My first drag role was the character Widow Simone in the ballet 'La Fille Mal Gardee.' She's a crazy social climbing woman trying to marry off her daughter to the wealthy town idiot. And in the middle of the show, she gets to perform a clog dance. I loved it.

Jinkx Monsoon

I really like women who are able to be classy and poised and really well put together when the time is right, but also be complete clowns.

Jinkx Monsoon

Women Time Men

We should not be assuming anything for anyone else's gender, because gender is defined by the individual.

Jinkx Monsoon

Use Us Thing

The more you embrace the weird crazy things about you, the more you find your tribe.

Jinkx Monsoon

Your You Weird

I hope people realize that drag queens and queer people, we're not just archetypes and stereotypes. We're human beings with a lot to share. And a drag queen doesn't have to just be a clown, she can also be like a cooking TV personality or like a DJ, or a talk-show host. We should be able to infiltrate TV everywhere.

Jinkx Monsoon

Hope Wit Where

I like to write my shows coming up with the stupidest things I can think of then finding a way I can incorporate a running theme or an underlying message that takes a stupid idea and gives it something worth watching.

Jinkx Monsoon

Age Yin Write

There's an old guard of drag, like the queens who got as big as they could possibly get before there was a TV show dedicated to drag queens.

Jinkx Monsoon

Who TV Show TV

In the gay community there are not very many Jewish drag queens. I've always found that funny because there are a lot of Jewish gay people out there, so why aren't there more Jewish drag queens?

Jinkx Monsoon

Funny Wish Why

Growing up as a gay boy during the holidays, there's the things you want to ask for, and then the things you ask for because you're afraid of asking for what you really want.

Jinkx Monsoon

You Wing Win

I love puns and plays on words, which is why I love RuPaul so much.

Jinkx Monsoon

Love Words Word

It's not enough to just be a good singer. You have to know where your roots come from. If you sing jazz, you should know all about jazz. You should look into, as much as you possibly can, the history of it, so that you're and educated and well-informed performer.

Jinkx Monsoon

History Good Your

I used to hate that my lips are gigantic, and now I have huge red clown lips, and I love it.

Jinkx Monsoon

Love Used Use

When I found the 'Human Nature' music video as a teenager - I've been a drag queen since 15 - I just loved that music video so much because it's such a celebration of her femininity and her sexuality. I thought it was so powerful.

Jinkx Monsoon

Teen Power Nature

I don't think I knew Ru was a drag queen when I would see her in 'The Brady Bunch Movie.'

Jinkx Monsoon

Would UN Think

If I'm in drag, I'm playing Jinkx in some way.

Jinkx Monsoon

Yin Way Some

My first drag role was the character Widow Simone in the ballet 'La Fille Mal Gardee.' She's a crazy social climbing woman trying to marry off her daughter to the wealthy town idiot. And in the middle of the show, she gets to perform a clog dance. I loved it.

Jinkx Monsoon

Love Yin Woman

When you are living your truth, you will meet people who love you for that truth.

Jinkx Monsoon

Truth Love Your

I play a lot of video games, cook meals for my best friends and chosen family in Seattle, and find time to visit my family in Portland, Oregon.

Jinkx Monsoon

Time Family Visit

Everyone should be able to express themselves in the way that best suits them - life is too short to spend it unhappy.

Jinkx Monsoon

Life Way Very

I started drag in Portland, Oregon, but I don't feel that I came to life as a drag queen until I started working in Seattle. That's what really lit the rocket fuel in my career.

Jinkx Monsoon

Work Life Car

I've always been into the music of the 1920s and 1930s.

Jinkx Monsoon

Music Ways Way

Drag is very much an art form, and all art goes through ebbs and flows and trends.

Jinkx Monsoon

We have such an amazing drag community, and I don't think people fully realize it about Seattle.

Jinkx Monsoon

If one drag queen penetrates the mainstream and opens up a new avenue for us to take with our careers, that means all of us can potentially do that.

Jinkx Monsoon

When I'm doing an exaggerated character, I hope it's clear I don't think this is how women do, or should, act. There's aspects of Looney Tunes in drag. But there's something poignant about a man dressed as a woman, talking about gender. It can make you realize how similar the genders really are.

Jinkx Monsoon

I started drag at 15 years old.

Jinkx Monsoon

Gwyneth Paltrow - she always looks like she's about to cry.

Jinkx Monsoon

I watched 'Drag Race Thailand' without any subtitles or voiceovers or anything; I don't speak Thai but I do speak drag, so I felt like I understood exactly what was going on, even though I couldn't speak Thai. I didn't understand anything they were saying but I knew exactly what was happening.

Jinkx Monsoon

No matter who you are in your day-to-day life, and no matter what you look like, and whatever insecurities you're dealing with, you can fully transform yourself. It's as easy as deciding to transform yourself.

Jinkx Monsoon

I went to 'The Nutcracker' every year with my grandma and aunt. Then, in my early teen years, I thought I wanted to be a ballet dancer. I went real gung-ho in that direction, and I started performing in 'The Nutcracker.'

Jinkx Monsoon

I very much treat my stage persona of Jinkx as a character I've created. Some drag artists do a look-based glamour act, and when they talk they're mostly just being themselves. In my case it's not Jinkx the drag queen, it's Jerrick Hoffer as Jinkx Monsoon.

Jinkx Monsoon

I want people to see that you don't have to be catty and mean to be a superstar.

Jinkx Monsoon

Australian audiences seem ready for anything you throw at them.

Jinkx Monsoon

I feel that drag queens impersonate very strong, independent women who inspired us throughout our lives.

Jinkx Monsoon

Almost all the Disney villain witches are gay icons.

Jinkx Monsoon

You don't know that you're not a solo artist or standup comedian or drag cabaret artist until you try it.

Jinkx Monsoon

I prefer to be gender fluid or non-gendered and I dress in drag almost every day of my life even if I'm not in my full Jinkx Monsoon persona - I'm the kind of person who does not dress like my assigned gender and I wear makeup every day and sometimes wear wigs as a boy.

Jinkx Monsoon

I've had some really great experiences in London and the fans are really loyal and always happy to have us.

Jinkx Monsoon

I was always ready to submit my life to my career - but I don't think anything could have truly prepared me for the reality of that.

Jinkx Monsoon

Ever since I was a kid I just thought that women had the better outfits, women had the better hair, women got to wear makeup. I just got jealous of what women got to do onstage. You dress up a man and ultimately it's just a different variation on the same kind of suit. There's a whole wide world of what women wear onstage.

Jinkx Monsoon

If you have to mask the things you're insecure about, go ahead. Wear four pairs of pantyhose, pad your hips, boost your boobs - whatever it takes to walk out of the house feeling like you own the world. Because there's no reason to waste your life hating something you can change.

Jinkx Monsoon

We like to take pop songs that have really cool, complex melodies or lyrics and strip away all that fluff and electronic noise, and put them back as if they were written for a singer and a piano.

Jinkx Monsoon

I think my favourite thing about doing conventions is the parents taking their kids to see their favourite drag idols, because open-minded, progressive parents are making such a change in the world right now. The more open-minded these kids are being raised, the more hope I have for the future.

Jinkx Monsoon

My long-term goal is to play a drag role or a female role in a Broadway production.

Jinkx Monsoon

I am a transgender identified person.

Jinkx Monsoon

First, it was a big deal for girls to dress more like guys. Then it was a big deal for straight men to be metereosexuals and care about their appearance in the way that a gay man would. Now we have to take it a step further - men should be able to not wear men's clothes if they don't want to.

Jinkx Monsoon

Christmas used to be my favorite time of year. But as an adult, it's a time of year where it's like, do I have to go through this again?

Jinkx Monsoon

It's hard to have a fruitful romantic life when I'm never in one place for long.

Jinkx Monsoon

I am only really attracted to people who are very open-minded and embrace and celebrate people who live outside the gender norm.

Jinkx Monsoon

What I love that has happened for years now with 'Drag Race' is the queens can go on to have any kind of career.

Jinkx Monsoon

It was like I have always had big dreams for my drag aspirations, and I talked myself into doing 'Drag Race.' I'm like, take a chance.

Jinkx Monsoon