Ambush Magazine is pleased to announce Regina Adams as King Cake Queen XXVII, The Amethyst Queen.
Adams has achieved legendary status in New Orleans as a performer and pillar of the community. She began performing nearly 60 years ago on Bourbon Street and still performs today. She has also been a bartender, bar owner, and community activist.
Adams has been an eyewitness to several seminal moments in local queer history, including the 1973 Up Stairs Lounge arson and the HIV / AIDS crisis. She was at the Up Stairs Lounge the night it was burned down and narrowly escaped the flames when she momentarily stepped out to retrieve her checkbook at her nearby apartment. Her lover, Reggie Adams, perished in the fire. When the HIV / AIDS epidemic first ravaged New Orleans, Adams was an early advocate for adequate funding and participated in some of the earliest AIDS fundraisers in the city.
Throughout her storied career, Adams has been awarded numerous titles, including Southern Decadence Grand Marshal, Grand Marshal of the Gay Easter Parade, and Queen of Amon Ra.
The King Cake Queen is chosen each year by the Captain of the Krewe of Queenateenas, which was founded by Rip and Marsha Naquin-Delain and their good friend Jay Loomis in 1987. Originally, the Krewe gathered on Naquin-Delain’s balcony at the Ambush headquarters on Bourbon Street on Mardi Gras day for a bead toss. In 1994, on a lark, they began naming a King Cake Queen. The title went to whoever could get the most revelers on the street below to show their goods for beads.
Rip and Marsha both died in 2017, but Toma Acosta, who bought Ambush in the same year, kept the tradition alive.
Previous King Cake Queens:
I excommunicated
II Jay Loomis, Jewel of the Nile
III Smurf Murphy, The Rainbow Queen
IV Reba Douglas, Pearl of the Sea
V Liz Simms, The She Devil
VI Christine Cheridon, Czarina
VII Stephanie Williams, Goddess 2000
VIII Phyllis Denmark, The Peacock Queen
IX Lisa Beaumann, The Freedom Queen
X Teryl-Lynn Foxx, The Voodoo Queen
XI excommunicated
XII Savanna DeLorean, The Amazon Queen
XIII Raven Kennedy, The Diamond Queen
XIV Princesse Stephaney, The Fantasy Queen
XV Marsha Naquin-Delain, The Fleur de Lis Queen
XVI Tami Tarmac, The Grandee Queen
XVII Opal Masters, The Parisian Queen
XVIII Rona Connors, The Chrysanthemum Queen
XIX Nicole DuBois, The Samba Queen
XX Dusty Debris, The Platinum Queen
XXI Barbara Ella, The Borghese Queen
XXII Aubrey Synclaire, Queen of the Opera
XXIII Monica Synclaire-Kennedy, The Pride Queen
XXIV Solitaire
XXV Tiffany Alexander, The Silver Queen
XXVI Felicia Phillips, The Ruby Queen
XXVII Regina Adams, The Amethyst Queen
