If you’ve turned on a TV in the past 15 years, then you know the unmistakable voice and personality of Ross Mathews. Mathews got his start as an intern on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno and from there has made countless TV appearances on shows such as Chelsea Lately, The Insider, The View and most recently, Ru Paul’s Drag Race as an official judge. Now he’s coming to St. Pete to celebrate Pride and support the LGBT community.
On the podcast Straight Talk with Ross Mathews, Mathews has been hosting guests like Margaret Cho, Chelsea Handler and Kelly Osbourne. Straight Talk has been a passion project for Mathews who describes podcasting as being, “so intimate, you know, because there are no corporations in the way, no bosses in the way, it’s really just an unfiltered moment between me and the listeners. I started it 38 weeks ago, to just sort of maintain that relationship, and just for me, selfishly, and what happened is that people started listening and we went from 1,000 to like 300,000 the other day, […] I’ve just sort of fallen in love with it. There are constantly big LOL’s” Airing on Wednesdays and Thursdays weekly; it’s truly a podcast steeped in love.
The business of being a TV personality is truly something Mathews is grateful to have the opportunity to be in. “I’ve wanted to be a talk show host since I was 8 years old, and I just had laser focus getting here. I couldn’t let anything get in the way”, a subject he really delves into in his bestselling book Man Up!: Tales of My Delusional Self-Confidence. The best thing about Ross Mathews’ career? Job security. “I get paid to be myself, honey, that’s a job that I will always be qualified for.”
As a host at one of this week’s St. Pete Pride events, Mathews is feeling a lot of fulfillment in the equality movement. “Pride week, since the beginning of them, has been about coming together and celebrating diversity and equality.” After having been ordained, he took the fight to D.C., “I got ordained and married a couple, just a couple of weeks ago, a couple from Texas that couldn’t get married in their home state. To do that in the streets around the Supreme Court, I thought, maybe the judges were looking out their windows and — seeing the celebration of love and — who knows — maybe that’ll push them over to the right side of the history.”
Excited for St. Pete Pride this year, Mathews imparted some sage advice on fashion do’s and don’ts, “Do dress cool, because it’s hot as a mofo; do SPF, and to be honest there are no don’ts, it’s pride! Don’t worry about it, do you, do your thing.”
Ross Mathews will be hosting a fashion show at Macy’s Tyrone Square on June 25 at 6 p.m. Guests are encouraged to donate to the St. Pete Pride organization and will receive a $10 Macy’s gift card for every donation of $10. Guests who purchase $50 or more in Pride fashion will receive a Macy’s fedora and glow in the dark star necklace for Saturday night’s parade.
