I'm an optimistic realist. I kind of expect the worst but prepare for the best.
Trixie Mattel
Bad things can happen to you, but it doesn't mean you have to have regrets. It's all about what you do with it.
When someone says 'Yasss queen!' to me, I turn around and, X-Men style, run through a wall. You'll never hear from me again.
One of my trophies of 'Drag Race' is getting to meet Katya.
I always tell my mom that if she would have just bought me a Barbie when I was little, I would have gone into real estate.
Mental health and sobriety is not a straight line, and 'Drag Race' is a family, and we support our family members through anything.
Katya and I, as a yin and a yang, we pretty much represent the entire, full gambit of talent, you know? Together, there's not really much we can't do.
Drag is great way to get people to pay attention to me, but it's a difficult way to get people to take me seriously as a musician. So it's a weird Catch-22. It's like a gimmick that gets them to pay attention, but when they see my image, they're like, 'There's no way this is going to have any legitimacy to it.'
I'm an artist who happens to be in drag. And I think that's why my drag is a little different.
With Trixie, people like that I look like this fabricated painted creation, but all my comedy and my songs come from a place of reality. It's like the man behind the curtain - it's the crying clown - that's what works for people with Trixie. It's the dichotomy of someone looking like a toy but then, you know, speaking and singing like a real boy.
Drag is pastiche and parody and satire. Drag queens are never meant to be stars. We make fun of stars. Drag queens are the people that 'point' at the star.
I'm strange! I have a weird sense of humor! I look crazy!
I'm most proud of my career as a touring comedian and musician. I love doing television, I love selling records, but when I'm at these venues with hundreds of people, and they're all sitting listening to my music and my jokes, I feel like I could die that day, and I would be happy.
I'm not a competitor by nature, and I'm certainly not used to being evaluated.
I never check my bank account. I know that sounds crazy. But I don't know how much is in there. I never know how much is in there. I have an idea - I have a bottom line - but I never look because I always make believe there's never anything in there.
I guess drag queens, by nature, have to do everything. When you start being a drag queen, you're grabbing the microphone, hosting the shows. Then, you're setting the microphone down and doing the number. You're spending the day before doing your wigs and sewing your costumes. You're doing everything.
People on a daily basis walk up to me, panic, and tell me something extremely graphic and violent about their life.
I'm always myself. Always. The only difference is that I come off as mean out of drag.
I've lost 'Drag Race' twice. I know how, with one bad day, it could just end.
Out of drag, I'm a white guy with a guitar, which isn't special. There are a million white guys with guitars. But being a drag queen with a guitar is a lot more commanding.
Drag queens always base their personas on their favorite female icons. Mine was Barbie, who's not necessarily a human but is as iconic and beautiful as any woman. I started really pushing it because I hit a crossroads of, 'I don't want to look like a woman or a man. I want to look like a wind-up toy, a plaything manufactured in a factory.'
I love John Denver. Townes Van Zandt is one of my all-time favorites.
People are slowly realizing that they're looking at drag all the time. 'Mrs. Doubtfire.' 'Real Housewives.' Peewee Herman. Don't let calling it drag make you uncomfortable.
'Drag Race' doesn't claim to represent drag as a whole. 'Drag Race' is a reality show. If you see real drag shows, we just do drag and respect each other's art and who your real identity is - name, gender, hair color, anything.
I love that drag is a way for people to vacation in the gay nightlife, but... it's quite a different experience to perform for a gay audience than a straight audience.
I look like Forrest Gump.
I like Aimee Mann. Her album 'Mental Illness' is so good.
I lived deep in the country in northern Wisconsin. I didn't have any neighbors or anything, so in the summers, I played guitar for hours and hours every day until I was about 18. I never thought about combining it with drag, 'cause to me, well, drag queens don't play guitar. Now I'm like, 'You idiot, that's an opportunity.'
'All Stars' is a weird game. The rules are weird. However, I think 'All Stars' mirrors the real industry much more closely than normal seasons of 'Drag Race' do. In the real world of entertainment, it really is about the impressions you leave on your brothers and sisters in the room, and that's kind of what it is about.
Me myself, Brian, I'm a Midwesterner at heart, and I have this deep, bone-dry sense of humor, and I've found it worked to combine this Barbie with a dry, sarcastic man.
I don't dress up as a woman: I dress up as a caricature of a caricature of a woman.
When you unbox a My Little Pony or a Strawberry Shortcake doll, you were hit with a sweet, impossibly perfect fragrance of fresh, machine-made plastic oftentimes infused with floral and fruity notes to bring the toy to life. That third dimension of sensory experience made the toy so real to me.
Some people say that 'Drag Race' is about glory and immortalizing yourself in the Hall of Fame. For me, it's about shaking RuPaul down for her money.
My look and my character come from my experiences as a child. I wasn't allowed to have girl toys, and I grew up poor. I also had a rough relationship with my stepdad.
Dark comedy helped me survive.
Shangela and I are both the type of queens who will taffy-pull 15 minutes of fame into something solid.
I live in reality, and I know at any moment I could stop getting the phone calls and nobody wants to hear me sing or tell jokes anymore.
My grandpa was a country singer, and I started learning guitar from him, just at the kitchen table when I was younger, and I got really into it.
When I walked in on 'Drag Race' and saw Katya, I had no idea she was gonna be funny, because she was stunning. She had this perfect red lip, I remember looking into her eyes and being like, 'This is a woman!' Then she was really funny. She kind of presents normal, and it's a one-two punch with the comedy.
When I was on 'Drag Race,' it felt like a serious competition going on between drag queens... and then Katya and I were also there.
Any time there is an economic downturn or political strife, lipstick sales skyrocket. If you have a hard day, it's this $14 thing that lifts your day. I think drag has that same lipstick effect.
Some of my favorite drag queens are women.
I guess I just believe in Trixie Mattel, and I believe in the work. I don't think I'm better than anybody else, but I really think that I'm hilarious and beautiful.
With Trixie specifically, on the one hand, it's a celebration of femininity. It's that moment when you're playing Pretty Pretty Princess, and there's also, this is what society says a girl looks like, the amount of makeup I wear and the humongous blond wigs.
People don't realize 'Drag Race' is a certain percent competition, but it's also a game show. There's a certain amount of throwing dice and spinning wheels, and there are twists and turns all the time. Part of it is also having the right idea and pulling the right look together that day. We're all making choices in the moment.
I think being young and, like, 14, 15, you feel like a weirdo, and playing guitar with my grandpa in my grandma's kitchen is probably my fondest memories I'll ever have.
June Carter Cash is probably my all-time favorite member of the Carter Family.
'Drag Race' is sort of like trying to lift weights - like, 50 pounds when you should've been lifting 20.
I want to literally quit drag and go live in the woods somewhere and write music for my favorite female singers, like Miley Cyrus or Kacey Musgraves. I would love to be able to write music for them and hear these women I admire sing my songs. That would be like doing drag without having to get into drag myself.
I don't pull punches at all, and I write my material for adults. But if kids like it, they can come watch it. I'll never change anything about what I do for anyone. I kind of think that's why kids like me. If you're a teenager, and there's someone onstage talking to you like an adult, that's good.
