The Story Of Sandie Crisp, AKA The Goddess Bunny.
Bizarre Buffet Podcast – All You Can Eat Weird
Long before TikTok and Instagram influencers were ever a thing, there was The Goddess Bunny ( AKA Sandie Crisp).
Sandra “Sandie” Crisp, better known by her stage name The Goddess Bunny, was an American entertainer, drag queen, actor, and model. Footage of Crisp tap dancing, originally recorded around 1987, was the subject of one of the first viral videos.
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” Goddess Bunny ” – Episode Credits
Hosted By Mark Tauriello, Jen Wilson, & Marc Bluestein.
Original Episode & Story Concept By Mark Tauriello.
Original Episode Art By Mark Tauriello
Written By / Show Notes By Mark Tauriello
Video Production By Marc Bluestein
Episode Production By Marc Bluestein.
” Goddess Bunny ” – Show Notes
THE GODDESS BUNNY/ SANDY CRISP
Question: What’s the most bizarre video you have ever seen on the internet?
THE MYSTERIOUS VIDEO:
We are going to go back in time, to the early 2000s. 2005 to be exact. This it the era of myspace, the progression of youtube, and websites like Hot Or Not/ ROTTEN, and Ebaums World, and so on. This was a time for the obscure to find a new home on the internet leaving an imprint on digital culture, creating lots of mysterious content.
For me, at one time, one of the most bizarre videos I have even seen that circulated the internet was on EbaumsWorld.com.
It’s 2005 and I am with my friends, and we are all watching videos on Ebaums World consisting of a large topless women lip syncing the Milk Shake Song/ another video with a emo girl yell singing WILL YOU GO TO PROM WITH ME… and the iconic Peanut Butter Jelly Time video. We come across one video under a category that was under “creepy” or “funny” or “Weird”. Something like that.
So the footage starts. It’s grainy as hell, borderline distorted. Clearly recorded on a handheld video camera circa the last 80s.. We see a disfigured woman, almost looking like a skeleton, clearly disabled. She is dressed in a tight white leotard body suit looking like lingerie, pinkish leg warmers which are too big for here incredibly skinny/ deformed legs. She is tap dancing in classic tap shoes while spinning a white parasol, with a clown doll with red hair pinned into her hair hovering over the top of her head. Her makeup of choice is a winged smokey eye and a dark lip. Her masculine cheek bones are also powered with pink blush.
She dances on a concrete patio which looks like someones backyard. The patio has water stains, and the house behind her create this eerie beige backdrop with the sun overexposing footage.
She dances eerily while twirling her parisol. The person behind the camera has a very shaky hand, and there are multiple cuts of her sashaying toward the camera, eventually putting her face right up to the lens. There are also abrupt cuts of her now in what appears to be inside of a white living room. I
t’s obvious that there is something not right? Who is this person? We can clearly see there are traits that are both male and female. We obviously can see that this person has some kind of medical / physical deformity.
The audio is just as off putting too…she tap dances to no music, so all you hear are her foot steps. And then it ends.
When I first saw this my brain went into over load. I felt like I just watched a snuff movie. Or that this was a sick joke at the expense of this disabled person. I also wondered, who filmed this eerie video and for what purpose? I was left asking a million questions.
As the video went viral and eventually was shared on blogs (livejournal/ dead journal communities, and eventually YES youtube…)
People believed it was a video put together from a cult, or that this video was cursed. It sort of became an early version of a creepy pasta…putting this mystery person into a spot light.
We begin to learn more about this video which took me down quite a rabbit hole that at first seemed dark, but eventually lead me to the complex story of Sandy Crisp better known as The Goddess Bunny .
The footage was actually a clip from a 1994 documentary directed boy Nick Bougas, called THE GODDESS BUNNY: Tour Hollywood’s underground with the QUEEN of the SCENE
What we will learn from this is that this mysterious video isn’t dark at all, but the life she endured was …and that she was turned into a cruel joke because of her appearance.
So Who is the Goddess Bunny??
ABNORMNAL BIRTH/ TORTURE/ ABUSE
Born as John Baima in 1960, in Santa Monica Cali on the top of a ferris wheel… Sandie was born a biological male but began to present herself as a trans gendered woman later in the 1970s. Upon being born 2 months premature, her mother had the polio virus inside of her.…and even though there was a polio vaccine at the time, because of her size of being premature, the polio effected her more severally.
As John grew older as a chilld, John aka Sandie was subject to malpractice from multiple doctors, making her body more disfigured and wheel chair bound. Some of these include being stretched on turning wheels, and having a metal bar inserted into her back to help make her taller. But of course none of these things were even done the right way, and just kept making things worse.
Sandie also was placed in several foster homes where she was a victim of constant sexual abuse mainly because of her gender identity and health related issues. She was even abused by her doctors who would use experimentation and torture under the guise of “treatments”. She was beat many times where bones were broken, she would be tied to her bed, and forced to eat her own vomit and urine. Her life was never easy.
By the time Sandie was 14, she returned back home to life with her mother. Her mother was deeply religious and rejected her gender identity and called her “John” rather than her preferred name.,.,
RISE TO BEING A CULT STAR:
Determined to be a star, she began to do drag performances in local gay clubs, and scrounge up as much money as possible to take the bus/ find rides to various cities so she could preform. Being a disabled person without a car, traveling to gay bars was a huge endeavor since the buses stopped running at 8:30PM and were not fully accessible to his her physical needs. Eventually she left home to live in West Hollywood joining a community of punks , artists, hustlers and homeless. She sewed her sequin dresses her self and insisted on being treated like a celebrity!
It was even said by a photographer, Rick Castro, in a NY times article that “She was a visually extreme person. The way she carried herself like she was a movie star from old Hollywood royalty. She didn’t carry her self like someone who should be ashamed” She even called her wheel chair her throne.
She even got roles in independent films in the late 80-s like Hollywood Vice Squad, The Drifter, and The Goddess Bunny Channels Shakespear. She became a muse Wirth a cult following of the LGBTQ community, Hollywood “rejects”, punks, and the art/ avant grade community. Later in life she was also casted in Marilyn Mansons music video for The Dope Show, Dr. Dre and Billy Tallent.
She appeared in a lot of unscripted films shot on handheld camera which were able to be found at video stores like MONDO VIDEO A GO GO, which was a haven for the LA Underground. She also appeared on obscure local access tv shows that were celebrated by the disenfranchised. One thing she was most outraged about was that the dog Lassie got a Hollywood star on the walk of fame before a person with a disability.
She was always surrounded by interesting characters. Some seedier than others. She had a room mate once who was a gentleman that had stumps for legs and 1 arm. He would dance on the streets for money and shook his ass like a go go danger with tight shorts to show off his larger than life package. He did end up moving out with someone who was a dance partner, taking off with the Goddess Bunny’s rent money.
It should also be noted that she never had a problem finding a date or a good time. I must say, Sandie in Boy form was quite handsome! Allegedly she was once arrested for hooking and sleeping with an entire football team. When she was in jail she sang Judy Garland to the prisoners to help them sleep. In some performances she was carried on stage by leather daddies, and was often told that she could seduce the truck stop Marlin Brandos.
In the 1994 documentary she openly talks about being sexually active with a sense of humor. She is asked to describe her first sexual encounter to which she said she was giving a guy head, and right before finishing he ended up peeing on her instead to which she responded “This bitch aint into golden showers”.
She also talks about multiple times when she was raped to one example she said what was upsetting was that a dress she was raped in was ruined, and it was taken away from her at the police station. Luckily one of the men was convicted and sent to prison for 7 years. She mentions the court hearing was an uphill battle because at the time, the counter argument was that “men can’t technically be raped” to which the goddess bunny said “If a man holds you down while another man fucks you in the ass when you didn’t ask for it, what would you call that”.
In 1997 married a gentleman by the name of Rocky Dale Wilson, but 4 years
Later he died bc of HIV. Before they met, he was in prison and was raped by a prisoner who had the virus. Sandie had also contracted the virus from Rocky.
I don’t know Rocky’s back story for sure… but from my memory of trolling live journal communities and myspace in 2005… I think he was a gogo dancer / aspiring actor.
From this age ended up living in multiple homeless shelters until she moved into an assisted living center in south LA where her room was filled with art and wigs!
LATE IN LIFE
Also, in 2014 she did run for mayor winning 500 votes..
Her last hoorah in life was in 2017 when she was in a cult film called “SCUM BAG “ and in 2020 she was featured in Harpers Bazaar as one of “Americas Most Legendary Drag Queens”
During her life she took in many many people who were homeless, recovering addicts, kicked out of their homes for being LGBTQ. She was a “mother” to many “children”. Even when she didn’t have a pot to piss in.
DEATH
Sadly she died January 27, 2021 due to covid. Not much is out there about her death, but it’s her life that made the actual impact.
One of her “children” (Hunter Ray Barker) said the following
“She was a true master at telling the story she wanted to tell. Even though she would embellish things, the world she presented is one I favor over the one we live in”
Closing
To me what makes her fascinating is that she was depicted as a monster from society (primarily because of the internet) but in all reality she was the complete opposite. (but isn’t that how it always is?)
She was a loving person who challenged societal norms while being an advocate for the disabled, the lgbtq community, and victims of child abuse.. With the universe stacked against her she still lived life on her own terms . In my opinion, her body became more or less a physical manifestation of how this cruel world had treated her. But regardless she knew her self worth and lived her best life making sure each day was full of cigarettes and sequins.
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