The way many people feel in between sports seasons is the way I feel between seasons of RuPaul’s Drag Race – vaguely empty inside and eagerly awaiting the next round of fierce competition until a new victor is crowned. Fortunately, many Drag Race alumni are keeping us entertained until the next crop of queen-testants showcase their charisma, uniqueness, nerve and talent in hopes of becoming America’s Next Drag Superstar.
Hot on the heels of their wildly successful YouTube series, UNHhhh, Trixie Mattel (from Drag Race season seven and the upcoming third season of All-Stars) and Katya Zamolodchikova (also from Drag Race season seven and All-Stars season two) have landed a new talk show. The show has a somewhat obvious title, The Trixie and Katya Show, and airs on Viceland on Wednesday nights. The pair spoke with Entertainment Tonight about the new show, their experiences on Drag Race and so much more. Obviously, the whole interview is a scream, but here are some highlights:
On the success of UNHhhh:
Katya: I’m not trying to be falsely modest, but I became aware of the success of the web show because, twofold, it was referenced more and more at meet-and-greets than the actual Drag Race show. So I was like, “Oh, this is making a big impact.” And then, one day, I was at my computer and I saw that one of them had a million views and I was like, “Whoa.” So that was my experience.
Trixie: we think that the show is so funny. So for other people to think what we think is so funny is funny, it’s just more fun as a group. But even if no one liked it, I think that we would still make it. We watch it and full-on barnyard animal laugh at it. I laugh at our series, I think it’s so funny. I listen to my own music, I look at pictures of myself naked, and you know what? Damn.
What we can expect on The Trixie and Katya Show:
Trixie: Yeah, you’re going to see us doing things we’ve never done before. Things out of drag, we actually have a lot more games and organized pieces. So if you’re new to the series, you’re not quite going to get as, like, f–ked by the insanity of it. But it’s going to be the same sort of offbeat comedy. I’m still screaming, that’s my laugh. Katya’s still saying something really horrible and then looking at the camera and posing. [The show] still has a lot of that normal stuff.
A topic that probably won’t be covered on the show:
Katya: Yeah, like, I want to talk about racism, but it’s not the right topic for me and her to talk about. Because we’re two white men, can you imagine how complicated that would be? Two white men who happen to be dressed like weird doll-people trying to talk about racism? There’s more articulate and important people expounding on that topic in a real, effective way. So we don’t need to talk about that.
Katya on incorporating her botched suicide attempt into season two:
Katya: No, no, no, you can go on the record that if we get a season two, the first episode is going to be about suicide. Because I think that’s what we do!
Trixie: In either of our stories, we’re not the winner. And none of our stories are about us getting it right. If anything, we give insight on life through how many ways we’ve done it wrong. Like, we got it wrong, and we’re still here.
Katya: Yeah! I once took like 82 pills of ibuprofen. Ibuprofen does not kill you. It’s like, there is nothing more embarrassing than a botched suicide attempt.
Trixie: Yeah, not only are you still alive, but everyone knows you’re stupid.
Katya: Yes, and then, it’s, like, exacerbated by the point that I have to be hospitalized because the legality of the situation requires me to be hospitalized. So I kind of have to go along with the charade. But, seriously, it is bad, and if you throw yourself in front of a train and you survive, that’s a miracle. If you miss yourself with a bullet that you put in the gun, that’s a miracle. Mine was a humiliation, and now the general public needs to pay for it. [Laughs]
Trixie: [Laughs] Yeah, this could have just been The Trixie Show if she would have f–king done it right.On the continuing appeal of Drag Race:
Trixie: We are weirdos within a weird community. You don’t have to do drag, you don’t have to be gay or marginalized in any way, but we’ve all felt like the weirdo or felt like the outsider, so on Drag Race, you watch an outsider in a room full of other outsiders embrace their outsider-ness so fiercely that they command an audience to think they are the coolest person in the world. Like, no matter what you’re into, that’s inspiring. Like, the feathers, the boas, the sequins, that’s all great. But what you really watch it for, you watch it for a room full of people who know damn well that they are not women, all just agreeing to suspend disbelief for the fun of it, and that’s inspiring.
Katya was one of the last Drag Race queens I interviewed in my previous entertainment journalist life and I adore her. It’s no surprise that she won Miss Congeniality on her season of the show. She and Trixie have the best chemistry I’ve seen since Raven and Jujubee, and their stuff together is a scream. If you can’t get enough of Katya (and who can?), she is co-starring with RPDR season 6 winner Bianca Del Rio in the sequel of her cult favorite Hurricane Bianca. Check out this behind the scenes look at the production (with bonus Shangela!) and make sure to tune into The Trixie and Katya Show Wednesday nights at 10pm on Viceland.
Photos: Getty Images, Instagram/katya_zamo
No, not immediately no, most likely you will throw it all up. I’ve taken too much ibuprofen during bad cramps or a blinding migraine attack out of desperation or simply by forgetting I’d taken some earlier and they came out the same way they went in.
It can kill you days or months later though if you don’t get help, because you’ve now f-cked up your liver good and well.
Ibuprofen is pretty liver-safe – it’s very rare for it to cause severe liver damage (usually due to immunoallergic reactions). I think you’re referring to acetaminophen, which is horrible for your liver. I used to take about 15 ibuprofen a day to help with pain, and it absolutely destroyed my stomach.
Ibuprofen is hard on the kidneys.
Ibuprofen can cause renal damage, because it reduces blood flow through the filtering units in the kidney. Without supportive care, you can end up on dialysis, possibly waiting for a transplant.
Tylenol, OTOH, can cause liver failure.
Sorry! Meant to reply to Shijel.
*scuttles off to refill coffee cup*
Ibuprofen also kills the GI tract. Tylenol either kills you or you ruin your liver
Alas, ibuprofen doesn’t kill pain either for me…. Good old aspirin works in our family, if anything will. I don’t dare take stronger drugs since the cats are not good at calling or texting for help if I get a bad reaction (if there’s a side effect, I get it, I could hire myself out to pharmaceutical companies for preliminary testing).
Shijel- I put a blank label on pill bottles and mark when I take them. Now I also include medications in my food tracker with a time entry, but marking the label on the bottle helps a lot to avoid overdosing and underdosing. I also set a timer on my phone to remind me when to take the next dose. I forget where I’m going and why too often to leave anything to chance!
Thank you, I came here to say that. I’ve never taken that many ibuprofen at once, but I’ve been in so much physical pain that I was taking loads of it, plus acetaminophen and washing it all down with wine out of desperation and my doctor said uh QUIT DOING THAT, like now.
She did blood work and my poor liver was getting totally beat up.
I appreciate drag queen makeup techniques on drag queens and not Instagram models. I don’t think a lot of people realizes the makeup was so heavy/severe because it’s men doing hyper-femininity on masculine features.
I love your comparison of off season for sports to missing Drag Race. It’s exactly my experience too. Katya is one of my favs! 82 ibuprofen would cause some permanent liver damage though, no?
It’s pretty liver safe. It’s not a good idea though. Your more likely to develop stomach issues or an internal bleed. Tylenol will destroy your liver.
Suicide humor? I’m not getting it.
Trixie does very little for me but I LIVE FOR KATYA!!! I love drag race overall but I definitely prefer the older seasons that are less ‘we are the world’.
Agreed on all counts! I looooooove Katya. She’s one of the all-time greats.
Drag is my absolute favorite art form. I’ve taken college art classes, art history classes, years of study of the fine arts and all that jazz. Nothing touches drag for me. It’s deep, but also completely shallow. So it hits many levels. It’s hilarious but it also makes me cry. It’s about the self, selves within the self, thumbing your nose at society etc.
Trixie’s story is very moving. Her step father would beat her when she would act or dress in a feminine way, and he would mockingly call her “Trixie”. So when she found a drag queen emerging from within she named her Trixie. She owned her SELF, she took her POWER.
I’m a cisgender woman but drag helps me, these queens and this art form help me so much to embrace and love the self within me and all the possibilities of each person around me.
Ok I’ll stop. I should just start a “drag saves my spirit” blog hahah. Thanks for covering this story!
I would read that blog 💜
beautiful comment, Patricia! 🙂
With you all the way. I am so lucky to live in San Francisco and relish in the herstory, from the Cockettes onward!
This is how I feel about drag. I’m a cis woman who is not all that feminine, but drag ironically helps me understand that I don’t need to be super feminine to be a woman. I can be who I am.
I love Trixie and Katya, but I REALLY adore Trixie (and she is INCREDIBLY talented).
PLEEEEASE WRITE MORE ABOUT RPDR. No one does and I don’t get it. There is so much to talk about!
As others have commented, it might not kill you immediately but for sure you will have lasting effects to your kidneys. I wish she wouldn’t trivialize trying to commit suicide by any manner but to say it “won’t kill you” is such a thoughtless statement. Shame on her.
She’s not trivializing suicide, but sometimes you just have to laugh at horrible situations. We did that a lot in my family, so it’s pretty natural to me.
She may be trivializing the subject of suicide, but I personally enjoyed reading her thoughts on the matter. It makes me happy that: a person who was once so unhappy with their life that they tried to kill themself, is now so happy with her life that she can actually look back on the attempt and laugh at it. I can relate, and i for one, appreciated her comments. They made me happy.
Not everything needs to be PC and especially drag race!! Honk for Katya!!! Honk for RPDR!!! It’s one of my favorite escapes and it’s filled with immense talent!! Aaaaah! I love it!!!
I clicked on this to refute Katya saying that ibuprophen doesn’t kill you. Ibuprophen can destroy the kidneys. It’s not as bad as acetomenophin (Tylenol) which can destroy the liver by taking even 500 mg within 24 hours, but it can be bad. (That’s why they have reduced the “maximum strength Tylenol” down to 350 mg.)
I tried to kill myself and took 100 ibuprophen and another medication and was in a coma for 3 days. I lived.
But my kidneys were damage and I have reduced kidney function.
Separately, a nephrologist that I saw – who didn’t know about my attempt – said for me to never take ibuprophen, ever! I was there because my new doctor wanted me to be checked out due to the bad kidney function. I didn’t tell him about the attempt either because many doctors get weird when it comes to mental health things.
Just as a side note, the gastroenterologist that I saw said for me to never take Tylenol or acetomenophin (sp?) and now I’ve been reading about how dangerous it is even at low doses. It’s in more than just Tylenol these days, so be careful.
As for their show, I’ll pass. I don’t like how flippant the conversation is regarding suicide when lots of people listening might not know to take depression seriously and to get help.
I LOVE these two humans so much!
UNHhhh! Oh, honey! I am a total stan
Dumbass. Ibuprofen will totally kill you. I used to take it for fibromyalgia pain and it swelled up my colon which chokes off my aorta. Basically a heart attack in my colon. I was told I would have died of my husband hadn’t been home to call 911.