Interview: Hyapatia Lee - Writer, Musician, Author, Broadcaster, Adult Star & Activist

As a young man in NYC, I would sometimes watch The Robyn Bird Show on late night cable TV. The bubbly host would introduce various adult entertainers who would dance to popular songs, and later on Robyn would interview them about their lives and careers. Twenty-odd years later, I can't remember most of the people who appeared on that show but I remember one very well -- Hyapatia Lee.

To say she was "hot" is an understatement -- her beauty, her sexiness, and her attitude were stunning. She blazed out of the screen. She was a fireball of female power. She was celestial.

And smart! She was well-spoken, funny, and confident. I also noticed that she wore a Native American necklace, and spoke proudly of her Cherokee heritage. As someone young and impressionable, still learning about women and sex, I was mesmerized by this multi-dimensional woman. 

Years later I heard a fantastic interview with Hyapatia on the Rialto Report and learned more about her amazing and often challenging life. She had long ago left the adult business and migrated to grow legal pot in Colorado. Then, much more recently, I found her on Twitter, and she became even more fascinating -- it turns out that she is a Native American activist, author, and broadcaster, as well as a mental health specialist. Hyapatia Lee has lived many lives, done many things, and overcome a lot. So it was a great honor to have Hyapatia politely respond to my request for an interview and tell us more!

You seem to have lived many eventful lives – adult star, pot grower, Native American rights activist/author, and mental health advocate. If you can, what made you want to live these different lives and are there any others that I’m missing? 

I believe we are all multi-faceted individuals. It's not uncommon for people to have multiple interests in life. I also produce, direct, and edit my NATIVE STRENGTH TV show that's seen on ROKU, Amazon, and multiple stations across the country, as well as on my YouTube channel. In addition, I write and record my own music. I started The Lee Studios three years ago. There are plans for movies as well.

I want to live life to the fullest. I want to explore all of the activities that interest me. I also want to keep the Native American culture alive. I just want to enjoy my life. 

You are a woman of proud Cherokee heritage and have incorporated your identity into every aspect of your life (even your adult work). What would you like white and all other Americans to understand about the Native American experience and identity? 

I think most people, even many Native Americans, are unaware of the rich cultural contributions of Natives of this hemisphere. Some people may be aware of the vast culinary contributions, but the majority of our common wisdom has been destroyed by the colonizers and was carefully guarded by the elders. It's time to bring this out in the open and share some of it.

What are the special challenges of being a Native American woman?

The challenge of being any Native American first and foremost is to be recognized for who we are. Most people see us as white or Hispanic. They don't even recognize us when looking right at us! My people have been told to go back to their own country. As a woman, we have the challenge of proving ourselves to be equal and worthy. This is exacerbated by the hypersexualization of Native Women. Being Native or natural doesn't mean being sexually promiscuous. Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls is an epidemic most often perpetuated by oil pipeline construction workers who camp near reservations. So the biggest challenge for any Native American woman is to simply stay alive.

You’ve always been known as Hyapatia Lee. How did you come up with this name, and what does it mean to you today?

I suppose today it just is "me, a name I call myself." To quote The Sound of Music. LOL. 

Do you still live and grow pot in Colorado?

Yes, I do. With my health condition, cannabis is necessary to sustain life.

I first saw you dancing and being interviewed on The Robyn Bird Show cable television in the 1990s. What are your memories of appearing on that show, of Robyn, and did anything fun happen behind the scenes?

I loved being on The Robyn Bird Show. She was very sweet and professional. When most people ask if anything fun happened behind the set, they are referring to something sexual. Nothing sexual happened on the set of the show. It was professional.

What were your memories of visiting New York City back then? Did you like the city and spend a lot of time here?

I was surprised to spend three months in New York City the first time I was booked there for the opening of my first movie. I did dance shows in between the showings. The shows were sold out. I was only supposed to be there for one week.

You are a woman of great beauty and became famous for it, but your intelligence and spirit has sustained and brought you into different paths in life. What is it like to go from being an object of desire to a person who wants to educate and heal the spirits of others?

Personally, I am a bit dumbfounded. I never considered myself to be a "great beauty." I wrote a dozen of my movies and did the music for Body Girls and wrote an advice column for Cherri for five years. So to me, I have been using my intelligence all along. I guess people are just starting to notice now. I am very grateful. I considered my work in adult entertainment to be trying to heal the spirits of others. My movie Let's Get Physical was about ED caused by a man losing his job as an esteemed dancer after a tragic accident. But no one seemed to notice that, I guess. Sometimes I think some people become blinded by sexuality and entirely lose the message. What were the best and worst parts of being an adult star back in the 1980s and 90s? The best part was being able to write my own movies and being able to spend the vast majority of my time dancing on the road. Was it fun or more work than fun? Dancing was fun. Travel was fun. Writing movies was fun. 

Do you miss it at all?

I do not miss it at all, particularly the sex part. I did not particularly enjoy that part. That was the hardest part for me. I had to emotionally work myself up for a scene. It was a difficult challenge. I much preferred to shoot dialogue, coming from a stage acting background.

Would you ever go back?

I would never go back, not for anything in the world. Never.

Tell us something about Hyapatia Lee that we don’t know, and what are your hopes for the future? 

I have hypopituitarism, end-stage. My fears for the future revolve around the world left to my grandkids.

Anything else you’d like to tell us?

Hypopituitarism is a complicated, deadly condition caused by blood loss and other conditions. It means the pituitary gland has died. That's the master gland. That means I produce no hormones. So this gives me a unique look at life. I see what emotions all the hormones cause. It's also deadly and I'm allergic to the steroid I have to take for the adrenal insufficiency hypopituitarism causes. They make my throat swell shut and I can't breathe. Steroids are needed to bind with glucocorticoid receptors in every cell of the body, particularly the brain, or we die. THC also binds with these receptors and it helps, but it's not enough to keep me alive. Here is my GoFundMe link. This was set up by a dear friend of mine. 

Thanks Hyapatia! All the best to you and your health, your work, and your future in 2020 and well beyond. Good luck! 

Classic Mr NYC

Five years ago, on New Year's Eve 2019, I did a big interview with former adult film start, and current Native American activist, Hyapatia Lee. She talked freely about her amazing life and career, including about the times she visited NYC and appeared on the Robin Byrd Show.

Well, Hyapatia also has a great YouTube channel and, in her most recent post, she talks more about her time in NYC, her visits to Robin's show, and her experiences in the business. Enjoy! Love you Hyapatia!

And, again, Mr NYC is ahead of his time!

The Best of Mr NYC Years End

As the clock ticks down to 2022, something occurred to moi: some of my best, or at least my favorite, posts are ones that I wrote at the end of various years. They were, as you might imagine, posts full of ruminations of the year gone by and the one right over the horizon but not always -- sometimes they were interviews or reports of odd things.

So here are my favorite end of the year blog posts that you might enjoy going back and reading again:

On the last day of 2013, as Mayor Michael Bloomberg was leaving office and Mayor-Elect Bill De Blasio was preparing to assume it, I wrote a blog post about how the Bloomberg years had marked a "farewell to funky town", how the wild city of the 20th century had became the much tamer one of the 21st. I also wrote about the recent deaths of some prominent New Yorkers who, in their way, defined "funky town". Now Mayor De Blasio is leaving and Mayor-Elect Eric Adams will be taking over and, it's fair to say, funky town, especially in a COVID world, is well and truly gone forever. 

Then, in 2018, a strange event happened in NYC -- a huge blue burst of light exploded over the sky of NYC, literally electrifying it. It was a strange yet amazing thing to happen in those quiet days between Christmas and New Year's, a reminder that this city is always full of surprises. 

In 2019, in my last post of the year, I did an extensive interview with Hyapatia Lee, the former adult actress and current Native-American activist. She was, and remains, a fascinating person with an amazing life story. It was a real honor to interview her.

Finally, last year, after a year-from-hell and another year-from-hell coming up, I wrote about my distinct memories of December 31, 1986 which remains my favorite New Year's Eve ever.

And now 2021 is in the history books and 2022 beckons. Fingers crossed that things get better but, even if they do, we have a long way to go. 

Funky Town Redux

Over the years I've blogged a lot about how 1970's and '80s NYC was Funky Town. 

And Funky Town was a big, wild place! 

Here are some more examples of that time, that seems so far away and yet is right around (literally) the corner:

Back in those days trade school commercials were all over NYC television, like these for the Albert Merrill School and Apex Tech (that lovely set of tools is yours to keep after you graduate).

Then there's movies. A lot of great movies were shot on the streets of NYC back then -- The Godfather, Taxi Driver, Annie Hall, and Saturday Night Fever, just to name a few. As you might imagine, shooting them on location could be a challenge. Recently I read about the making of the 1974 original movie The Taking of Pelham 1-2-3. You gotta love it -- it's an action movie that stars Walter Matthau and Jerry Stiller! It's a great NYC movie that mostly takes place on the subway movie but it was a tough movie to shoot in the fall of 1973 -- as this article points out. 

Talking about NYC movies of the 1970s, recently I was on the East Side and walked by The Copinette restaurant that has a plaque outside, commenterating its appearance in the 1971 Oscar Best Picture winner The French Connection.

And of course, there's The Sexy. 

Before AIDS closed them down, sex clubs were prominent around town. Here's previous Mr NYC interviewee and former adult film star Hyapatia Lee talking about her visits to Plato's Retreat and The Hellfire Club and the wild, sexy times she had in this town.

And talking about sexy clubs, one night in 1975 a young songwriter named Van McCoy went to the Apple's Apple nightclub and saw people dancing in an interesting way. He therefore decided to write a song called "The Hustle" and it became one of the most famous, beloved, and iconic disco songs of all time:

So there's just some more examples of Funky Town, a place long-gone but that will forever live in Mr NYC's heart. 

Robin Byrd Bangs Again!

Damn, never though I'd see this: there's an upcoming HBO documentary about naughty NYC late-night cable TV host Robin Byrd who ran her stripper/adult star-filled show from the late 1970s to the late 1990s.

And it's called, haha, Bang My Box.

Robin was an "Only in New York" type, a former adult star who appeared in Debbie Does Dallas and who, along with Al Goldstein, brought "the sexy" and scandalous to NYC week-after-week in those pre-Internet/social media days. I remember watching Robin regularly during my high school years (and then in repeats for years afterwards) and she was truly a, uh, needed night cap.

I've blogged about Robin over the years, including back in 2009! And I interviewed former Robin Byrd guest, former adult star Hyapatia Lee, back in 2019. And now ... mainstream culture has caught up with Mr NYC, giving us this documentary about this NYC icon (believe it or not, it's produced by Sarah Jessica Parker), and proving, yet again, that Mr NYC is Ahead of His Time.

I'm looking forward to seeing this doc and also feel, quite smugly, that I recognized Robin's cultural significance much earlier than anyone else! 

Postscript: Robin's show ended in April, 1999, just weeks before I graduated from college and two years before 9/11. It felt like, feels like, the end of old NYC and my childhood. Le sigh.