A New York Times profile on EJ Johnson puts the gender fluid style-star forward as a boundary buster and “not just some other rich girl.”
Since he was outed by TMZ in 2013, Johnson, 25, has claimed his spot as pop-culture’s red carpet gender fucker, mostly as a fabulous dresser. His style is “ostentatiously androgynous”: fur shawls, ankle boots, diamond chokers, sheer tops, draped on a frame nearly as tall as that of his 6’9″ Dad, Magic.
The Times says,
“Today we are talking about breaking boundaries,” EJ Johnson declared from the stage of Beautycon, a two-day cosmetics festival held in August at the Los Angeles Convention Center. The 25-year-old son of Magic Johnson was moderating a panel called “The Gender Revolution,” and he was dressed for the part: black silk pants, crop top, sleeveless duster.
“We are talking about people who are not afraid to live their truth,” he continued, in a white armchair flanked by neon palm trees. “That is what beauty is all about, because it is in the eye of the beholder, honey.”
He introduced the panelists: young beauty “influencers” who, like Mr. Johnson, belong to a generation whose vocabulary for gender and sexual identity has stretched to include every conceivable hue. One of them, a gender-fluid 17-year-old YouTube star named Brendan Jordan, said, “I get asked if I’m a boy or a girl a lot. I’m just like, ‘Yes.’”
Mr. Johnson nodded and added: “That’s just the way we’re moving in the world, where everyone’s just going to be one big gray area.”
Like his gender-diverse wardrobe, his brand of fame is quintessentially modern: celebrity scion turned reality TV star turned Instagram self-chronicler. (His 631,000 followers had a virtual seat on his family’s summer yacht trip through Europe.)
EJ’s public life began when he was still in the womb. On Nov. 7, 1991, Magic Johnson made the announcement that he was H.I.V. positive and was retiring from the Lakers. At the time, H.I.V./AIDS was still widely thought to be a “gay disease,” a fallacy that Mr. Johnson’s case helped dispel.
EJ he was unaware of his father’s H.I.V. status until elementary school, when he was assigned a book report and found a book about his father in the library. He said,
“The school called my mom and was like, ‘We don’t know if you want him to do the book report, because it talks about the H.I.V.,’ I think it was at that point that they told me that he had been sick and he’s a lot better.”
When he was 15, his mother spied him staring at boys on a vacation in Hawaii and started a conversation, but EJ was still figuring out his sexuality. It wasn’t until three years later, when he was about to leave for New York University, that he came out decisively to both parents.
The matter was made public in 2013, when EJ was leaving a club on the Sunset Strip holding hands with a male friend. A TMZ reporter ambushed him with a camera, assuming he was out with his boyfriend. Mr. Johnson, who was 20, shrugged the whole thing off. Back at N.Y.U., he tried to ignore the online commotion.
“Everybody was texting me. And I’m just like, ‘Yo, what?’”
But he welcomed the opportunity to step into the spotlight, saying,
“I’m reveling in it, and I’m making it work to my advantage.”
Within weeks, he had a manager and was shopping a reality show to MTV and Bravo.
“I would watch the Kardashians and think, I could do that.”
Then his friend Dorothy Wang (daughter of the billionaire Roger Wang) invited him to a pool party being filmed for her own reality show.
EJNYC, which followed EJ’s adventures in NYC (duh) lasted six episodes. But he was not happy with how the show portrayed him.
“I don’t even recognize that person. It was sad. It was, like, this is supposed to be my show and my moment, and it wasn’t what I wanted at all. I mean, I looked good, but that was just me doing me.
Everyone was just worried about me being ‘relatable,’ and even that word made me want to gag.”
Now that reality stardom is behind him (for now), he’s taking acting lessons and contemplating starting a fashion line.
“I don’t think the fashion world has made any type of major huge strides, where we need to start commending anybody yet. They should probably start highlighting people who are doing it in the streets, as opposed to whatever celebrity they’re putting in a skirt for five seconds just for publicity.”
Was that shade to Jaden Smith? Maybe, but point taken
Maybe he’s “relatable” after all.
(Photos, Instagram; via NY Times)
