Trixie Mattel (born Brian Michael Firkus on August 23, 1989) is an American Drag Queen, actor, and musician.
Trixie first came into the spotlight by appearing on the seventh season of RuPaul's Drag Race, where she finished in sixth place after a prior elimination four episodes earlier. She later returned to the series as a contestant for its third All Stars season in 2018 where she was ultimately crowned the winner.
Despite her relative lack of screentime on her first RuPaul's Drag Race tenure, Trixie quickly became one of that season's breakout stars, which led to her (and fellow season seven alumnus Katya) hosting the web series UNHhhh on WOW Presents, starting in 2016. This would eventually become the start of her YouTube career in late 2019, co-starring with Katya on Netflix's "I Like to Watch", starting regular, weekly updates on her own personal channel, and a podcast with Katya named The Bald and The Beautiful on 2020.
As part of her drag career, Trixie is also a musician, having released her debut studio album Two Birds in May 2017. The release was a commercial success, especially compared to the musical output of other Drag Race alumni at the time, peaking as high as #2 on the iTunes US album chart the week it became available. She has since released three more albums and an EP, getting to collaborate with artists Michelle Branch, Orville Peck, Shakey Graves and Lavender Country.
In 2019, she launched her own makeup brand called Trixie Cosmetics,which emphasizes bright colors and toy-like packaging designs.
A documentary, entitled Trixie Mattel: Moving Parts premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival on April 25, 2019. It chronicles a few months in Trixie's life, during the filming of The Trixie & Katya Show and the broadcast of her All Stars season. Expanding her brand further, June 2022 saw the release of Trixie Motel, a TV series on Discovery+ chronicling the efforts of Trixie, her partner David Silver (who directed the Moving Parts documentary) and her team to renovate a motel in Palm Springs.
Selected filmography:
- RuPaul's Drag Race (2015) as herself
- RuPaul's Drag Race: All Stars (2018)
- UNHhhh (2016 — present) as herself
- The Trixie & Katya Show (2017))
- American Horror Story: Roanoke (2016) as herself
- Trixie Mattel: Moving Parts (2019)
- Queen of the Universe (2021) as herself / judge
- Trixie Motel (2022)
Discography:
- Greener EP (2009) note
- Two Birds (2017)
- One Stone (2018)
- Barbara (2020)
- The Blonde & Pink Albums (2022)
Trixie Mattel provides examples of the following tropes:
- Appropriated Appellation / Meaningful Name: "Trixie" comes from a pejorative nickname given to her by her stepfather, while "Mattel" is a reference to the manufacturer of Barbie, which she models her aesthetic from.
- Art Evolution: Her makeup style has slowly shifted throughout the years. While maintaining her Barbie-like color pallette, exaggerated proportions and almost paint-by-number contrasts, she's grown to shy away from hyper-saturated colors, draw more geometrical shapes and balance her application more successfully. This shift aligns itself with her taking more reference from 60's fashion for her costuming, to great effect, rather than 90s to present day country and hyperpop references.
- Her music style has evolved from straightforward bluegrass country, into Dolly Parton inspired americana country, into 60s inspired alternative rock. This evolution has followed and corresponded with her aesthetics updates.
- Ascended Fangirl: A self-professed fangirl of American Horror Story who did recaps for the show on WOW Presents, Trixie went on to appear as herself in an episode of Roanoke.
- As mentioned under
Cargo Ship below, Trixie is passionate about dolls and toys, and as of November 2021, is now a literal doll herself!
- As mentioned under
- Black Comedy: A hallmark of her live shows. She models her style after a Barbie doll and plays cute folk songs, and by contrast she has the kind of dark, twisted humor that makes you feel terrible for laughing.
- Cargo Ship: Barbie dolls, as if the makeup and name doesn't make it obvious. Trixie's known to own a pretty substantial doll collection, and even did a video series of her favorite dolls from various eras. She's also fond of toy ovens, using them to bake (occasionally) edible goods on her YouTube channel.
- Catchphrase: On her YouTube channel, Trixie introduce herself in every video as a "world-famous drag queen, with a passion for makeup artistry."
- Child Hater: Trixie is very vocal about her distaste of kids and the Moral Guardians who claim to love them, yet is also aware of the irony of her bubbly pink and seemingly innocent Barbie aesthetic attracting those very groups she hates.Trixie: Do you guys wanna know why I started doing drag?...NOT to fucking fraternize with children!
- Does Not Like Spam: Over the course of various tasting videos on WOW Presents and her own YouTube channel, Trixie is consistently disgusted by anything fermented (Vegemite, sauerkraut, chung guk jang).
- The Immodest Orgasm: A Running Gag in her makeup videos is that she makes loud, orgasmic gasps and moans whenever she really likes a certain product. Especially if it's her own.
- Milwaukee: Born and raised in Wisconsin, Trixie started her career in this city and proudly claims it as her hometown, to the point of investing in the city’s oldest gay bar and becoming its part-time owner.
- My Greatest Second Chance: Was originally eliminated in eleventh place during her season of Drag Race, but returned four episodes later and remained for an additional two, ultimately finishing sixth. And then came back two years later for All Stars 3. And won.
- Native Americans: Half Ojibwe, from her mother. Trixie has often said her family is right off of a reservation.
- Old Shame: On an episode of UNHhhh, she reflected on the runway look that first got her eliminated from Drag Race and admitted it's definitely something she wouldn't do in this day and age.
- Those Two Guys: With Katya, and increasingly with Brittany Broski.
- Uncanny Valley Make Up: Purposely invoked, she claims during Drag Race that she paints herself not for the back row, but for the check cashing place down the street. Her rather cartoonishly heavy style of make-up has very much become her signature style, which she actually toned down for her time filming Season 7. Zig-zagged however, in that while she maintains the massive proportions on her brow crease and her contour depth, she's modified some of her style as she's gained more mainstream success. This includes using more neutral tones, toning down her blush, becoming more purposeful with color contrasts and getting rid of her doll-like blue contacts. In effect, Trixie has managed to soften her makeup relative to what it used to be around Season 7 of Drag Race... despite it still being cartoonish by comparison even to the vast majority of other drag queens.
