Kylee O'hara Fatale

Drag queens have family trees. Each queen belongs to a family led by a drag mother, who guides her daughters along their drag journeys, until her daughters are experienced enough to have daughters of their own. It’s the circle of life—but not all drag families are created equal. And Kylee O’Hara Fatale? She’s drag royalty. The O’Haras are one of the best-known families the drag-world ‘round. Kylee’s mother, Asia O’Hara, and sister, Phi Phi O’Hara, are regular contenders on RuPaul’s Drag Race, the reality show considered to be the most prestigious drag competition since Miss Gay America. If Fatale herself is cast in the show, she’ll be the third from her family to compete, establishing a drag dynasty the likes of which have never been seen. She’s explaining this O’Hara dynasty while applying blue eye shadow. Fatale is preparing for Tuesday Tease, the queer variety show she produces at Sue Ellen’s, a gay bar in Dallas’s Cedar Springs district (the gayborhood, as it’s called). Her dressing room—a mirrored back corner on the second story of the bar—is cloudy with powder. Fatale hasn’t looked away from her reflection once; she’s applying her makeup with the precision and focus of a surgeon, oblivious to the fact that the powder filling the air has ruined the half-eaten pizza next to her makeup station. Fatale wasn’t always a makeup guru. Until she started drag three years ago, the 24- year-old had never touched a makeup brush. She taught herself everything she knows: how to glue down her eyebrows and redraw them, how to contour her cheeks and pin down her hair for her wig. She even taught herself how to cut up foam cushions for padding to mimic the curves of a woman—all this from someone who describes herself as a frat boy in high school. Her previous, straighter persona hated drag altogether. Fatale, who ran with the theatre kids, on more than one occasion left parties and bars when they turned into drag shows. (She implies this happened often. Theatre kids are weird.) It’s when Fatale left her small North Carolina town for Dallas that a switch flipped. She sat through a drag show, and in a moment of inspiration, asked the bar owner if she could perform. Fatale bought makeup and costumes, developed a routine, and a week later, she was a drag queen, dancing for all the gayborhood to see. Fatale shed her frat boy image and began living what she believes is her most authentic life. “I feel like this is how I’ve always been, and this is how I’m showing it to the world,” says Fatale. “I guess when people say that I’ve changed, it’s because drag has made me more open. It’s made me more real.” She says this while applying false lashes, without a hint of irony. Fatale’s hour-long transformation is concluding, and she hopes tonight’s transformation was worth the hassle. Rain, she says, is the killer of drag, and the crowd at Sue Ellen’s will likely be thin on this stormy Tuesday. A thin crowd, paired with the fact that she’s already filling in for a queen who canceled last minute, would make tonight’s performance all the more frustrating. But Tuesday Tease must go on, rain or not. She’s got performers relying on the show for tips. She’s relying on the show for tips. Drag is expensive, royal family or not. _______ Sue Ellen’s attracts an eclectic crowd on a Tuesday night. There are the obvious regulars, high-fiving and calling to each other from across the bar; older couples, either feeling adventurous for stepping into a gay bar or oblivious to the fact that Sue Ellen’s is one; and members of Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, an LGBTQ activist group, clad in lace veils and white face paint. As Fatale predicted, attendance is sparse. She stands in the middle of the room, asking those brave enough to sit close to the stage to draw pictures of Olive, a burlesque performer and model for tonight’s opening activity: tipsy life-drawing class. Each Tuesday Tease performance opens with a group activity. It gets the crowd (the dozen or so actually watching the performance) engaged, and hopefully, more willing to cough up some singles. Art class ends abruptly; Fatale has a costume change to make. A new host, a drag queen who introduces herself only as “your stepmom,” has taken the reins, and is skipping about and taunting the audience, buying time before Fatale’s performance. In a crowd this size, the taunting feels off. There’s too much eye contact, too little anonymity, and too much fake laughter from the crowd. With the queen so close and with so few targets, one has to participate or run the risk of being the butt of the next joke. The crowd shares a collective sigh of relief when Fatale returns to the stage to the tune of Nicki Minaj’s “Starships.” Her performance is short but athletic. Fatale kicks and rolls with such ferocity that the foam she’s used to pad her butt seems more safety precaution than costume. She’s good, or at the very least, she holds a candle to the average RuPaul contestant. Her hot pink leotard and feathered headpiece, paired with her 6’2” frame, make Fatale larger-than-life—she looks like she’s outgrown Sue Ellen’s. After a final drop to the floor and a flurry of poses, Fatale’s “Starships” rendition is over. She was gone as soon as she came. She gave no encore, not even so much as a goodbye. Fatale left her audience alone with the amateur burlesque portion of the show, which is more a group of friends strip-teasing for their girlfriends than a performance. (It seems like Sue Ellen’s only casting requirement is a G-string. Olive was the only serious dancer in the lot.) Fatale’s hour of makeup, her choreography, her expensive costumes, all boiled down to three and half minutes of Nicki Minaj. Her loot was a measly $10, and the applause underwhelming. Fatale is in the process of auditioning for RuPaul’s drag race—and it’s no surprise she’d want more than Tuesday Tease can offer. If rain is the killer of drag, Sue Ellen’s a close second. An amateur burlesque show is no place for an O’Hara. .

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