I hate drag. It's extremely uncomfortable. It's awful. I'm in a full corset and pads and giant wigs.
— Trixie Mattel
Something that I love about drag is that it's a celebration of feminity.
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.
'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.
Trixie Mattel has always opened doors for me. It's closed very few.
When I'm in drag, I don't always want to be spoken to, but I love being looked at. Nobody puts that much work into how they look to be ignored.
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 listened to a lot of what my grandparents listened to: George Jones, Johnny Cash - a lot of old country singers. Patsy Cline.
I have definitely had guys walk up to me, put their arm around me, and when they walk away, my shoulder smells like taco meat.
I've lost 'Drag Race' twice. I know how, with one bad day, it could just end.
I'm very business-minded. I think that's something that sets me aside from other drag queens.
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.
I grew up playing guitar in the late Nineties, early 2000s, so a very acoustic-driven pop-rock era, and then in college, I started listening to Jason Isbell and Kacey Musgraves. Then I really fell in love when I discovered really old country, like June Carter Cash - one of my all-time favorites.
I'm an optimistic realist. I kind of expect the worst but prepare for the best.
June Carter Cash is probably my all-time favorite member of the Carter Family.
Shangela and I are both the type of queens who will taffy-pull 15 minutes of fame into something solid.
That's something I like about drag - I get to do everything. Collaborative arts are hard for me because I don't really like to relinquish control.
Most drag queens, they put on music like it's a costume. It's not in their bones. It's not in their background.
Some of my favorite drag queens are women.
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.
In the real world, people go against my beliefs all the time, and I don't make it my place to - like, I'm not super confrontational.
I think the perception of audiences that love folk and country is they're perceived to be more closed-minded than they really are.
I look like Forrest Gump.
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.
I grew up playing guitar and writing music, and I always wanted to be a songwriter and a singer and play the guitar. But while I was finishing college, my drag became lucrative, so I had to pursue what was going to pay the bills - and doing comedy as Trixie was something that I was able to market.
I'm like the Justin Bieber of the drag world.
I'm not a competitor by nature, and I'm certainly not used to being evaluated.
I was the poorest kid in my school, poorest kid in my town, poorest family. That stayed with me forever.
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 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.
I'm an artist who happens to be in drag. And I think that's why my drag is a little different.
I love John Denver. Townes Van Zandt is one of my all-time favorites.
I'm such a Shangela fan. I think she exemplifies 'Drag Race' greatness. She's like the Tiffany 'New York' Pollard of 'Drag Race.' She's like a patron saint of reality TV.
I like Aimee Mann. Her album 'Mental Illness' is so good.
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 always say that drag queens are like an exaggeration of women, and I'm like an exaggeration of drag queens. People ask, 'Why do you do your makeup so differently?' and I always say, 'Well, in a subversive art form, ask yourself why so many drag queens do their makeup exactly the same.' If you can do anything, why does everybody do the same thing?
Whatever is underneath all the drag, it actually doesn't really matter. It kind of just matters, are you a great entertainer? And are you nice to work with? Are you good at your job?
Something 'Drag Race' is really good at is portraying us as artists but also human beings. And normal human beings don't know everything. They don't have all the answers.
I don't expect a lot of people who love drag to also be like, 'I love 'Drag Race,' and then I got to hear my Chris Stapleton album.' Not necessarily an obvious crossover.
I don't dress up as a woman: I dress up as a caricature of a caricature of a woman.
I've always been obsessed with Michelle Branch, Avril Lavigne, Melissa Etheridge.
RuPaul might not broadcast herself as political, but I think she tries to make moves in American history by catching more flies with honey than vinegar. Rather than telling people to vote, maybe she'll do a mini-challenge on voting. She understands that you can influence people in a good way without preaching.
I love Monet X Change.
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 used to make everything myself. I used to do my own hair, make my own costumes, write my own jokes, and write my own songs. There were definitely some days where I had to choose between having tights that didn't have holes in them or having to buy makeup or something I needed for a show.
Northern Wisconsin, where I'm from, is so ridiculously rural.
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.
'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.
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 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.
