Billie Lee Uses Comedy to Find Common Ground

Billie Lee is aware that some of her comedy can feel like Trans Experience 101, especially for LGBTQ+ viewers watching her videos online.

“I’ve seen straight men transformed from being closed off to laughing and opening up,” Lee says. “My audience is a lot of straight, cis people. That’s who I open for, that’s who I’m touring with mostly, and that’s who I want to educate and really transform…But because I write a lot to educate cis-hetero people, sometimes I can fall a little flat in queer audiences. It’s interesting who I open for and how that shifts, like maybe I need to have a more queer point of view depending on the audience. I want them to laugh, too.”

Lee—a comedian, transgender rights advocate and former reality television personality—performs standup at Helium Comedy Club on May 25. She displays a well-tuned sense of timing—letting some of her punch lines simmer in sustained silence while keeping the show flowing—but also a knack for storytelling.

“I really fell in love with the format of storytelling and making people laugh, and then I kept on getting booked, and I feel like I’ve jumped on this comedy train that’s moving really fast and I’m not getting off anytime soon,” she says.

And while Lee loves to find common ground through comedy, she’s not afraid to get dirty along the way.

“I just noticed as I get older, I attract a lot of younger guys. Is this a thing?” she says in one standup video. “Like, the guys in my acting class are in their 20s lined up ready to fuck me…As a trans woman I’m like, is it because they’re so woke—that’s a thing—or is it because my vagina is also Gen Z? ‘I hear she, like, smells and tastes like strawberry vape.’”

Lee has visited Portland while opening for comedians such as Trae Crowder, Rosebud Baker and Nico Carney, but her Helium show marks her headlining debut (a planned tour stop in 2025 at Mississippi Studios was abruptly canceled). L.A., where Lee has lived since 2005, is home, but Lee says she now wants to visit Portland as often as she can.

“I just love the way the city looks and feels, and the vibe, but I love how queer-friendly and inclusive it is,” Lee says. “I feel safe there, and I love how creative the vibe feels whenever I’m walking around the city. Everyone is just so nice and so cool, and it’s always been such a wonderful time.”

Before she appeared on three seasons of the popular Bravo Network show Vanderpump Rules as a SURver (a server at Lisa Vanderpump’s West Hollywood restaurant SUR), Lee established herself as an advocate for transgender rights, working with organizations like Trans Life LA and the Los Angeles LGBT Center’s Trans Wellness Center.

“I did so much work that was so serious and depressing and angry,” Lee says. “You get used to thinking about it in a dark, scary, depressing way because that’s what you’re seeing a lot and researching and talking about, but comedy is doing something so different. It’s cool to have fun but also educate and inspire people. It just feels better, but I’m so grateful to people who are still on the front lines doing things that are hard.”

Lee appeared on VPR for two seasons between 2017 and 2019—the pre-pandemic Trump 1.0 era, when her courage as a trans woman was lauded on camera by her co-stars. But a manufactured conflict between her co-workers eventually led to her being iced out from the group until VPR’s infamous “Scandoval” incident in 2023. Lee reappeared as a friend to Tom Sandoval, a man who seduced his long-term monogamous girlfriend’s younger friend, and incurred the Bravoverse’s wrath for hiding the affair from the production crew.

Lee declined to answer direct questions about VPR, but is aware that she’s still judged for her TV appearances from three to nine years ago.

“Oh, Reddit hates me!” she says. “I still get those messages where it’s like, ‘I’m watching Vanderpump now and you’re a fucking bitch.’ You’re watching an edited version of me from like 10 years ago. Get a life. People grow and change. I don’t know what to tell you. I had two producers following my every move and telling me what to do and say. You don’t know what the truth is and what was really happening.”

Lee is also the author of a 2024 book, Why Are You So Sensitive? Navigating Everyday, Unintended Microaggressions (Andrews McMeel Publishing, 176 pages, $22.99), and sold a pilot to ABC-Disney four years ago. It was killed during the 2023 Writers Guild of America strike, but the experience of developing it marked a turning point for her.

“It got me into comedy because my team was like, ‘Billie, if you’re going to be writing a half-hour comedy and possibly starring in one, you should probably take comedy and acting classes,’” she says. Now she’s developing a live dating show, similar to Love Isn’t Blind and Heart Throb: The Dream Date Show; she hopes it will be ready to tour by this fall.

“Comedy is like casting a spell. You really do have to use your words to cast a spell, make people laugh, and get outside of their comfort zone,” Lee says. “It’s cool to see a person who’s never experienced a trans person—and they might be closed off and closed-minded—but then they laugh for half an hour to an hour with me and they learn about the trans experience. It’s cool to open people’s minds, and at a time when the administration is so heavily against us, we can use our art and our platforms to educate and get to do it while making people laugh.”

SEE IT: Billie Lee at Helium Comedy Club, 1510 SE 9th Ave., 503-583-8464, portland.heliumcomedy.com. 8 pm Monday, May 25. $25.99–$37.99. 21+.