'MATRIX' MAKER CRAVES WHIP
LARRY Wachowski, the gender-bending co-creator of the blockbuster "Matrix" movies, has gone into seclusion and immersed himself in the weird world of BDSM - bondage, discipline, sadism and masochism.
While it's been rumored for some time that Wachowski has been taking female hormones in preparation for a sex change, much of his private life has been shrouded in secrecy. The visionary writer/director - who now sports a distinctly feminized look in his rare public appearances - lives with towering blonde dominatrix Karin Winslow, who uses the nom de kink Ilsa Strix.
Rolling Stone reports that Winslow fell in love with Wachowki after he began frequenting her L.A. whip-and-chain emporium, The Dungeon. She later left her "husband," a hulking partial female-to-male transsexual porn star named Buck Angel, for the cross-dressing auteur.
Wachowski - who co-wrote and produced the upcoming Natalie Portman thriller "V for Vendetta" - likewise left his wife, Thea Bloom, for Winslow, the star of such underground fetish videos as "Behind the Whip" and "Queen of Pain."
"Larry sent Ilsa elaborate bouquets of flowers and bought her books, clothes and shoes," writes Rolling Stone's Peter Wilkinson. "Ilsa would stay up late at night, researching Larry's history on the Internet . . . Ilsa offered Larry free bondage sessions that would sometimes last overnight, foregoing thousands of dollars in income and raising Buck's ire and suspicions. In time, she flew to Australia, in first-class, to be with Larry on location for the two 'Matrix' sequels, for weeks at a time."
The mag quotes a friend: "Larry would pick her up at the airport dressed as 'Lana.' He would get depressed and moody when he had to go to the set dressed as a man."
Wachowski and his brother, Andy, currently have no scripts in the pipeline, and the reclusive siblings are believed to be concentrating on developing video games and comic books. Larry and Ilsa have fled Los Angeles and now live in a $2.7 million hilltop home in San Francisco.
Meanwhile, Buck Angel lives in New Orleans and recently made porn history by filming a sex scene with a fellow female-to-male transsexual. Buck, who is female below the waist, now has a new wife, body-piercing artist Elayne Angel - who pierced Lenny Kravitz's nipples. A spokeswoman for Warner Bros., the studio behind the "Matrix" flicks and "V for Vendetta," declined to comment about Wachowski's personal life.