir, Yours Cruelly, Elvira, Cassandra revealed a 19-year relationship with Teresa “T” Wierson. Looks like that coffin where Elvira sleeps isn’t the only box that she likes being inside of. BA-DUMP-BUMP! But seriously, Pride Month has now been extended all the way to Halloween thanks to this happy news.
Cassandra Peterson has played the true forever Queen of Halloween (sorry, Heidi Klum) since 1981. She hosted the weekend horror show Elvira’s Movie Macabre and played Elvira in the 1988 movie Elvira: Mistress of the Dark. And more recently, she hosted the 13-episode special, 13 Nights of Elvira, which aired on Hulu in 2014. So Cassandra’s got a lot to write about and she put it in her memoir, which came out yesterday, the same day she came out!
The Advocate says that Cassandra and her partner met as friends while Cassandra was still married to Mark Pierson, who was a singer and eventually became Cassandra’s manager. They broke up after 25 years together and it so happened that T also broke up with someone around that time and the lesbianism love was palpable:
Their relationship began, as all the best do, at the Hollywood Gold’s Gym when Peterson spotted who she thought at the time was the hottest bad boy in Tinseltown. “Often, when I was doing my preworkout warm-up on the treadmill, I couldn’t help noticing one particular trainer–tan, tattooed, and muscular–stalking across the gym floor, knit cap pulled so low over his long brown hair that it nearly covered his eyes,” she writes in the book. “Dark and brooding, he gave off such intense energy that when he crossed the enormous gym floor, the waters parted and people stopped in their tracks to stare.”
It wasn’t until they had a chance encounter in the ladies room that she realized her “bad boy” was really a “bad girl” and the two soon became close, albeit platonically.
As Peterson tells it in her book, the path to a more serious connection began with Wierson arriving at her home one rainy night, also freshly out of a relationship. “There on the doorstep stood my trainer, T, holding a trash bag full of her belongings, looking sad and bedraggled. She’d split from her longtime partner, spent some time in rehab, and now had no place to go.”
The two lived together and took care of one another through a really challenging time and, in the process, something began to shift. One night, after they were out at a movie, Peterson felt a sudden desire to kiss Wierson. “I think I was even more surprised. What the hell was I doing? I’d never been interested in women as anything other than friends. I felt so confused. This just wasn’t me! I was stunned that I’d been friends with her for so many years and never noticed our chemistry,” she writes. “I soon discovered that we connected sexually in a way I’d never experienced.”
The two never came out publicly because they wanted to protect the Elvira brand and were afraid of the reaction from her fans (read: her homophobic fans). But it’s a new day and Elvira doesn’t give a fuck and has decided to be out and proud:
Would my fans hate me for not being what they expected me to be?” she shares in the book, adding, “I’m very aware that there will be some who will be disappointed and maybe even angry, but I have to live with myself, and at this point in my life, I’ve got to be truthful about who I am.”
Oh god, I hate when things stir my dead heart with touching emotions and remind me how depressed and vacuous my life is. THANKS, ELVIRA!–Mistress of the Dark, indeed!
Pic: Instagram