“How are you!?” exclaims CeCe Peniston.

“Good! Great to see you, hon. This is amazing!” responds Kristine W.

“Long time,” says CeCe.

“Oh, my girl. I know! It’s been a long time. I’m looking forward to this show. We’re going to have our little family reunion,” smiles Kristine, adding to the interviewers, “Are we live now?”

We are indeed live, on a Zoom call with two of the most formidable dance icons the world has ever known. And for the next two hours, our conversation is bright, joyful, reflective, and, well… iconic.

CeCe, whose song “Finally,” and Kristine, whose “Feel What You Want,” are two of the defining Pride anthems of the ’90s (and beyond), will be individually appearing on Saturday, June 7, at the WorldPride Capitol Stage as part of the first day’s free concert festivities, which caps with a headlining performance from Wicked star, Cynthia Erivo.

Both women’s musical legacies are undeniable and while both are heterosexual, their affinity for — and attachment to — the LGBTQ community is authentic, rich, and potent.

“When somebody says, ‘I came out to your music,’ I just get so excited,” says Kristine. “I’m like, ‘Oh, this is so cool!’ It doesn’t matter how many times you hear it, you’re just like, ‘Oh, this makes me so happy.’ So this is what I did all this for. It made it all worth it. Music is medicine for everyone.”

“Music is at the heart level for me,” adds CeCe. “It creates so many memories and time and space for people where they remember exactly where they were when a song came on, or how they felt, or the reason why, or some kind of celebration. I feel like music takes me to the happy place.”

METRO WEEKLY: Let’s start simple. Who were your musical influences, and how did it affect your sound?

CECE PENISTON: For me, it was Patti LaBelle, Billie Holiday, Luther Vandross, Marvin Gaye, and Chaka Khan. Those are my folks.

KRISTINE W: I would definitely say definitely Chaka Khan. Dionne Warwick — I studied her a lot. Mel Torme for the scat, the improv. I was really into jazz when I was little, so I’d run around on my bike and at the yard sales buy up all the Mel Torme and Ella Fitzgerald records so I could go home and study scat.

But the real impact on my life was Donna Summer. Her music was just a different sound for everyone. It kind of fused everything all together — dance and R&B. And the big production with all the violins — it was so musical. I grew up in the church. In London, they called my music gospel house.

CECE: That’s so funny because I have a gospel background, too. I started off in the church when I was 13 years old. I joined the choir, so I definitely understand how that had so much influence.

KRISTINE: It’s huge.

CECE: Yeah, it’s a big influence on your music, the way that you sing, the way that you interpret. Kristine, I know you know what I’m talking about.

KRISTINE: Being a white girl, the white church is more tapped down, but luckily we were blessed to be in a very diverse neighborhood and we would trade soloists between all the churches. So we got to have some of the great Black vocalists come in and be our guest vocalist. They traded me a lot because I was so into it and I had the sound, you know what I mean?

CECE: Yes!

KRISTINE: I just innately had it. And it’s a different vibe. The white churches, everybody sits real nice. The Black churches, everybody’s talking and yelling during your performance.

CECE: Standing up and hand clapping.

KRISTINE: “Yes, say it white girl!” I wasn’t ready for it. I was just like, “Wow.” But then it’s so boring to go back to the white church. It’s like, “I don’t want to go back there.”

MW: Did you have a similar experience, CeCe?

CECE: You know what? I was going to a Methodist church at one point in my life and then I switched later to a Baptist church. So it was definitely a different experience from the Methodist Church because the singing is different. There’s a little bit more soul in how you sing [in a Baptist church] and how the choir is directed.

KRISTINE: We never talked about it, but I figured you were a church girl growing up, because I could tell in your style. I think we all have that gospel feel in our music. It’s woven in there.

MW: What made you decide to pursue music as a career?

CECE: I was around probably 11 years old, going to elementary school at the time, and they were doing different musicals and plays and stuff like that. I had a teacher who heard me sing during a music class and she was like, “You should really come in and audition for the plays.” The first play I auditioned for was called H.M.S. Pinafore. I ended up doing that, and from being on stage, it felt like home for me. From that point forward, that’s what made me decide what career I wanted to do.

KRISTINE: My mom was a working musician and that’s how we survived. My dad died when I was three, and so she had four kids all under the age of six. She basically was a good singer and a great guitar player, but never really planned on that happening. My dad was a farmer, and it was a shock when he died, he died at 32, so it was kind of a crisis situation for all of us to eat.

So my mom became a six-night-a-week performer. And she was a solo artist. I learned a lot from her. I’d go and watch her perform, sneak backstage and hide under the tables, or do whatever I could do and just kind of studied her. My other siblings really weren’t into it.

But I would say my mom wasn’t passionate about music like I was. She did it for our survival, but I had all the, “I’m going to do this, I’m going to do that.” I was always wanting to sing backgrounds with her. As soon as I was old enough, we would go out and do a “Judds thing” where we’d perform at funerals and weddings and wherever we could make extra money. We did that a lot. We were kind of like the Judds of the Pacific Northwest on a smaller scale, you know what I mean?

CECE: I love it. I love it. My mother, she wasn’t in music as far as singing, but she was a modern dancer under Katherine Dunham.

KRISTINE: Wow, that’s incredible.

CECE: So I think that’s where the entertainment side of me came from. And my dad was in broadcasting. Very interesting dynamics — he wrote poetry, and my mother was a dancer. So I think those all encompassed together made me feel like, “Hey, I want to do entertainment as well.”

KRISTINE: Oh, that’s really cool.

CECE: And all that pageant, too. I did pageant a lot.

KRISTINE: Yeah, we both did.

CECE: They had to do the question and answer thing, and you had to answer on the spot and all that.

KRISTINE: That’s no joke. You have to really think on your feet in the pageants. They don’t mess around. But it’s great training.

MW: Did either of you win titles?

KRISTINE: I’m a former Miss Washington. I went to the Miss America Pageant, and I think you were a former Miss —

CECE: Miss Black Arizona and Miss Galaxy. 1989, girl!

KRISTINE: That is so cool. Oh, look at us.

MW: Do you remember the craziest question you were asked during the pageants?

CECE: I can just remember more of taking my time [to answer]. Somebody would ask you the question, and really slowly you’re like, “What I would like to be when I grow up is….” Not that particular question, but it’s like you take your time because you already knew, “Hey, this is it.” You know what I mean? So I can just remember having nerves back in the day.

KRISTINE: I remember them asking “Where do you see yourself in five years?” And I was like, “Oh, I see myself performing, singing at stages all over the world,” and all this kind of stuff. And then, after I said it, I was like, “That’s probably not what they wanted to hear from a Miss America contestant.” They probably would have liked it better if I did something way more buttoned-down, like, “Oh, I’m going to be a nice attorney and marry a nice boy.”

CECE: You know what? I think they like some of that authenticity, though. I think they like the person who’s slightly outside of the box as long as you don’t go too far. They liked the realness.

KRISTINE: Then I should have said, “I’m going to be a gay icon.” That would’ve stopped the party, wouldn’t it? They weren’t ready for that then, huh?

CECE: [Laughs.] Okay, go girl!

MW: Actually, you are both gay icons.

KRISTINE: Yes, we are! Hell, yeah!

MW: What does it feel like to have achieved the status of gay icon?

CECE: It’s such an amazing feeling to know that you have a place in this world where people adore the thing that you just love to do the most. Singing is something I just really love to do, and so I’m thankful that people love it as much as I do, and they love me.

And to go any place in the world and hit stages, and still to this day get the same response that I’ve gotten since I started in the ’90s, is such an amazing feeling. So, I definitely consider it a blessing, and I thank the gay community for always rallying around and supporting me and loving my music. I feel blessed.

KRISTINE: That’s how I feel, just super grateful. And every time I’ve got another show coming up, I’m just grateful to be out there. And to do WorldPride is iconic, to be with all of our people and get everybody together and celebrate all the great things that are going on.

Of course, there’s always tumultuous things happening. I was at a party in Palm Springs a couple of weeks ago, and there’s probably 14 of some of my gay friends. And I remember being in Washington D.C. on a ginormous stage for the big 2000 march. We were trying to get marriage rights for everybody. Now, everybody that was at the party a couple of weeks ago are all married. And it just hit me so hard there. I was like, “This is so crazy. I’m the one that’s divorced, and they’re all married.”

CECE: That’s crazy.

KRISTINE: I just always think about Pride as a time to celebrate how far we’ve come and all the good things that have happened. Yeah, there’s crazy stuff going on, but you got to take a beat and appreciate you.

CeCe and I have been on the journey a long time, we’ve seen it. We’ve been there and fighting the good fight. So to see some of the great things that happen, I just feel like it’s a good thing to celebrate Pride and remind the youngins that it wasn’t so easy for everyone.

CECE: You know what’s crazy about 2000 too? That’s when we did “Lifetime to Love.”

KRISTINE: That’s right. I wrote a song and it was —

CECE: I fell in love with it.

KRISTINE: She loved the song. I was going to put it on my album and I gave it to her. It represents a lot to me because I’d had another baby during that time, and it was just a lifetime to love. You did a beautiful job on that, I’ll tell you that, girl. You sang that so good. Definitely made my heart happy.

CECE: Thank you. That makes me smile.

KRISTINE: Love you. Proud of you.

MW: Why specifically do you think you have both attracted such a gay following?

CECE: I think it’s the reset that I try to do — the reinvent, come up with brand new shows. I have a brand new show now. I’m just changing my looks all the time. And people know that I’m friendly, they know that I am interactive, that I like to have a good time and have fun. And I think that people want to see the memories that you created come to life. And I think that’s part of it. Because people will come to me, and say, “I came out when ‘Finally’ came out, I thank you for your song.”

So I think it’s just the excitement. The 1990s were such an epic period of music that we can’t duplicate. I think that people want to feel that feeling again, and I think that’s that constant adrenaline rush that we’re able to give to the crowd and make them feel that good feeling all over again.

KRISTINE: I think “Feel What You Want” was a pivotal song. It was my first single, and it seemed like so many people came out to “Feel What You Want.” [Sings.] “You just feel what you want it to be, what you want it to be, what you want it to be!” It kind of gave them maybe a little bump and the jump to come out and be themselves, and feel good about who they were, who they are. It’s kind of a timeless message and I was shocked that people grabbed onto it. I had no idea that that song was so huge at the time — it just changed my life.

CECE: You know what’s crazy about you speaking about how you didn’t know that song was going to be so big? I felt the same way about “Finally.”

“Finally” was my first single. I’m like, “Hey, I got the song I think you’ll like.” And I ended up putting it out and then I got the, “Hey, people love this song. They gravitate to this song.” So I understand that feeling when you see something blow up. It’s funny, you don’t get to see it as much now as then, just because music has changed so much through streaming and how things are put out through the record company and all that. But to feel that excitement in that moment was so amazing.

KRISTINE: Don’t you feel like we really were at the best time to be live performers? Because we got to perform at all these wonderful, huge clubs, and most of them don’t exist anymore. The clubs are smaller, there’s fewer of them. COVID took out a lot of the clubs that were left.

CECE: Yes, agreed.

MW: You both must have performed at Tracks, our legendary D.C. nightclub from that time period.

CECE: That club was off the chain. When you came to Tracks, it was going to be on and popping.

KRISTINE: We did a show where they built me a four-foot pedestal and I hid the dancers underneath it. And it looked like I had a really long skirt and that I was really, really tall. And then all of a sudden, the dancers came out from underneath my skirt and everybody was like, “Ahhhh!”

MW: Some of your songs have been associated with a particular moment from pop culture. CeCe, we’re thinking Priscilla, Queen of the Desert. And Kristine, it was with Queer as Folk.

KRISTINE: Oh yeah. “Some Lovin’.”

MW: How does it feel to be intrinsically connected to those pop culture moments?

CECE: That’s such an epic feeling. It’s funny, but when Priscilla, Queen of the Desert came out, someone told me, they’re like, “Yo, you have a seven-minute version of ‘Finally’ in this movie.” And I was like, “What? Are you serious?” Like, “Oh, I got to see this.” And I went and saw it. Not only did I see the movie, I saw it on Broadway in London with my mother, and I saw the cast and met the cast, and that was epic.

And then to even make it greater, I went to Istanbul and I performed Priscilla, Queen of the Desert with the bus on the live stage with all the dancers, and did this big thing on the stage. So it’s like that moment just keeps living on and on forever.

MW: For you, Kristine, that video where you’re in the diner dancing with the cast and Sharon Gless is glaring at you.

KRISTINE: That whole shoot was crazy. We shot the music video that day with the whole cast. It was full on hair, makeup, people everywhere. And the show was so popular at that time. I recognized Sharon Gless instantly when she came around the corner, and I’m like, “Oh my, God, Cagney & Lacey? What? What?”

CECE: Oh, I love it.

KRISTINE: All of us ended up being such good friends. I remember everybody was really sad when the shoot was over because we all got really close during that time. Just a super magical moment. You could just feel the joy on the set. I was like, “This is incredible.”

And then I was shocked when they were like, “Oh, they’re going to use your video to open 10 or 12 episodes.” I was like, “Oh, what?” You know what I mean? It was just crazy.

MW: How did you two meet?

CECE: In 2000, we were both on the circuit, but I don’t think we officially met until we did “Lifetime to Love,” the song that Kristine had written and she gave to me. And then we started seeing each other after we did the song more on the circuit and we knew each other. So, that was the beginning of us getting to know each other.

KRISTINE: I’ll never forget, we did a show in Tacoma, Washington. Do you remember that one? They didn’t build the stage right.

CECE: Oh my God!

KRISTINE: Remember?

CECE: Is that where I slipped and fell right there?

KRISTINE: Yes! Yes!

CECE: And I was like, “I got an attitude.”

KRISTINE: But she was so great. She kept going, but she read that freaking promoter, and I was like, “Yeah!” She said everything that I wanted to say, but I was like, “Oh my God, I love this woman. I have to be friends with her forever. I love her so much.”

She was just such a soldier for music, such a professional. And you go and do shows with a lot of different club divas or whatever, and they’re whiny or this and that, you have to put up with a lot of madness. And this one was so professional, but when it wasn’t right, she called it, just boom right there. And I was like, “Oh my God, I love her.”

CECE: Thank you. I love you too, girl. You have a great personality, just great energy. And you were just so authentic.

MW: What happened with the stage?

CECE: It wasn’t built right — it was uneven. And so when I went to go step, I ended up tripping and falling. And so I was like, “I got an attitude, need to talk right now.” I just started singing with an attitude because I was pissed that I fell on a stage, and so I kind of just said something and then I let it go. They knew I was not very happy with what happened.

KRISTINE: And it was their fault. A couple of slats were not nailed in.

CECE: Yes. And it caught my heel. And almost like, you know how you kind of step out of your shoe? That’s pretty much what happened.

KRISTINE: It was terrifying. And she just kept going and she started singing about it. And at the end, she let them have it.

CECE: And it wasn’t just me. I could tell all the other artists were like, once we talked about it, “No, the stage was not built right.” And that usually does not happen. Usually, they have that part of it together. But when I talked to everybody, I was like, “Okay, I wasn’t crazy.”

MW: The LGBTQ community is under attack constantly by the current Trump administration. How do you feel about watching a community that loves you so much be under such harsh attack from its own country?

KRISTINE: Well, honestly, when I first started this party thirty years ago, it was such a traumatic time for me because I was in Las Vegas, and all my friends were dying of AIDS. So I have a whole different look on this. I was holding people’s hands dying in apartments by the Palace Station Casino. No family came, nobody came. We would pass the hat around at my shows.

We would galvanize people to get money together so that people weren’t thrown out on the street as they’re dying. It was war, literally. My close friends were dying left and right.

So, I saw something so horrifying that nothing — I’m like a soldier — nothing seems that bad to me after what I’ve witnessed. And the fear of everybody that you’re all going to get AIDS. We’d go and hang out there and people would scare the shit out of us. “Oh, you’re going to die. You’re going to get AIDS.”

Once you go through that… I might not be the best person to ask because I’ve seen such horrific things that nothing seems that bad to me anymore. Does that make sense?

MW: It makes perfect sense.

KRISTINE: People were so afraid. It was like COVID times one hundred.

MW: But now, they’re trying to erase us, so —

KRISTINE: Well, the gay community will never be erased. It’s big, beautiful and loud. You’re never going to be erased. That is never going to happen. No, uh-uh, never going to happen. I have complete faith that we’re going to get through all this just like we did before. CeCe, what do you think?

CECE: The gay community is, like you said, unmatched. You can never erase the gay community. They’re such a placeholder in the world. I think we just have to just watch and wait and keep fighting. And as we usually do, we’re never going to stop to make sure that people’s rights are being put into the right place and that everyone is recognized as they should be. So, I think we just keep going.

KRISTINE: We’ve got to stay positive and uplift, because if you get too negative, you chase the younger people away because they’re like, “All these old cranky-ass, whatever people.” You know what I mean? So I think it’s important for us to celebrate Pride, celebrate all the accomplishments, and then galvanize everyone to make strides into the future. It’s really important.

MW: Do you ever get sick of performing your biggest hits?

KRISTINE: Well, CeCe, because of “Finally,” you’ve got to answer that one.

CECE: Okay, girl. Look, as long as them coins keep coming, honey, I’m going to keep performing. [Laughs.] No, but on a real note, I really do love singing, I really love the different audiences that I get to meet all over the world, and I’m thankful. And when you get sick of singing it, I think you just need to reset the show. Changing my look makes me excited, along with doing all that stuff. It’s like one minute I’m in braids. The next minute I’m in curly hair. The next minute I’m in straight. So it’s just keeping yourself engaged so that you can keep other people engaged.

Because there are days when you’re human, and especially me, like I’m human, I may be tired that day, not that I don’t want to do the show. I’m just tired and need to get into a groove. And I’m like, “Okay, you got to get into the CeCe Peniston groove. Let’s roll!”

MW: What is the most diva thing about you?

KRISTINE: Wow.

CECE: [Laughs heartily.] I think of my makeup and hair session. I like the whole makeup, the hair get down. I think that’s probably my diva thing, because I like to see it a certain way.

KRISTINE: I would have to say, because basically growing up on the stages of Vegas, it’s more about costuming. I think I’m really anal about my costumes. And even for the dancers, the whole look of how we come out. It’s that Vegas thing. It’s inbred in me, right? Costumes.

And the opening number — it’s got to be perfect, how we open the show, otherwise… This is what they say in Vegas, “They only remember how you open the show and how you close it,” to be honest. You know what I mean? That’s the biggest thing that kind of rubbed off on me. So big opening, big closing.

CECE: Love it!

MW: We were really hoping for all the blue M&Ms removed, but okay. Let’s end with a hypothetical question. We’ll start with Kristine and then CeCe. So, let’s say in an alternate universe, you’re both gay women. Who in that alternate universe would be your dream date?

CECE: Oh, my dream date?

MW: It has to be a woman.

KRISTINE: Oh, you know who I think would be fun? Elizabeth Hurley. With the killer body. Just because she’s a lot smarter than anybody knows. She’s famous for being beautiful and hot with her great boobs and her perfect body, but she’s so intelligent and she’s hot. If I was gay, I would go for her. And she’s got the accent, the British accent. Okay. All right. Triple threat.

CECE: I would go for Miracle Watts. Miracle Watts is like an Instagram girl — actress, great body, beautiful girl. That would be my pick.

KRISTINE: See? That wasn’t very hard for us, was it? Most straight girls would just sit there and go, “Okay, wait a minute…”

Kristine W performed on Saturday, June 7, at the WorldPride Street Festival + Concert on the Capitol Stage, 3rd Street and Pennsylvania Avenue NW.

CeCe Peniston performed on Saturday, June 7, at the WorldPride Street Festival + Concert on the Capitol Stage, 3rd Street and Pennsylvania Avenue NW.

CeCe Peniston will appear at the Prince George’s County Parks & Recreation 2025 Juneteenth Festival, on Saturday, June 14, from noon to 5 p.m. at Watkins Regional Park, 301 Watkins Park Drive, Upper Marlboro, Maryland. Free. All ages welcome. Visit www.pgparks.com/event_list/juneteenth-festival-2025.

Visit www.kristinew.com and www.cecepeniston.com.