MadameNoire
Source: Courtesy of Dwen Curry / Dwen Curry
Produced by A. Smith & Co., BET+’s American Gangster: Trap Queens is a true-crime documentary series that tells the stories of some notorious female criminals. Being narrated by Kimberly Jones a.k.a Lil’ Kim, and featuring interviews with the women themselves, in addition to those who knew their cases best, Madame Noire was excited to chat with one of the show’s stars, Dwen Curry.
Being detailed in the third episode of season two, Curry’s story was one of “miniature gay boy” from Detroit who faced the confusion of coming to terms with their gender expression and sexuality, while facing bullying and later a battle with drugs. After moving to Oakland, getting cleaned up, and through her hustle, Curry, a transgender woman, became one of the savviest socialites in Black Hollywood. What everyone didn’t know was that alongside her thriving salon business, behind the scenes, Curry was secretly racking up millions of dollars while engaging in identity theft and wiretapping. Speaking on how BET summarized her journey, she said, “I feel like BET did a great job on displaying as much as they could. Like I couldn’t even have asked for a better job.”
In reference to how the bullying she experienced as a young person shaped who she is today, the star said it was formative. According to her, it added to the drive she had to pursue doing what it took to become financially secure.
“Just from the bullying from different people, I said ‘There’s no way I’m getting ready to sit here and be broke,’” Curry said. “I needed to make sure that people respected me. If anything, like ‘You are going to respect me.’ That pretty much gave me the endurance to press forward and establish the individual that I am today.”
Chatting about what her lifestyle was like in Hollywood amidst the heyday of her operation, Curry said even though “La La Land” was good for a time, when things started to go awry she saw the people around her for who they really were.
“What I will say is, beforehand, everything was extremely copacetic. When you sit up there and you have friends around you, especially in La La Land — people call it Hollywood but it’s La La Land to me because nothing is real — you know, a lot of them didn’t stay by me. So when I turned around and I did other stuff,” she explained, “you pretty much see who’s for you and who’s against you. And for the most part, I saw that a lot of people that I was dealing with at that particular time, were not for me. They were definitely against me.”
Luckily though, Curry has been able to find some sense of community. Being known as “The Original GG” or “The Original Gay Gangster,” Curry shared how the term came about and who it references.
“For some reason, it just seems a lot more pronounced and a lot more profound than what it should be,” Curry said. “Basically, there’s a group of individuals that are pretty much up under my care and we are extremely close… The loyalty was there and we established our whole thing. It was established under us being really good people and no one coming into our click.”
Later the star added, “Although we’re gay, you will get f*cked up for real… That’s where all of that comes from. The loyalty, the camaraderie, how we are till this day. Those that are still left alive, because there’s a lot of fallen soldiers.”
See Curry’s story and other episodes from season two on BET+ here.
