Actress and LGBTQ+ activist Laverne Cox, who was the first trans person to appear on the cover of a Cosmopolitan magazine, was revealed as ‘Chess Piece’ after the lighting up the stage during the Barbie Week episode of The Masked Singer US.
The trans activist, who pulled the wool over the panellists’ heads with her performance of Chaka Khan’s I’m Every Woman, said in a voiceover as ‘Chess Piece’:
“As a kid, I was a rich target for others to tease. It seemed like every piece of me was something others could poke at.”
“And on top of that, I loved Barbie,” the star continued. “But the part that hurt was that I wasn’t allowed to play with her.”
The actress explained in the same voiceover that Barbie helped her heal from all the scrutiny and criticism she received for many years.
“I started buying them for myself and realised it’s never too late to have a happy childhood,” Cox shared. “Even decades later.”
“Barbie can be anything. She made me and every woman feel like we can be anything too,” she added. “So tonight, I’m here to celebrate all of us. Every woman out there.”
