My Favorite Room: For Gabriel Iglesias, no funny business in the bathroom
Actor and comedian Gabriel Iglesias inside his favorite room, the bathroom. He listens to Eagles playlists and enjoys a strong wifi signal in a room where he says he spends a lot of time.
Restroom, john, privy, outhouse, loo. Call it what you will, but for comedian and “Magic Mike XXL” actor Gabriel “Fluffy” Iglesias, the private bathroom at his Signal Hill compound is a sanctuary.
“Whether I’m at home or on the road or in the lobby or on a plane, I’m never alone,” said Iglesias, 39. “If I’m in that bathroom, people leave me alone.”
The 172-square-foot bathroom is one of four in the comic’s 14,404-square-foot Signal Hill compound, where he stores his touring merchandise. It’s become a home away from home that sits five minutes from his Long Beach residence.
Iglesias is in the second season of Fuse TV’s “Fluffy Breaks Even,” a weekly peek into the comic’s touring life, and recording a one-hour special for Netflix.
But the funnyman says his compound is no joke.
“There is a kitchen and a lounge and couches and fish tanks. It’s a glorified man cave. People say this is the world’s greatest man cave,” he said. “But there are no bedrooms. If I had bedrooms, I would probably never leave.”
What’s the best part about your bathroom?
The room has a remote-controlled TOTO toilet. When you’re done making magic, you hit one button and a jet of water cleans you. You can control the pressure and the temperature of the water. It’s got a dryer feature that blows air. It’s magical.
Decked out with a remote control toilet, a urinal, sound system and cubby holes for his shoes, Iglesias says its the one place he can go where no one bothers him.
Anything else?
There’s a sign on the door that makes it clear that it’s mine. The sign has my logo on it, but I’m having a keypad installed so that I can lock it and unlock it. I have a giant shower, a urinal, a shoe rack, a bench, a ton of drawer space, a closet and an amazing sink.
What makes the sink “amazing”?
It’s not full of hair, long hairs. There are not brushes everywhere. If I put a toothbrush on the edge of the sink, when I come back the next day, it’s still there. That’s what makes it great.
Besides the obvious, what else do you do in that bathroom?
For the most part I like to sit and listen to music.
Do you work on your stand-up routine there?
No, nothing is practiced offstage. I can only work on my shows while I’m doing the show. I don’t put pen to paper. What you see is what you get.
How green is the compound?
The entire Fluffy compound is run on solar power. It’s so green that we have had issues with plumbing because of how little water we use.
You have transcended from being a Latino comic to gain mass appeal. How did you do that?
A lot of it has to do with what I’m not doing. I don’t get political. I try not to talk about religion. And I don’t talk about sports. Those three things will divide a room in half. I’m not squeaky-clean, but it’s not a foul show. It’s a show where you would feel comfortable bringing your family.
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