The text came through on a Tuesday afternoon. “This is the Queen of Versailles. I can’t wait to meet u.” Jackie Siegel — the socialite-turned-reality star whose life of unapologetic excess first transfixed audiences in the 2012 documentary The Queen of Versailles — has spent more than two decades building a 90,000-square-foot palace in Florida and an equally baroque public persona to match. Now, her story has been reimagined as a Broadway musical, with Kristin Chenoweth donning the tiara. The production promises to explore Jackie’s improbable climb from small-town obscurity to multimillionaire notoriety, and the series of tragedies that have reshaped her life. But whether it’s a glittery celebration, a cautionary tale, or simply a chaotic swirl of both is harder to pin down.
I join Jackie for a preview performance of the show ahead of our sit-down interview, hoping to understand why her story still commands an audience — and why she believes this musical, of all forms, is the way to tell it. She arrives in the mezzanine at 7:32 p.m. for a 7:30 p.m. curtain (of course, the theater knows better than to start the show before the queen is seated), clad in a pale pink sweater dress, fur scarf, knee-high boots, black bow sash at her waist and a glittering tiara. Once she and her crowned entourage of eight friends settle into their seats, she quietly slips me a matching sparkly headpiece.
