Aside from looking certifiably badass, Bentley carried her “unapologetically gay” swagger with her into her performance, frequently flirting with women in the audience, and changing the lyrics of popular tunes to be hilariously dirty, which became one of her many claims to fame.
“She quickly made a name for herself as somebody who sang ribald songs,” wrote Jim Wilson, author of Bulldaggers, Pansies, and Chocolate Babies: Performance, Race, and Sexuality in the Harlem Renaissance. “She would take popular songs of the day and just put the filthiest lyrics possible. She took the songs ‘Sweet Alice Blue Gown’ and ‘Georgia Brown,’ and combined them and it became a song about anal sex.”
As her scandalous lyrics helped her climb the ranks to New York City stardom, they also helped her garner some famous fans, including the beloved poet and Harlem Renaissance Icon, Langson Hughes, who described her as “an amazing exhibition of musical energy—a large, dark, masculine lady, whose feet pounded the floor while her fingers pounded the keyboard—a perfect piece of African sculpture, animated by her own rhythm.”
Yet just as she captured the hearts of some of New York City’s finest artists, she also captured the attention of several tabloids, many of which were fascinated with her personal life. “Gladys Bentley had told the gossip columnist that she had just gotten married,” Wilson recalled of the artist. “The gossip columnist asked, ‘well, who’s the man?’ And she scoffed and said, ‘Man? It’s a woman,’”
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