Former Vanderpump Rules personality Billie Lee joined Brian Austin Green on the Oldish podcast to discuss her experience with sex work as a transgender woman.
What led Billie Lee to sex work:
The former SUR hostess had difficulty finding restaurant work. “They would love my resume because I have all this serving experience from college. Then, they would see me. They wouldn’t hire me. They were just like, ‘No, we don’t know what the hell this is.’”
“Even when I worked at SUR on Vanderpump, it was about being attractive, being sexy, wearing sexy clothes.”
Reflecting on her time doing sex work:
“Our unemployment rate is so high — it still is — for trans people, a lot of us do lean on sex work. We are all so fetishized and over-sexualized.”
“I find it very empowering now,” elaborated Billie. “I’m a pleaser; I’m a people pleaser, which is hard. But, I’m also just a pleaser in general. So, when I became a sex worker, I was like, ‘Oh, wow, I can get off pleasing these men and also get paid.’”
“There’s something empowering about wanting to lean back into it because that was kind of what we had as survival. It just became a way of life for me.”
Although BL doesn’t do sex work any more, she still gets offers. “The other day, I was charging my car and some guy was hitting on me. If they notice that I’m trans and I don’t accept, they’re like, ‘Oh, give me your Instagram or your phone number.’”
“Then, they’ll be like, ‘Well, how much?’ And the back of my head is like, ‘Oh, I could make some easy money right now.’”
Billie Lee managed to stay safe during her time as a sex worker:
“I was pretty blessed when I came to sex work. There were times when I would first enter a hotel room, you do certain things that you learn. I would check-in to make sure that the front desk saw me. And I would check and make sure where the cameras were, security cameras.”
“Then, I would have a pocket knife up in my coat, like, in my coat sleeve. I would do a check throughout the entire room, in any cabinets in the bathroom, and stuff like that, before I would get on the bed. So, you do like little things to protect yourself in that way.”
“But, I had really amazing clients who like treated me with respect and wine and dined me. I was in hotels in Beverly Hills, you know, so I wasn’t on the street, which a lot of my sisters are.”
