When Leslie Ezelle hit TV screens on this season of HGTV’s Design Star, she was an instant fan favorite. It’s not everyday you meet an interior designer who’s a former Dallas Cowboys cheerleader, mother of four and breast cancer survivor who has lived everywhere from Mississippi to the Philippines, and who just happens to also have a wife named Libby.
When Leslie Ezelle hit TV screens on this season of HGTV’s Design Star, she was an instant fan favorite. It’s not everyday you meet an interior designer who’s a former Dallas Cowboys cheerleader, mother of four and breast cancer survivor who has lived everywhere from Mississippi to the Philippines, and who just happens to also have a wife named Libby.
We interviewed her the week of the show's premiere, and since then the Texas-based Ezelle didn’t win Design Star but she came out triumphant from the series nonetheless. Named an honorary chairperson for Susan G. Komen’s Race for the Cure organization, Ezelle just spent October (National Breast Cancer Awareness Month) helping raise tens of thousands for the organization, which garnered her the “privilege of being named hometown hero” by Dallas-based KDFW FOX4 TV. Her biggest project last month: Creating a 2,600-pound, 14-ft. tall bullet bra sculpture with the catchphrase, “You Can’t Strap a Good Woman Down.”
This busy lesbian mom (her wife is partner at a prominent Dallas financial firm) has a devilish wit (she follows up “I had not been on the bottom once” with a ba-da-bing “that’s what he said,” for example) that’s nearly as distracting as her amazing physique. We talked to Ezelle about pillow fights, moody kids, becoming the Modern Family of design shows, and the destiny she and Ellen Degeneres share.
Tell me about that amazing bra sculpture.
I designed and help sculpt a huge 1950s metal strappy bra, hanging from the tree of life, weighing 2,600 pounds. This Madonna-like bra is named “Ann-E Girl” after my kids’s aunt, who died of breast cancer. It toured Dallas, including a visit to Dallas City Hall, where the mayor did a proclamation about the bra, officially “Turning Dallas Pink” in honor of breast cancer awareness month. “Ann-E Girl” visited various cities and tourist cites leaving a trail of pink in her path to eventually land at the finish line of the Race for the Cure — to be greeted by over 30,000 runners! Now that breast cancer awareness month has come to a close, this sculpture is moving on to other organizations that help deal with the struggles of women trying to overcome adversity.
Is being a working mom different in a same-sex headed household?
Well, maybe, I guess. You know we both wear the pants in the family, so to speak, however we don’t have penis’s, or peni I should say. But I have to say we both can have pretty big balls at certain times. So I don’t know where that puts us. As far as the kids are concerned, this is just the way it is. Libby, my partner and I are so totally different that it makes for a good balance in our life. I am the mom that makes costumes, feeds the family, and help the kids with any creative project. Lib is the one that coaches the teams, helps with homework, and makes the money — at least for now. The dogs know that I am the blonde one who sometimes throws them a bit of fat off the steak I am eating, and the brown headed one, Libby, is the one who takes us on walks. So, we all have our roles to play.
How does your background — especially moving from Biloxi, Mississippi to Philippines to Louisiana to Texas — affect your design sensibility?
It doesn’t. No wait, maybe that’s not true, maybe it gives me a more “global perspective.” If you have watched Design Star that may strike a chord with you. There was a gal on the show that said her design style was “global” and used the term “global perspective” every chance she got. It was hilarious! We had a drinking game over here one night where we had to drink every time she said “global.” Needless to say, we were all two sheets to the wind by the end of the night. [Laughs]
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