In 1984, at the massive Hippodrome nightclub in London, I saw Divine absolutely WOW an audience of several thousand people with her Hi-NRG Eurodisco set. The place was packed to the gills with adoring—and very glamorous—people who were there to be bathed in her low rent divinity… if not her flop sweat. Looking around the audience that night, it occurred to me what a personal triumph this event must have represented for someone who was so marginalized growing up. Let’s face it, Harris Glenn Milstead was a full-blown freak (in a good way, the best possible way), and John Waters was absolutely right when he said “Divine stood for all outsiders. A young person could be inspired because anything is possible.”

Divine’s life and rise to worldwide fame and unlikely icon-hood was the ultimate “It Gets Better” story, whether you are gay or straight! His is a legend that will last forever, truly.

I also met Divine once at a Manhattan nightclub I was working at during the mid-80s. I took up a tray of food to his dressing room. You’d expect maybe that he would have been intimidating—a diva—but I can assure you that he was absolutely a total sweetheart. I still have the autographed invite for the event—a “Father’s Day Party”—with Divine wrapped in an American flag on the front, posed like the Statue of Liberty. In marked contrast to the London appearance, Divine had, just a few years years later, become morbidly obese and appeared to be very unhealthy. I saw him when he walked offstage and he was really out of breath, sweating profusely and it took him some time before he was breathing normally again. I asked “Are you okay?” and he silently indicated that he was fine and waved me off as he stood there wheezing. A friend of mine remarked that he didn’t expect that Divine would be “long for this world.”  A little over a year later, Divine was dead.

Here’s a selection of some of the best of Divine’s 80s disco diva period:
 

1984’s “I’m So Beautiful” made it to #16 in the British pop charts and was the first hit for powerhouse songwriting/production trio Stock Aitken Waterman, later responsible for dozens of Hi-NRG hit records in the 80s by the likes of Kylie Minogue, Rick Astley, Bananarama and Dead or Alive.
 

“Walk Like a Man,” 1985
 

“Shake It Up,” on Top Pop
 

“You Think You’re A Man,” 1984
 

A cover of Sam Cooke’s “Twistin’ the Night Away,” 1985
 

Divine performs “Born To Be Cheap” on Thicke of the Night
 

Bobby Orlando’s production of “Love Reaction”