Trixie Mattel is one of the most memorable and beloved RuPaul’s Drag Race contestants ever. Moreover, this queen has had one of the most successful careers after the show.
On screen, Trixie has hosted the incredibly popular YouTube series UNHhhh, landed the Viceland television series Trixie & Katya, headlined several national comedy tours, and premiered her documentary Moving Parts at the Tribeca Film Festival in 2019. As a musician, Trixie Mattel has released two EPs, “Two Birds” and “One Stone.”
If you think you already knew everything there is to know about Trixie Mattel – oh, honey! There’s much more to this ‘skinny legend’ than you may have thought.
TRIXIE WAS VERY NERVOUS ABOUT BEING ON ALL STARS 3
Every RuPaul’s Drag Race fan knows that Trixie Mattel’s first time on the show was quite a rocky journey. Despite having a very unique look and capturing the hearts of many fans, Trixie was the fourth contestant to be eliminated on season 7. Then, she returned to the show on episode 8, only to be eliminated again two episodes later.
It comes without saying that Trixie Mattel was nervous about returning to the franchise when she received the call to come back for All Stars 3. During her Moving Parts documentary, the queen was seen as being visibly anxious the entire time that All Stars 3 aired on TV, thinking that she was disappointing her fans due to her mostly “just safe” performance throughout the season.
SHE HAS ONE OF THE WORST LIP SYNC TRACK RECORDS EVER
When it comes to losing a lip sync on RuPaul’s Drag Race, Trixie Mattel has one of the worst track records of the franchise.
All in all, Katya has lost five lip syncs – one on season 7 (to Kennedy) and four on All Stars 2 (to Alaska and to Detox). Right behind her is Trixie, who lost two times on season 7 (to Pearl and to Ginger Minj) and two times on All Stars 3 (to BeBe Zahara Benet and to Shangela).
With all of that said, it doesn’t really matter how many lip syncs Trixie Mattel lost, because she won the one that really mattered: the lip sync for the crown on All Stars 3. Winner, winner, chicken dinner!
TRIXIE’S SNATCH GAME PERFORMANCE WAS THE WORST DAY OF HER LIFE
It takes nerve to impersonate RuPaul for Snatch Game. This Drag Race curse started all the way back on season 2, when Jessica Wild was largely panned for failing to impersonate RuPaul properly on Snatch Game.
Trixie Mattel intended to break that curse on season 7, when she already planned to do RuPaul for Snatch Game. However, the queen was eliminated prior to Snatch Game and only returned to season 7 after that episode, missing out on the opportunity. When it came time for All Stars 3, the path was clear for her RuPaul impersonation.
Unfortunately, Drag Race fans know that her performance turned out to be less than stellar. During an interview with Nicole Byer for her Why Won’t You Date Me podcast, Trixie stated that filming Snatch Game on All Stars 3 was the worst day of her life.
SHE NEVER WANTS TO COMPETE ON DRAG RACE AGAIN
Fans have long discussed the possibility of a season with past RuPaul’s Drag Race winners. On All Stars 3, RuPaul cast season 1 winner BeBe Zahara Benet, which opened a sort of precedent for this to happen. However, let the record show that Trixie Mattel has made it clear that she would never compete on the show again.
With that said, we were happy to see that Trixie Mattel was cast on the RuPaul’s Drag Race Holi-Slay Spectacular special that aired in 2018, even that if that wasn’t necessarily a competition at all.
THE ORIGIN STORY OF THE “TRIXIE” NAME
We all know Mattel as the toy manufacturing company that makes Barbie, but many Drag Race fans may be unaware of how the Trixie name came about.
The origin story for the Trixie name is two-fold. Brian Firkus (Trixie’s out-of-drag identity) grew up with an abusive stepfather who used to call him a ‘trixie’ as an insult, making this a very triggering word for him. However, many years later, Brian was cast in a Rocky Horror Show production as the Usherette, who was often also called Trixie.
After realizing the power that dressing up as a character had, Brian decided to name his drag persona Trixie. And so, Trixie Mattel was born.
TRIXIE DID NOT PLAN ON DOING FULL-TIME DRAG
Being cast on RuPaul’s Drag Race in 2019 means that a queen’s booking fee will certainly go up and that her career will definitely be extended by quite a few years. However, despite the show’s popularity over the years, things weren’t quite that obvious when Trixie Mattel was cast on season 7.
Without the certainty of a solid career, Trixie revealed during an interview with The Tea podcast that she was “halfway through beauty school” when she was cast on Drag Race, and that her plan was to finish school and establish a makeup career after the show. Thus, Trixie Mattel’s plan was not at all to do drag on a full-time basis. What’s more, the queen revealed that if she had to have a completely unrelated career, she would have been a real estate agent.
TAMMIE BROWN IS HER FAVORITE DRAG QUEEN
Over the years, Trixie Mattel has repeatedly said that Tammie Brown is her favorite drag queen. For instance, when talking about her dream cast for All Stars 4, Trixie told Entertainment Weekly that she would like to have “12 Tammie Browns” cast in the show. In an interview with Teen Vogue, Trixie Mattel called Tammie “truly one of a kind,” explaining that she likes drag queens who are “kind of left-of-sanity.”
In 2018, Trixie invited Tammie Brown to open for her on tour. The queens did several shows around the world, including dates in Australia.
TRIXIE’S BILLBOARD ACCOLADES
As a musician, Trixie Mattel has performed very well on the Billboard Magazine Charts. The queen has peaked at number 39 on the Billboard Artist 100 chart, and her “One Stone” EP reached number 10 on the Independent Albums chart. When it comes to the general Top Album Sales chart, “One Stone” made it as far as number 64.
Besides Trixie’s very successful commercial performance, her work has also resonated with critics, which is something that does not happen often for musicians who are drag queens. In 2018, Billboard Magazine elected “One Stone” as one of the best albums of the first half of the year.
SHE HEADLINED COMEDY TOURS WITHOUT ANY PROPER STAND-UP EXPERIENCE
Comedians often talk about the hundreds of hours that they spent on bars and clubs to test their stand-up material and ‘bomb’ in front of audiences. However, the ‘skinny legend’ took quite a different approach to her career in comedy.
Before headlining national comedy tours such as Ages 3 And Up, Now With Moving Parts, and Skinny Legend, the entirety of Trixie’s comedy experience was hosting bingo events at a Hamburger Mary’s restaurant. If this isn’t a test to Trixie Mattel’s genius, we don’t know what is.
TRIXIE BROKE NEW GROUND FOR DRAG QUEENS
Due to her commitment to the folk/Americana genre of music and overall mainstream success, Trixie Mattel has gotten to many places that no other drag queen has before.
For instance, Trixie was featured on the cover of Autoharp Quarterly Magazine, a publication that is dedicated to autoharpists. Needless to say, it was the first time that the magazine featured a drag queen.
Furthermore, in 2018, she became the first-ever drag queen to be interviewed by Larry King – a feat that not even RuPaul had achieved before. Then, alongside Bob the Drag Queen, Trixie was featured on a JetBlue special video for Pride Month where both queens portrayed flight attendants.