How one of our favorite drag queens, Trixie Mattel, is climbing the ropes to success (WARNING: ICONIC)!
Popular entertainer Trixie Mattel continues to earn the badge of entrepreneurial icon! After her 2015 debut in RuPaul’s Drag Race, she won over fans on YouTube and World of Wonder’s UNHhhh with fellow Ru queen Katya Zamolodchikova. She returned to win RuPaul’s Drag Race All-Stars season 3 in 2018 and has been soaring ever since. Read on to hear about her various successful endeavors over the past few years!
YouTube
Ms. Mattel has amassed 1.44 million subscribers on her YouTube channel. Subscribers can expect anything from make-up tutorials, kiki’s with legendary drag queens, unboxing videos, various media and food reviews, and more. Basically, the “entertainment” is a-flowin. Although she already has a large following, Trixie often genuinely asks her viewers what they want to see her do on the channel. As an entrepreneur, Trixie knows how to use the resources she has to optimize the experience of being a part of her fanbase.
Cosmetics brand
In May of 2019, Mattel launched Trixie Cosmetics. As not only an entrepreneur but a “world-famous drag queen with a passion for makeup artistry,” this was a brilliant move. Before turning to drag full time, Trixie attended The Institute of Beauty and Wellness in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Although she ultimately dropped out of the Milwaukee Institute to join the cast of RuPaul’s Drag Race season 7 in 2014, Mattel had previously learned the cosmetics industry first hand, spending years as a makeup artist behind the counters at MAC, Ulta, and Sephora. Since its 2019 launch, Trixie Cosmetics has been a smashing success. When talking to fashionista.com, she said, “when you start to watch people shop for makeup for a living you start to realize that drag queens and people, they want the same thing: We all want products that work well, that are priced well and are fun to apply. I noticed that they call it a makeup routine; I’m like, ‘Mama if it feels routine, switch it up.’ So all of my products are very fun and they’re sort of daring.” With constant new product releases, I know Trixie Cosmetics will be around for a while.
A podcast
As mentioned before, Trixie Mattel gained a large portion of her fame and following from the World of Wonder web series UNHhhh with Katya Zamolodchikova. The pair have seduced many loyal stans, me included, and frankly UNHhhh was just not enough content. The two launched their podcast, The Bald and The Beautiful in 2020. The podcast began with the theme of “beauty” but quickly morphed into honestly whatever Trixie and Katya wanted to talk about. Filled with hilarious and underrated guests, The Bald and the Beautiful is like that one book you can never put down. If you want to audibly laugh on your local public transportation route, winning the eyes of many a stranger, this pod is for you! Although they are currently on a break from recording, you can find 58 all-encompassing episodes of this Studio71 production wherever you get your podcasts!
A New York Times bestseller
On July 14, 2020, Trixie and Katya released a women’s self-help parody book entitled Trixie and Katya’s Guide to Modern Womanhood. Published by Plume Books, this hilarious piece of literary genius echoes the voice of all other Trixie and Katya content. Filled with tips for relationships, beauty, and all things wellness, the girls keep us giggling with intermittent stories and gag us with absolutely ridiculous photography. This easy read remained on the bestseller list for two weeks and can be found online with the quickest of Google searches.
Music
If she didn’t have enough going on already, Trixie has not only dipped her toe into the music industry but has taken a full-on plunge. The country-folk singer-songwriter self-released her debut studio album, entitled Two Birds, on May 2, 2017. Two Birds features seven genuinely catchy original songs and even charted at number six on the Billboard US Independent Albums. On March 15, 2018, Mattel released her second studio album, One Stone, featuring seven more original songs! The album reached the number one spot on Billboard’s Heatseekers chart. On February 7, 2020, Trixie released a third album, Barbara. Track 1, “Malibu,” remained on loop in my head for weeks. Finally, in September of 2020, she released a cover of Lana Del Rey’s soulful “Video Games,” which in my opinion, was better than the original… there I said it.
Owns a bar
In February of 2021, Trixie Mattel announced that she is now a co-owner of This Is It!, the oldest, continually-operating gay bar in the state of Wisconsin. As a product of the great state of Wisconsin, Trixie previously hosted and performed at said bar years before leaping into this major business endeavor. Now, as one-half of the owner, it only feels right to conclude by acknowledging her full circle triumph. As the great Wendy Williams once said, “She’s an icon, she’s a legend, and she is the moment.”
Are you enticed yet? Trixie Mattel has become my go-to for an entertaining content-consuming sesh., will she become yours next? Although I could not list all of her entrepreneurial endeavors, make sure to start by checking out the media listed above for a guaranteed laugh! You can catch Trixie as a judge on the upcoming drag queen singing competition show, Queen of the Universe, on Paramount Plus on December 2nd! For more, follow @trixiemattel on Instagram.
