How Pin-Up Girls, Beyoncé, & a Stranger's Mistake Birthed The Vixen

Photo courtesy of Dave McMahon and The Vixen. This piece was condensed and edited by Taylor Henderson. 

For the month of June, PRIDE is collaborating with prominent voices in the LGBTQ community to work as guest editors for the site—and this week's guest editor is RuPaul's Drag Race alum The Vixen!

After a controversial run on Season 10, The Vixen is one of the most talked about queens of the entire series. While she might have ruffled a few feathers, she has absolutely no regrets. 

Every day this week, The Vixen will discuss topics like her run on Drag Race, Chicago, race, Black Girl Magic, and more. Today, she wants to talk her drag beginnings. 

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You know how they say, there's always signs growing up that you're going to be who you are?

I used to search the internet and I was obsessed with pin-up girls. I thought that they were so cool and sexy. I had this image of myself running a burlesque show, though I barely knew what burlesque was. I would take photos of Vargas Girls and turn them into silhouettes and spell out V-I-X-E-N. That was my plan, to have a burlesque show called Vixen.

Beyoncé's Super Bowl performance is the reason that I finally caved in and started doing drag because I was like, "Whatever that was, I need to be that. I need to feel like that." After the Super Bowl, there was a GQ interview where in my mind they referred to her as Vixen of the Universe and I thought, "Stunning." 

Once I started doing drag, it came back to me and I was like, "Oh, I'll just make that my name." And then I was at a bar and a guy said, "Wait, is it Vixen or The Vixen?" And I was like, "Yeah, that sounds cool." 

So it became The Vixen because someone misheard me. 

Two years later, I reread that Beyoncé interview and they called her the Mistress of the Universe. That's why there's a song that I'm featured on by Dorian Electra and I literally say, "The Vixen, but I've never been a mistress."

And it turns out that there's a DC comic named Vixen who happens to be black and is super athletic and a supermodel by day and like everything that I could have hoped to be—and I had no clue. Very serendipitous. 

Keep up with the rest of The Vixen's guest editor content all week on PRIDE, here!