Lina’s Great Escape

Like so many of us, Lina Bradford will remain home this summer. “I miss Paris, Mykonos, and Ibiza most of all,” the star of the popular IGTV show,  In the Dollhouse with Lina laments. She has made trips to Provincetown, her mother’s home in The Poconos and enjoyed a few weekends in the Hamptons — but this will be the first time in thirty that Bradford has not traveled internationally.

She longs for a return to her globetrotting life but is grateful for the lessons the pandemic has taught her. “My time in quarantine forced me to prioritize matters that I had kept too long on the back burner,” she reflects. “Since I couldn’t travel, I sought new ways to find clarity, serenity, and inner peace.” 

As Lina explains, daily life can be hum drum with every day the same as the last. “Wake up, go to work, rush home, eat, watch the news, go to sleep and wake up and do it all again. Travel, for me, was always an escape.”

Luckily, Lina has other interests besides travel, many of which her fans are well aware of. She has her Barbie dolls (Lina has collected over 600 pint-sized mannequins); her fashion (she can spend hours in her closet arranging and rearranging hot designer looks); her music (Lina was the resident house DJ on New York’s Fire Island Pines for ten years); and she enjoys long phone chats with her friends. “I’ve always been a talker,” she explains. “It was the reason I first launched my web show, ”

Four years ago, she took a surprise hiatus from the show to concentrate on other facets of her career. However, while alone at home, she started thinking of crazy new segment ideas and guests she would love to interview on the show. “Suddenly, the time felt right to bring it all back.”

In the Dollhouse with Lina is shot in Lina Bradford’s dressing room. It offers Lina and her viewers a new type of escape. A 15-minute trip back to our carefree childhood days when it was OK to live within our magical imaginations.

On display are Lina’s fabulous dolls, her incredible wit (known as “Linish"), and an infectious smile that takes center stage as she discusses pop culture with her celebrity friends. The first two seasons featured Whoopi Goldberg, Carson Kressley, Candis Cayne and Dominique Jackson.  “In season one, I was figuring it out. Season 2 was way more me.  And season three is all the way Lina amplified like the true essence of all that is Linish,” she laughs.

Season Three is the first to welcome a pair of guests to each show, one virtual and one in-studio.  All are fashion mavens: legends of nightlife, queens from RuPaul’s Drag Race and glamazons from America’s Next Top Model. They dish on their lives and careers and play silly games like “cootie catcher..  The new season also introduces a transformed Magic 8 Ball, now called Balliquia, who acts as Lina’s cohost and cohort in crime.  “Miss Balliquia is fierce!” exclaims Bradford.  “She’s been around before Siri and Alexa and she’s crafty and knows how to cut up.”

Lina Bradford grew up as an only child in New York City, across the street from Carnegie Hall. Without siblings, she would spend most of her days alone with only her wild imagination to keep her company. “I would put my Barbies in the craziest scenarios,” she remembers. “Whether they were fighting crime, sailing the French Riviera, or running high powered executive meetings in the boardroom, they always did it with glamour and style.”

Raised to be confident in the skin that she’s in, the trans woman proudly proclaims that she has never done labels. She’s only worn them.

Lina’s career in entertainment began early. She modeled and studied dance for ten and a half years, performing modern ballet, tap, and jazz in several companies throughout New York. The moves she learned would become part of her signature style when, twenty-seven years ago, she left the dance stage for the dance floor, spinning records all over New York and Europe, including her legendary ten-year residency on Fire Island.

Guests on Season 3 include Amanda Lepore, Bob the Drag Queen, Miss J Alexander, Arisce Wanzer, and Joey Arias.

In the Dollhouse with Lina airs exclusively on Instagram @inthedollhousewithlina