Dita Von Teese: “I have no problem with the word stripper..”

Burlesque star Dita Von Teese says that she has no problem with the word stripper. “Having worked in strip clubs and getting my start there and that being my original audience, I have no problem with the word stripper,” says Dita Von Teese to the Daily Telegraph.

“I don’t really like to separate myself from strippers – that’s what I do and I don’t have to defend myself or defend my art.” Von Teese further added that stripping is an evolution and that burlesque is “stripping with more feathers and more rhinestones.” She also believes that what she’s doing is good and entertaining.

Dita Von Teese worked as a stripper while she was on her teens. The Queen of Burlesque used to work five to six times a week and is proud to have earned big amount of money with her stripping talent. “I was working as a go-go dancer in nightclubs just out of high school. I was eighteen. In the early nineties I was easily making a thousand or $1,500 a night,” says Von Teese. The 37 years old burlesque icon is well known for her burlesque routines and is frequently called “The Queen of Burlesque.” In her own words, she “puts the tease back to striptease” with her long, elaborate dance shows and her props inspired by 1930s and 1940s musicals and films. Her signature show features a giant martini glass.

Von Teese was in Sydney early September 2010 as a guest of Cointreau. She also performed three shows where she dazzled in a costume made of 300,000 Swarovski crystals and performed her signature dance in a giant martini glass. “Burlesque has always been about self creation, and all the great stars of burlesque are all self-taught, self created and hands on. All of my heart and my soul are put into making these shows,” says Dita Von Teese.