Bianca Del Rio's new tour may be called Dead Inside, but on the outside, she's plenty lively. In the near-decade since her win on "RuPaul's Drag Race," the former costume designer has become one of the most unstoppable drag queens in the business, with the acerbic wit of Joan Rivers and the glamor of Barbara Stanwyck.

On the day she joined me for our “Salon Talks” interview, she was channeling Lucille Ball by way of Rosie the Riveter, "sitting here in a wig," but, as the performer known offstage as Roy Haylock put it, "being myself." During our conversation, she opened up about drag bans, why she's not ready to write a memoir and why she says that even in the darkest times, she’s telling jokes. "I'm laughing at a funeral," she said.

You can watch my full interview with Del Rio here, or read the transcript of our conversation below.

The following interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

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What is Dead Inside? What is this going to be?

Dead Inside is my sixth world tour. We just announced that it's a world tour, and everyone's saying, “America and Canada are not the world.” I agree, but we've just announced the first leg of the tour. It's our first 60 cities, which start on Feb. 12 in San Diego, and we'll go through all of America and Canada.

It's my opportunity to get back on the road. I don't know if you knew this, but this past year, some acts by the name of Beyoncé, Taylor Swift — you might've heard of them — were on the road, and I thought, "I'm not going to tour." I thought, "Let's give these girls an opportunity to go out and make a couple of dollars." So I took time off. I took time off so that they could do it. This other one, you might know, Madonna, she's doing something too, so I'm waiting a little bit until she's halfway through, and then I'll start mine in February because I am considerate like that.

What is the structure of it? What are you thinking about? You prepare, and then you also like to freestyle.

You have to, especially because the world moves so quickly. All of this is in motion for me to do a tour maybe six months ago. So we're plotting and planning and heading up to the event and there's lots of material that you write, especially since I had about a year off, which was a great year to be off to do television and film work.

"When you take away a mimosa from a gay person at a drag brunch, this is some serious s**t."

My process is, you have nuggets and moments and notebooks of pages of stuff that you write and create throughout the year. Then as you get to February, so much happens, so much changes, so you have to be on the pulse of all of it. Also, when you're in different countries, different things matter to them. If you're making a joke about the American government, they don't care over there in the U.K. You have to find your balance. Always go in with more material than you think you will need, and then you see how it flows and you adapt each night.

One thing that has changed a lot in just the past year, 18 months, is the state of LGBTQ rights in our country.

Crazy.

Don't say gay laws, drag bans.

I'm old enough to have lived through quite a bit. When I was younger, we were concerned with AIDS when it was a major ordeal, and everyone was saying at the time, "You're going to die. This is the way it goes." Then it was all about protecting yourself and different elements have come and gone.

I've always thought being gay, I was fortunate, because many of my friends that were older had experienced much worse than I did. We had our places, we had our bars, we had our drag brunches. Now it's getting serious because when you take away a mimosa from a gay person at a drag brunch, this is some serious s**t. This is fighting words. Don't take our brunch; it's all we have. Let our drag queens perform and let us have a good time.

I'm just mystified that this is a topic or that this is even a discussion at this point. I pay taxes. I live my life. I pay taxes for a lot of things that are not my life, schools and children and things in my neighborhood that I have to contribute to, yet I don't get into the middle of their lives and say, "This is what it should be and this is what it shouldn't be." It blows my mind that that's even a topic, but of course, we're in a political year, so it just becomes this crazy, world and tries to provoke so many of........

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