Transcript of The Business of Drag with Alaska Thunderf*ck (RuPaul's Drag Race)

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Hi, Money Rehabbers.

It's Morgan, the ERP of the show, guest hosting Money Rehab this week while Nicole is on maternity leave. Today, I'm going to be talking about the business of drag. This is an episode I've wanted to do for so long because one, I'm just a big fan of drag, but also because it's one of those jobs where I've just always wondered how people actually make money doing it. Today, I'm talking to one of the most iconic drag queens ever, Alaska. She goes by Alaska or Alaska Thunderfuck. And so today I'm just going to stick with Alaska because I don't know how many times I can say Thunderfuck without the show getting canceled. Two already feels like I'm pushing it. Alaska grew up in Erie, Pennsylvania, and worked in Pittsburgh, NLA, before getting cast on the Olympics of Drag, the show RuPaul's Drag Race. Alaska was a runner up on Season 5 and then went on to win RuPaul's Drag Race All Stars Season 2. If you don't know Alaska, you just simply have to. Her memoir, My Name's Yours, What's Alaska? Is a good place to start. She has a huge fan base, 1.8 million followers on Instagram alone, and she just does a zillion different things, from performing to her Drag Race rewatch podcast, Race Chasers.

She makes music, she tours, she has a fragrance, and now she has a show in New York City. Alaska co-wrote and stars in Drag: The Musical, which if you're in New York, you definitely should see, and she tells me a little bit more about it in this conversation. Today, we talk about the business of drag through her story, from how she got started to redefining success after a drag race, how she kept going when she had no money, and yes, how drag queens actually make money. Here's Alaska.

Alaska Welcome to Money Rehab.

Thank you so much. It's a pleasure.

The pleasure is all ours. I'm so excited to talk to you about the business of drag, really through your story. So let's start with you. Do you remember the first drag performance you ever saw?

Yes. I think her name was Amanda Love. Amanda Love or Amanda Hug & Kiss. I can't remember. But we walked into a bar, and it was one of the first gay bars ever that I went into. She was lip syncing and doing a number. I was like, Why isn't she singing? I don't understand. I had only seen the Birdcage and Starina with the microphone. I was like, I didn't understand what drag was.

Do you remember what she sang and what she was wearing?

No idea what she was doing. But she was huge and just like, Gorgeous. Yeah.

And so this was in Pittsburgh?

I feel like it was in... I want to say West Virginia or something like that.

I don't- That's a plot twist. That is what I thought.

West She's like, Okay. Yeah.

And so when you saw that, did you think, I want to do that immediately?

No.

No.

No. No, because I was like, I can't do that. I can't be that gorgeous and glamorous and beautiful. I was just stunned. I just wanted to get drunk.

And did you?

Yeah. Good. Well, yeah.

This happened in West Virginia, maybe. It did not happen in Erie, where you grew up. No. Not a lot of drag representation in Erie.

Well, there is. I just didn't know about it. I think we went to West Virginia because I was under 21, and it was like, you could get into bars there. I don't know. My memory is full of holes.

Happens. Yeah. But even though you felt at the time, that could never be me, you had an early interest in style. I read in your memoir that you would make cat-woman suits out of trash bags, and you would dye your contacts with food coloring?

I definitely did the contacts thing, yes. Just because I liked changing my appearance. I thought it was fun, and I always wanted to have dark eyes. I I still do.

When then did you, for the first time, think, I can do that. I could do drag.

It was San Francisco that did that for me. I went to the stud on my 22nd birthday, and there was a show there, and it was Duran Duran Night, and it was a drag show. Duran Duran is a bunch of guys. Just that in and of itself was like, Wait. All the rules of what I thought drag was did not apply. It was scary, and it was funny, and it was sexy, and it was gross, and messy. I was like, I want to do that. I want to do this. So I went back to Pittsburgh, and I was like, I'm going to do drag now because of that.

How long after that did you perform as Alaska for the first time?

It wasn't too long after that. I picked up a flyer at Pegasus, and it was a contest, a Chichi La Roo contest.

The Fishbowl?

Yeah, the Fishbowl contest. I was like, I'm going to do that, and I'm going to win that.

And you did? Well.

Well. I don't like to brag.

I love that you knew what your name would be as soon as you encountered it, which was a weed strain, right? Yeah. Love that. There was never another contender. You were like, This is the name.

No, that was it. It was like a lightning bolt. It was instant.

Tell me about the Fishbowl performance.

Yeah. All the queens in town showed up because it was $250 or $200. Basically, with inflation, that's like a million dollars now. We were like, everyone came out. I was very nervous, but I had a bunch of tricks and gags planned. In case I didn't know the song, I would still have something to do. I put all this stuff up my skirt, and I would pull it out as the number went on. Then the skirt would tear away, and it would be a giant sign that said, I love Chichi La Roo. Sucking up to the host, stunts and gags, distractions, those are the key to performance in drag, I think. I pulled, because you had to choose your song out of the fishbowl, you didn't know what you were going to do. I pulled How many Licks by Kim, and I happened to know every word of that, and so we did it.

Was that actually your first time performing as Alaska?

Officially, yeah. Officially.

How did it feel?

It felt great. I was bit by the bug, and that was that.

Then you decide to move to LA, but you decide at the time that you're not going to do drag there. You pack your wigs, and then you go through security at airport, and then you take your wigs out because you're like, I'm not doing drag.

You did all your research on this. I sure did. Usually, I have to explain all of this on podcasts, and you know everything. I'm so glad. No, I got you. Yes. I was like, I'm going to be a serious actor. I studied theater arts, and I'm going to be a serious actor, and I'm going to give up all this drag shit. Then I was like, Being a serious actor is hard, and I lacked the discipline and the skills to I was like, I had to have normal-looking hair, and I had to take my piercings out. I'd wear normal clothes. I was like, none of that appealed to me, and it didn't make any sense to me. I was like, I can't do that. I didn't know what I was doing. I did drag for fun just to keep myself sane. I ended up getting a job just from going out in drag and looking crazy.

Yeah. I Well, thank God that you did. Yeah, thank God. What a gif. At some point you're like, Okay, I'm doing drag for fun. Now I have to make money doing it. I read that you looked around and you were like, How are other drag queens making money? You saw somebody sell T-shirts online, so you're like, I'll sell T-shirts online. You saw people promoting and producing shows and parties, so you're like, I'll try that. Then also making their own music. Well, first of all, do you have any of those old T-shirts still? Because I want one. I do.

You know, I must. They must be somewhere. They're like the O-G, and it was like a face. The eyes, no O's mouth on a white T-shirt and just blue eye shadow. And that was it. Then it was like we did a yellow eye shadow edition, and that's it. There are very few of those out there, but those are OG. I don't even know if I have any.

Okay, well, if you find one, let me know. I want one. But when I was reading that, I was surprised because I figured that the big money maker is performing. Is that right?

Yes, but the problem there is that it also takes all your money to do that.

Tell me about that.

So, Drag is like a conundrum because it costs a lot of money. We have a song in the musical called Drag is Expensive. Because it fucking is. You have to ride the line of like, okay, when I was first starting out, it was like, I'm getting paid $100 to do this. That means I have to make sure I'm not spending more than that to get there, to wear all the things that I'm required to wear to do drag. Luckily, I wore a bunch of garbage. So that's the business savvy that we're here to- Keeping costs low.

Yes. No, perfect. So you said you were getting paid like a hundred bucks, maybe. Is that normally the structure? It's like you'll get a fee and then tips.

Yeah.

How much, say the Blue Moon, where Bar in Pittsburgh, where you're a big part of the legacy there, how much would somebody make in tips a night there?

Well, the Blue Moon was special, and I've never We never had a show structured like this. Andy, who was the owner and the manager, believed in us and wanted the bar to not have a cover charge ever. Oh, wow. So he gave us a chunk of $500, which we could use as we saw fit. There were three of us, usually four of us, but sometimes three of us. We would take that, and then we would hire a guest to do it. We'd each get $100 or $125, which was amazing. No cover charge, so all our friends could come. They'd get drunk on four locos, and we could do whatever we wanted. I've never had a show like this ever since where it was structured like that. I'm so grateful for that because it was such freedom creatively. We weren't worried about, Oh, we've got to sell tickets. We have to do something that grabs people and gets them to buy tickets. It's like, No, it's free. Just come watch us do a show called The Bible. I'm dressed up like Jesus with a laser blaster riding on my friend like a Natar. That's what we did.

Tips? We'd get tips. I don't know how much. $20? $40?

Something like that. Something like that?

Yeah. And so all the other stuff. I mean, selling T-shirts and making music and all of those things, no one was buying it when I was first starting out. No one bought a shirt.

No one bought a shirt.

No one bought a shirt. But I wanted to have it there. Yeah. To I can do it because I saw someone like Jackie Beat, who is a brilliant drag artist, the queen of fucking Los Angeles. I was like, I want to emulate what she's doing. Even if no one's buying it, I want to have it.

Yeah. What are the costs? How does it get so expensive?

Eyelashes, hair, makeup is expensive. Clothes, shoes. All of it is so costly, and there's so many steps just to get out the door. Yeah, yeah.

And do you think Because I was thinking about it, and not every job has such startup costs like that. You really have to be willing to invest in yourself. Yeah. Did that make you feel differently, do you think, than if you had a job where you could have just jumped into it? Do you feel like you were more confident because you were investing? Or did you feel like, I got to make this work because I'm putting my money into it?

I had to make it work because I wasn't good at anything else. It wasn't It was like, Drag chose me, and it's my destiny because every other job, it was like, it just wasn't working. Just wasn't. Couldn't do it.

Yeah.

So I had to make it work.

But Pre-drag Race, it sounds like you were not making enough money from drag that you could live on. You were working in coffee shops doing other things. Yeah. Is that right? Then when you were in LA, you got a shitty apartment so that you could save for a second audition tape for Drag Race, right?

I mean, I guess that's how we tell the story. I don't know. I think I was driving my friend Jeremy nuts, and he was studying in grad school, and I was being an unhinged drag queen pothead. So I got my own place, and it seemed like a great idea until it was infested with roaches. It was just like, it was like, It was just a dead end. I was like, I don't know if I can do this out here.

You did your audition tape for season 2. You auditioned every year until season 5. I did. I also read it in your memoir that you said that early on, you were like, I'm going to be famous, and when I'm famous, all my problems are going to go away. And so when- The folly of youth. The folly of youth. When you did get cast, did you think, This is it. I'm going to be famous, and all of my problems are going to go away?

I mean, that is what you think. Yes, that is what you think. And then it was like, then we wrapped filming, and Sharon, who I was dating at the time, the first phone call we had was like, the cat ran away, the house burned down. It was just like everything was a disaster. No, getting on Drag Race doesn't make all your problems go away. Shocking.

How have you had to think about redefining success for yourself so that you can feel like it's not tied to fame, but it's tied to maybe something that is self-worth, happiness?

Yeah. I mean, that took a really long time. It took a really long time to value my life outside of drag as it relates to drag race. It took a very long time. And that's really important. I think that's important with any career. It's like, you have to have something beyond that, because if that evaporates or slows down or goes away, that can't be your whole existence. It's like the movie The Substance.

It's exactly like the movie The Substance.

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Before you got that call saying that you were on Drag Race, were you stressed about money?

Yes. Oh, yeah. We were very, very poor. Oh, yes. It was a disaster. It was like, are we going to keep the lights on? Are Are we going to keep the heat on?

Yeah. Do you think if you hadn't have gotten on Drag Race, would you have kept doing drag?

Yes. Because I can't do anything else. That was It was a good fit.

When I first moved to New York after college, it took me a long time to get a job. I did the thing where I sold my car to move here and moved with one suitcase and was like, This is the total amount of money that I have in my life. And I just watched it go down while I was trying to get a job. And when I finally got a job at iHeartRadio, I didn't have enough money in my bank account to pay for a subway fare, so I walked to work every morning. Yeah, thank you. Do you have any stories like that where you're like, I just got to fucking make it work?

I ride my bike a lot, but also when I was in LA, I was like, I would ride my bike to gigs sometimes, in drag. In 2007, if you saw a drag queen on a bicycle going down Santa Monica Boulevard, it was probably me.

Can you tell me about Drag Musical?

Yeah.

Let's start with Where did this idea come from? How long have you been working on it?

Well, it's been almost eight years at this point.

My God.

I had been making music with my friends Tomas and Ash. Ash is an amazing songwriter, and Tomas is an amazing song producer. So all my music was done with them. And so we had that relationship. At a certain point, Tomas was like, So I'm thinking of doing a musical. Do you want to write it with us? And so I was like, Sure. It was a little bit easy. It was not easy.

Yeah, how hard could it be?

It was very difficult. But we did it.

Yeah. You did it, and people love it. You didn't just write it, you also star in it. Can you tell us a little bit about what the show is about?

Yes. The initial kernel of what it is, I like the idea of it being two rival drag houses. So it's like, originally it was like, this is the singing house and this is the dancing house. But it turned into just like, We're the same, but we hate each other, thing. Which is, that's how it goes in life sometimes. Then we wanted to have a family element to One of the drag queens has to call her brother, who she hasn't talked to in five years. They don't get along at all. Then her brother comes into town because he can possibly help them get out of financial trouble. He brings along his son, who's 10 years old, and who just... His father doesn't know what to do with him because he's like, he wants to wear his mom's glasses, and he doesn't... He isn't connecting. And then he discovers drag and is like, Oh, wait, this is sickening. I love this. You know? Yeah. And so it's about all of those things. There's a lot of family elements to it, whether it's your biological family or your chosen family.

What would seeing something like that have meant to you when you were 10?

I can't imagine. I don't know. I think that it It would be great, probably, because it's like when you have shame as a young person, which there was a lot regarding being feminine or dressing in flamboyant clothes or whatever. When those things are completely not allowed, then it becomes shame. Then you have to spend a lot of time unlearning that and reintegrating that into yourself. I guess there would have just been less time having to unlear stuff.

Yeah. One of the parts of your memoir that really made me feel for Little Alaska was when your mom was like, Don't play like a girl. Yeah. Yeah. That's really hard. It's really hard. Then it struck me that you're also doing this show, and then the election happens. Do you feel like the stakes are higher now somehow? Now, or do you try to keep it in its own creative bubble?

Well, and just a side note, my mom is now the biggest fan of Alaska, of me, and my biggest supporter. She told me, to play like a girl because she was trying to protect her child. You know what I mean? That's how it was. But, yeah, I mean, the fact that children being in proximity to drag is now a hot button political issue, we We started this eight years ago. That was not even on the table. So it's a little preposterous that our musical is literally about that. But it's also wonderful. When it's our turn on the chopping block, which it is sometimes with politics, we know what to do. This isn't a new story, and we know how to fight back, and we know how to organize so we know how to lean on each other. That's what we're going to do. The musical is part of that.

I was reading the comments of some of the posts on the Drag, the musical Instagram account, and just so many people being like, Hi from Minnesota. I took my kids when we were visiting New York. It meant so much to them. It's amazing. It must feel so good to hear stories like that and see how it's resonating because it is such a light right now when it's like, That's exactly what we need.

Yeah. People come back so many times. There's a couple who has seen the show 16 times, as of today. Oh my God.

Oh my God. Will you write another musical?

Oh, God. When? Yes. I mean, maybe. I don't know. Yes.

Yes.

Yeah. Why not?

I love it. Right here, right now. Another musical. Will there be a Drag the Musical, the movie?

That'd be great.

I would love that.

I would love that, too.

Yeah. Because, again, it's like more people need to see it.

Yeah.

Before I let you go, I would love to play a game with you.

Oh, okay.

It's never have I ever, but money-themed. Okay. And we're not drinking. So we'll just put our hands up. Okay. And so if you have done something, you put a finger down. Oh, okay. And if you haven't, you keep it up.

Okay.

So never have I ever split the check a first date. If you have done it, put your finger down. I have done it.

I don't think I've done that. You don't think? I don't know. Again, brain full of holes. But no, I was always dating older guys, so they would buy stuff for me.

Never have I ever maxed out a credit card. I don't think I've done that.

Oh, I have. Wait, I have. Okay.

Never have I ever won a cash prize. I have. You've done that? I have. So you have to finger down. Okay. Never have I ever invested in the stock market. I haven't. You haven't? We got to get you in there. Okay. We're going to make you rich.

Okay, great.

Never have I ever given a big gift to a friend or family member.

I have done that.

Yeah. Okay, put that finger down. Never have I ever had credit card debt.

I feel like I never got credit cards. I've had I had debt before, but not credit card debt.

Yeah. What debt have you had?

Like student loans. Yeah.

I don't think I've had credit card debt either.

Yeah.

Never have I ever played the lottery. I have.

I mean, I think I have. I think I got just scratch Scratchers count?

Scratchers absolutely count.

Okay, great. So I have.

Okay, perfect. Never have I ever been fired from a job? I haven't.

I have.

What's that story?

Yeah, I went to Burning Man, and I was supposed to come back after three days, and I was like, I'm not leaving. So I stayed. And so they fired my ass because I was supposed to be back at work.

You were like, fair enough.

Oh, what an idiot.

I mean, was it worth it?

Yes. I get.

All right, we end all of our episodes by asking our guests for a money tip that listeners can take straight to the bank. It can be anything about a lesson that you've learned, something that you to save, negotiate, make money, shop, anything?

Well, and I want to address this to drag queens, or really anyone, I think it's okay to re wear stuff all the time. I think it's great to rewear costumes or dresses because I think there's too many clothes in the world, so it's good for the environment. But it also it's like it saves you money. If you spend a lot of money on a garment, you should wear it all the time. Yeah. So don't be afraid to rewear stuff.

It's like when Tiffany Hadish rewore a dress that she wore to an award show when she was hosting SNL, she was like, I need to get my money's worth.

Please, right? Yeah. Normalize that because why not? I think that we should culturally do that. I love that. And it saves money.

And it saves money. Good for the environment. I'm sold.

Money Rehab is a production of Money News Network. I'm your host, Nicole Lappin. Money Rehab's executive producer is Morgan Lavoy. Our researcher is Emily Holmes. Do you need some money rehab? And let's be honest, we all do. So email us your money questions, @moneyrehab@moneynewsnetwork. Com to potentially have your questions answered on the show or even have a one-on-one intervention with me. And follow us on Instagram at Money News and TikTok at Money News Network for exclusive video content. And lastly, thank you. No, seriously, thank you. Thank you for listening and for investing in yourself, which which.