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Plenty of drag queens can sing, and plenty of drag queens who can’t sing have released songs anyway. So when an alumnus of RuPaul’s Drag Race makes a foray into the world of recorded music, you can be forgiven for greeting it with a shrug.
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Which is part of the reason why season 16 breakout Plasma is making her debut a live album. She wants you to know that when she’s teasing out those melancholic money notes or whizzing through a difficult-to-untangle patter song, there’s no studio trickery and it isn’t the tenth take — it’s just her honest-to-goddess voice doing what it does best.
As Drag Race viewers know, Plasma is a Broadway baby through and through, a Gay White Way devotee whose humor and style draws on legends like Barbra Streisand and Bernadette Peters. While Plasma’s decision to make her debut LP a live record is an impressively risky one, the fact that it consists mainly of Broadway faves isn’t a shock — but smartly, the 26-year-old from Texas has peppered in a few surprises.
When I attended the Joe’s Pub show where Is Miss Thing On? (Live from Joe’s Pub) was recorded on July 28, there were two tunes I didn’t recognize: “A Schloon for the Gumpert” and “80 or Above.” The former is a song Streisand trotted out at her famous A Happening in Central Park show in 1968 but wasn’t included on the live album’s track list; the latter, however, is neither a Broadway classic nor an obscurity — it’s a new tune written by Plasma herself. But damned if it doesn’t sound like it could be a long-lost gem from some old musical forgotten over the decades.
Ahead of its release on Friday (Nov. 7) via Joy Machine Records, Plasma hopped on a Zoom with Billboard to talk about the advice from her family (both biological and drag) that influenced this album, how she landed Tony and Grammy winner J. Harrison Ghee for a duet, and which post-Covid Broadway show gave us “one of the most pivotal performances in American theater history.”
Why did you decide to make your debut album a live album, as opposed to a studio LP where you can do multiple takes and fix mistakes?
The primary inspiration was from my dad, actually. He raised me listening to Michael Bublé Meets Madison Square Garden and Adele’s Live From SoHo sessions, and all the greats who recorded live in the mid-century up until now.
When it came up that I wanted to record a debut album, my dad said, “Well, you could do it in the studio and feel perfect about it — but as we’ve always taught you, perfect is the enemy of great, and you are great in front of a live audience, because you are always better when you are performing, instead of sitting in a silent room worrying about the way you sound. So do it, don’t leave anything out. Don’t leave any stone unturned. Do it live, do it bold. Do it bravely, and don’t look back.” My dad’s very wise.
That’s great advice. Another marvelous live album you mentioned during your Joe’s Pub show is Barbra Streisand’s Live at the Bon Soir, which she recorded in 1962 but didn’t release until 2022. It’s so good, I can’t believe she didn’t release that back in the day.
I can’t either. And I found out very recently that the day after she recorded her last session at the Bon Soir, she did a cabaret series at the bar in the West Village called the Duplex in their upstairs cabaret space. That is genuinely, literally, the first bar in New York City that gave me a weekly show and it was in the upstairs space. So the Barbra connection deepens and deepens. That is the album that truly inspired this live album.
How did you pick the songs? Obviously there are Broadway faves, but there’s also some random, obscure stuff, even one I wasn’t familiar with.
Good! That is the goal. I’m actually wearing a t-shirt from an off-Broadway show called The Big Gay Jamboree, which is a very niche hit. I realized in my adult homosexual life that an obscure, niche reference gets me a lot of street cred with a tiny group of people that I respect, so the niche reference really guides my hand a lot in my work. I had a live show last year, right on the heels of my run on Drag Race, called All That Plazz. It was a diaristic approach of my life as it stood a year and a half-ish ago. I took that as a blueprint, and I whittled out the kinks or the things that didn’t really feel relevant anymore, or the things I didn’t identify with as personally, and I filled them in with things that felt really personal.
“Cry Me a River” [ed. note: the Arthur Hamilton song from the ‘50s, not the Justin Timberlake single] has always been one of my favorite songs. I’m also a Scorpio, so “Cry Me a River” is a bit of a vengeance anthem, which I love. “More” from Dick Tracy — I never sung that live until Joe’s Pub, but that was one of the first songs I lip synced to when I started doing drag in New York. I like to lure people in with songs that they will know, and then keep them sat with niche references that they’ve either forgotten about or they’ve never known existed. Uncovering that is how I fell in love with mid-century music, as well as people introducing me to music that no one hears anymore.
I love that you did “More.” It’s a fantastic song that kind of disappeared, because it’s on a Madonna album, I’m Breathless, that most people don’t return to.
I actually didn’t even know what it was from, or that Madonna had done it, for years — because I was obsessed with Ruthie Henshall’s version from Putting It Together, the Sondheim review on Broadway with Carol Burnett. That’s the one I lip synced to, and she’s just a powerhouse. Then when I learned that it was a Madonna song, I was like, “Well, I’ve already heard it sung correctly, so I don’t need to go back now.”
Look, I love Madonna, and her version is great, but I get that it’s certainly not like doing a Barbra song where you’re thinking, “How am I ever gonna match that range?”
Oh, my God, yeah. She has a cup of hot tea on the stage because she wants one. I have a cup of hot tea on stage because I have to do it. I have to treat my voice correctly if I’m gonna sing Barbra’s stuff.
That leads to one of the things I wanted to ask. Of the songs in that setlist, what’s the easiest one to sing for you, and what is the most challenging one?
God, that night, “More” was my biggest challenge. I went into it new, and I love the song, and I’ve known the song, but it is literally a key change minefield. Thank you, Stephen Sondheim. It’s also fast and it’s patter-y and it has some particular vocabulary that you have to really enunciate because it’s theatrical, so you want to make sure everyone is hearing the words. Whereas on something like “Misty” or “Cry Me a River,” you’re gooey, floaty, lovely.
“Cry Me a River” is one of those songs that I could sing if I had just gotten vocal fold surgery. For some reason, the older I get, the more I can put that song on vocal autopilot and listen to the words again and find new meaning in them. It just falls out of my mouth, and then by the end, I’m screaming, and I realize, “Oh, sorry that was really loud.” That one is the easiest, just because it comes naturally. I’m having an organic artistic response. [Laughs.] God, how pretentious.
You open with “Let Me Entertain You” from Gypsy. Did you see the latest Broadway staging of it with Audra McDonald, and what did you think of it?
I adored it. In the album, I talk about how jazz and mid-century music is largely accredited to, or it should be more accredited to, people of color. Because jazz, of course, has its roots in New Orleans and in the Black community. I think we think of jazz and we think of Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong, but we don’t think about Eartha Kitt and we don’t think about Carmen McRae or Sarah Vaughan or this plethora of Black artists who gave us the gift that, in my world, keeps on giving.
Seeing a production like Gypsy, which is written in a time of oppression but always talking about the white plight of show business, and then having it come under new direction and new vision from George C. Wolfe about Black people fighting even just for minimal visibility, and then still being robbed of it. And then, of course, the spiritual connection of Audra losing the Tony after one of the most pivotal performances in American theater history on the Tonys. Seriously, it feels like we’ve seen one of the first post-Covid truly monumental theater-making attempts with Audra’s Gypsy. And, of course, Joy Woods is a sensation.
Speaking of Tonys, you had J. Harrison Ghee come up for a duet during the show, which was beautiful. How did that come about?
Like all great queer connections, we met at a bar. I met J. a couple times, but the one that really stuck was we met at my friend Blacc Cherry’s Drag Race viewing party at Dive 106 earlier this spring. After that, we ran into each other at the Smash Broadway opening night red carpet. I grew up idolizing Tony Award winners and the Broadway theater excellence that implies. And when I met J., I still felt very much at home and very friendly and very communicative and also sisterly. There’s a lot of kiki energy, there’s a lot of “yes and” energy that you couldn’t quantify in a theater improv class. You could only quantify it by being human adults who have lived a little bit of the queer experience in New York City.
I asked them out of the blue. I was like, “How can I, as a white cisgender man, a twink, celebrate Black artistry through a jazz medium and also not invite a true, gifted informant of Black artistry–Black queer, non-binary artistry—into the room with me?” J. is also so generous. They have their Tony and their Grammy, and then cut to them gluing down my lace on the back of my neck that I didn’t know was there.
That’s a pro.
That’s a pro, that’s an empath. That’s generous. That’s someone who you want in the room with you.
During the show, you performed one song you had written, “80 or Above.” I don’t mean to sound backhanded, but it was surprisingly good. Usually when someone is singing a bunch of classics and then is like, “Here’s one I wrote myself,” you’re thinking, “OK, here we go,” but I was impressed. I could even imagine other singers singing it. What’s your songwriting process like?
Thank you so much. First of all, that’s very flattering. I will also tell you that I had reservations about writing music, because I’ve also sat in rooms where people will say, “You guys, the next song is a song that I wrote,” and it’s just like, oh my god, clench your napkin in your fist — because you’re gonna have to get through three minutes of someone’s passion project. And I will not name names.
I don’t even know what my songwriting process is. I read a lot of poetry in high school. I started back when I had a more regular journaling practice. I find myself writing in rhyme structure — maybe it’s just because I’m dramatic as hell and I’m a secret Shakespearean-hearted dramatic goon. I was feeling silly one day and started writing things out. And I was like, “what if I wrote this little song, and what if I came up with a melody that sounds like it came out of the Anita O’Day songbook?” And did something funny and kitschy and campy, but also poignant? As long as I came up with a melody that wasn’t irritating or TikTok, AI-generated, then I could be comfortable putting it out there, as long as it didn’t interrupt the flow of my grander show.
The fact that you can hear other people sing it means a great deal to me. I really am proud of it, and I’d like to write more. I ever were to record more music, I’d want to do a studio album, because I’ve done the live album, toss, toss [fake tosses hair]. I’d like to do something that’s half-original, half-niche covers, so that the line between things you know I wrote and things you don’t know at all is blurred.
What are your hopes for this album when it comes out? What do you want to do next?
I’d love for every Broadway producer in town to listen to it. It’s a great, big audition for something else. In the theater world, we say every audition is an audition for something else, or every interaction is an audition. At the same time, I am trying to identify myself post-reality TV as a real human with autonomous thoughts and control over my own narrative. I’m trying to position myself for opportunities that come beyond reality TV, for people who are equipped to take on narrative roles and theatrical roles and musical roles.
I would love to collaborate with other jazz artists. I’d love to be on Broadway. I’d love to sing live more. I’d love to blur the line between Plasma and Taylor, which is my legal name. I want to have the full breadth of what is possible for a queer person in 2025 available to me. The whole reason why you listen to a live album is because it doesn’t sound like the studio album, because someone is trying something in real time that is dangerous. If you mess up, everyone will see it, and that’s vulnerable, and it’s scary.
One of my dear friends is Privilege, a drag artist in Brooklyn. The night before I left for Drag Race, they gave me a little totem to take with me and they said, “I just want to encourage you to feel whatever fear you feel, and then do it scared.”
More great advice!
I don’t know a single queer person who’s not scared right now. I’d rather do something scared than rest on technological improvement or the gloss of legitimacy helping me out. I am who I am, and I rest on the laurels that I can present to you in real time and nothing else. And so that’s my priority, to live as authentically and unashamedly as possible.
Anything else you want to add, about the album or your life?
[Jokingly] Well, I’m still single and I’m still drinking too much, so that original song has never hit harder. No, I would encourage Drag Race fans to broaden the scope of what they perceive as possible from a Drag Race alumnus. I would also encourage music fans and theater fans to broaden their perspectives beyond Kinky Boots and La Cage aux Folles into what queer artists are capable of telling.
On a chilly evening at the start of March, drag king Blaq Dinamyte found himself looking out at a crowd of young activists eager to make change.
He was certainly proud of the turnout — as the president and co-founder of drag activism group Qommittee, Dinamyte had organized that evening’s march on the Kennedy Center weeks after President Donald Trump replaced 18 board members of the arts organization with MAGA loyalists, was appointed chairman by those new members and vowed to end any and all drag shows or “other anti-American propoganda” featured by the center.
But the D.C. drag performer also couldn’t help but think about his fellow protester’s safety. What would the consequences of protesting outside the center look like for them? “There were a lot of young faces protesting for the first time, and a lot of things that they didn’t realize could happen,” he tells Billboard. “We really wanted people to understand what it is they are risking, what could actually happen to them, and how to counter that effectively.”
Three months later, Dinamyte and his colleagues at Qommittee have created exactly the kind of guidance he wanted to provide those protestors. The organization published the Drag Defense Handbook in May, a 43-page guide for drag performers around the country dedicated to providing tools on how to respond when met with threats, harassment and violations of their personal freedoms.
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“We want to address all of these elements that you can’t really think of when you are literally in the middle of it,” Dinamyte says. “We want everyone to have a plan ahead of time before all of this happens.”
Separated into seven sections — including “crisis response,” “threats of violence and harassment” and “protections against defamation” — the handbook offers step-by-step guides for what performers can do when dealing with different, unwelcome scenarios.
Each of those sections were created, Dinamyte says, with the help of drag performers who have experienced firsthand what the latest wave of right-wing backlash looks like. “I am in such support of this handbook,” says Miss Cali Je, an Idaho-based drag performer who volunteers with Qommittee. “It has a lot of vital information that I was grasping for two years ago that I did not have available.”
Je serves the Idaho-based non-profit Reading Time with the Queens, where she and her fellow board members perform a 45-minute drag storytelling events for kids and families at a local library. But in February 2023, a group of Christian churches and anti-LGBTQ+ groups began opposing the event, staging sit-in protests at the public library where the event was held, harassing the performers online and claiming that the event was putting the children attending in danger.
“It’s ironic when a lot of that hate is coming from a group of people who seemingly are there to ‘protect the children,’ when in actuality, at the time that they were protesting the loudest by taking up all of the space in our room at the library, they were scaring children that were there,” Je recalls. “I didn’t want that to happen anymore.”
Je kept the performances going, even with protestors taking up space in the room with her. But when city officials refused to provide the resources necessary to make the reading event safer for everyone involved, the performer decided — with the help of a number of community members — to move the event to a local synagogue.
“What it boils down to is not giving your oppressors what they want. They want you to not exist, and that can look as simple as you just not holding your program anymore,” Je offers, matter-of-factly. “Sometimes the solution that is easiest and is the most safe is to not hold that program, which I get. But I think all of us had a feeling that it was just like … everything was fine until a Christian-nationalist hate group decided to rain on our parade. The idea of backing down and not being ourselves, of bending to their will and their understanding of where queer people are allowed to be and not to be, was out of the question.”
That experience helped inform a section of the handbook, which instructs performers to put in the work building a community around them that, if and when the time comes, can offer support where necessary. The guide asks performers to not only establish those connections, but to create action plans with those community members by creating “clear roles and communication protocols,” while also training those community members about de-escalation techniques.
Yet some of the most pervasive threats for LGBTQ+ performers don’t come in-person — they’re instead issued online, via social media accounts mounting hate campaigns that result in persistent threats of violence and death. It’s a tactic that Los Angeles-based drag king Jack King Goff knows all too well. “I wouldn’t even recommend having a personal social media page at this point,” they say.
Back in 2024, Goff was starting his fourth year as a public school teacher in Washington state. Their co-workers and bosses all knew that they were a drag performer on the side, but they kept that information from students and parents, feeling that it wasn’t important information for them to know. But, when a student discovered a years-old tagged photo on Goff’s out-of-drag Instagram page, they created a fake account and started a cyberbullying campaign against him.
“That’s the fun thing kids do now,” Goff says. “They make anonymous Instagram pages, and then they will take photos and videos of people without their consent and write terrible stuff about them.”
Before long, the campaign caught the attention of far-right activist group Moms for Liberty as well as a number of conservative influencers, who began petitioning for Goff to be fired from his job. In the process, he was also inundated with anonymous threats on his life, some of which required the intervention of the FBI. Goff ultimately decided to leave his job and his home, moving down to L.A. to try and start over.
Today, Goff recognizes that the situation could have been much worse than it already was, thanks to the fact that they and their partner were already paying for a data removal service to scrub as much of their personal information from the web. “Who knows if people would have shown up to my apartment if they found my address online, or if they called me or something,” they say. “Cybersecurity is super important, but unfortunately, I think this country is absolutely terrible at it.”
After working with Qommittee to help navigate their hate campaign, Goff consulted on the handbook, reading over the guide’s lengthy section on online harassment and digital security and offering feedback. The section advises performers to keep their personal and professional accounts entirely separate, reminds performers to always document any threats issued against them, and to drive their community members to report and block all hate accounts involved.
Goff adds that, with recent news of the the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) being granted greater access to Americans personal information — as well as the Trump administration’s recent expansion of data technology firm Palantir’s access to federal programs — cybersecurity ought to be the first step queer people everywhere take to protecting themselves. “With DOGE taking all of this data and giving it to Palantir, and now having more biodata being stored, we have to be really careful,” he says.
Dinamyte agrees, pointing out that because younger drag performers rely heavily on platforms like TikTok and Instagram to gain a following, cyberbullying has become one of the most common forms of anti-LGBTQ+ threats in recent years. “They’re going to be reluctant to lock that down, to make that non-visible,” he explains. “So, being able to show them, ‘Hey, here’s some things you should think about when you’re online,’ feels like it’s having the biggest impact on the community.”
While attacks on the LGBTQ+ community have been steadily rising over the last few years — whether in the form of coordinated legislative attacks, online threats or actual instances of physical harm — a recent report from GLAAD revealed that, in 2025, attacks on and threats against drag performers dropped by 55%.
Some attribute this sharp decline to the numerous court rulings that have affirmed drag performers’ First Amendment rights to perform in public, without restriction. But Je cautions against thinking that the courts alone will solve the problem, pointing to the federal appeals court that overturned a previous decision allowing a drag performance in Naples, Fla. to take place outdoors. “This is why I have so much trouble really trusting anything coming out of the courts,” Je says with a sigh. “If there’s this much disagreement about what a First Amendment right is, then something is inherently flawed.”
Goff also points out that the 55% drop in threats may account for the fact that many venues and organizations have pulled back on hiring drag artists in 2025. “Just with Trump being back in office, I’ve watched shows that I’ve been booked for being cancelled, shows that have been going on for years and years,” they say, as Dinamyte joins them in agreement. “The political implications of having a drag performer come to your event have fundementally changed.”
That’s why Dinamyte hopes drag performers — and everyone else in the queer and trans community, for that matter — adopts the strategies within the Drag Defense Handbook to better prepare themselves for the scary new reality we’re living in. “Violence happening to a minority group is not specific to drag. There is nothing ‘new’ in this handbook,” he says. “So, I really hope other groups take the information in here and help protect their communities with it.”
A federal appeals court has kept in place an injunction blocking Florida from enforcing a law that would restrict drag shows in the state, saying the statute likely interferes with First Amendment-protected free speech.
In a lengthy opinion released Tuesday (May 13), two out of three judges on a panel for the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a district court injunction that bars Florida from enforcing its so-called Protection of Children Act. The statute aimed to prohibit children from attending “lewd” live performances at restaurants and bars, with Governor Ron DeSantis and state lawmakers singling out drag shows in public statements on the law.
A Florida federal judge sided with restaurant chain Hamburger Mary’s in 2023, finding that the law is overly broad and thus tramples on free speech. And in Tuesday’s ruling, two appellate judges — Robin S. Rosenbaum and Nancy G. Abudu — agreed.
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“By providing only vague guidance as to which performances it prohibits, the act wields a shotgun when the First Amendment allows a scalpel at most,” wrote Judge Rosenbaum for the majority.
Tuesday’s ruling means the 2023 injunction will remain in effect for now, and Florida cannot enforce this law while the Hamburger Mary’s lawsuit continues. Discovery has concluded in the case, though a trial date has not been set.
“Obviously, we’re thrilled that the injunction is going to remain in place for the duration of this litigation,” Melissa Stewart, an attorney for Hamburger Mary’s, tells Billboard. “That means that the citizens of Florida will have their First Amendment rights while we finish litigating this case.”
Representatives for the state of Florida did not immediately return requests for comment.
First Amendment law allows governments to restrict “obscene” speech, but only when that speech encompasses “patently offensive” sexual material that appeals to a “prurient interest” and lacks serious artistic or political value.
The Eleventh Circuit majority says that because the Florida law targets an undefined mass of “lewd” shows, it could be used to squash all kinds of constitutionally-protected speech that does not meet the strict “obscenity” standard.
The opinion notes, for example, that a Florida enforcement agency previously revoked one venue’s liquor license after deeming “lewd” a performance in which a drag artist known as “Jimbo” mimicked giving birth to a pile of baloney.
The majority says that while Jimbo’s performance is a “bit odd (and hammy in every sense of the word),” it “cannot be deemed ‘obscene.’”
“One of the act’s sponsors’ stated intent to target ‘Drag Queen Story Time’ also helps show the potential breadth of a term like ‘lewd conduct,’” Judge Rosenbaum wrote. “Of course, one legislator’s interpretation of the act does not an authoritative construction make. But it does betray how much protected speech may fall within the act’s [scope].”
Judge Gerald Bard Tjoflat of the Eleventh Circuit disagreed, writing in a dissent that the majority opinion is wrong because it “reads the statute in the broadest possible way.”
Even if Florida’s statute is unclear, Judge Tjoflat continued, the proper remedy would be to ask the Florida Supreme Court to step in and offer an analysis rather than block enforcement completely.
Florida is among a number of red states that have enacted legislation restricting drag performances in recent years. A similar Tennessee law was also blocked by a judge in 2023, though the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals reinstated it a year later.
Will the new cast of queens on RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars season 10 find themselves becoming more and more “Popular” on the new season? Will they need some “Good Luck, Babe” in order to take home the top prize? Maybe the new slate of guest judges can help them figure it out. On Wednesday […]
On Sunday (April 27), the family of Bianca Castro announced that the iconic performer — better known by her drag name Jiggly Caliente — had passed away, after battling a severe infection that resulted in the amputation of her right leg. Caliente came to public prominence after competing on season 4 of RuPaul’s Drag Race, and quickly became one of the show’s most celebrated queens. She returned to the show for season six of All Stars, served as a judge on Drag Race Philippines and starred in a number of episodes of the groundbreaking FX series Pose.
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As tributes continue to pour forth in Caliente’s honor, Billboard reached out to Caliente’s close friend, Drag Race star Manila Luzon, to pay tribute to her life. Below, Luzon looks back on the first time the two of them met, their mutual love for reading each other and why she considers Caliente to be “the person that really started my chosen family.”
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For those looking for a way to help, Caliente’s family has set up a GoFundMe to help pay for medical and funeral expenses, and to give the drag star “the beautiful, heartfelt goodbye she deserves.” If you’re able to donate, please consider doing so here.
Shortly after I started dating Sahara Davenport, she took me to a dinner celebrating one of her drag queen friends, and that’s where I first got to meet Jiggly. It was funny, because when I first met Sahara in a dark bar, I had just come back from a vacation in Mexico, and Sahara had misheard me and thought I was from Mexico. So, when I met Jiggly — this little, round, Filipino drag queen — she looked at me, turned to Sahara and said, “Girl, he’s not Mexican! He looks Filipino!”
The very next night that we went to visit Jiggly at The Web, which was the gay Asian nightclub in New York City. She was DJing in this little hip-hop room — she had a disc changer, and her massive folder full of burned CDs of Beyoncé and Missy Elliott. I remember being so impressed, because I certainly didn’t know how to DJ, and to have a drag queen DJing felt like, “Oh, you can perform as a drag queen but also DJ?” She just had this authority about her as the one entertaining the crowd, she had complete control over the room with the music she was playing. I always found that very admirable.
Quickly, Jiggly became the first person that I considered my chosen family as a gay person. I had been living in New York City for a few years, but I really didn’t have that queer community at that point. Jiggly was Filipino, and she was my connection to that part of my own heritage. She was a year older than me — even though she’s smaller and loved to say that she was my little sister. In the Philippines, you always refer to your older sister as “ate.” So, whenever she would say, “Oh, I’m her little sister,” I would go, “Girl, no, you’re my ate.”
She was the bridge, for me, to drag performance in New York City — I was a drag queen, but I wasn’t really going out and pursuing drag. Jiggly, meanwhile, was always out; she was going to Barracuda, she was at Therapy, she was always doing competitions, and she was always winning because she was such an impressive dancer. She started my chosen family.
Why I fell in love with Jiggly so much was because, first of all, she was so beautiful — you could never come for her face. She would always read everyone for their mugs, even back before Drag Race, she just had the most blended, beautiful mugs. But what I always loved about her is that she was this short, tiny, yappy little queen, and she had a mouth on her. She would tell everyone like she saw it; she would not let you get away with anything. If something was wrong with you, she would be the first to point it out — and never out of spite. She said it because she had very little filter, and she was always able to deliver it in a way that was shady but so funny. You would always laugh about it. She was brave enough to always say the things that no one else would ever have the guts to.
At The Web, she was the runt of the litter, so we were always picking on Jiggly in the dressing room. But she would always get us back, and would know just what to say to shut us all up. You could not tell her that, in the Destiny’s Child group, she was not Beyoncé. That is what I loved about her: even if she wasn’t this “conventional” drag beauty, she had this confidence about her. She knew that she was an amazing performer, that she had mug for days, that she was going to win over every crowd she was in front of, and that she could read you the house down if you came for her.
When we would be on phone calls kiki-ing, we would both always be saying the most horrible things to one another. I would tell her, “We are going to hell for laughing at this.” But that was the thing about her — she always found the humor in everything. Even when everything in the world was going bad, Jiggly had this way of turning it around and making you laugh at it. It’s so strange, because as I’ve been reading all of these tributes to her, I keep going to call her, because I just want to kiki with her about her own death! I want to know what she’s thinking about everyone talking about her.
She loved the pageants — one time, we were on tour when the Miss Universe pageant was airing. We were in Europe, it was the middle of the night, and we had finished our show. Jiggly refused to get out of drag: she was in full makeup, rhinestones, the wig, and I just looked at her like, “Why are you doing this? We are on a tour bus!” And Jiggly was like, “Well, I have to be dressed up, it’s the pageant!” Just in order to watch the pageant, she had to be in full pageant mode. So she sat there, in drag, and we watched Pia Wurtzbach win Miss Universe.
She also loved comic books. She was the foremost expert on the Marvel Universe before it was big. She knew all of the side characters and their backstories, and she had these dreams of what her ideal X-Men movie would look like. She thought that she was Jubliee, the young Asian superhero who could shoot sparkles out of her fingers, and that is literally Jiggly to a T. Even when she was in the hospital, we would be playing the X-Men cartoons. There was that geeky side, that nerdy side to her that I loved.
I’m going to miss her kicking all of our asses at Mortal Kombat. Whenever she would come over, it would be me, her, my husband, Valentina, Heidi N Closet, and she would just destroy us — though Heidi will probably read this and disagree with me. It’s just those little things — that little gamer, comic-book-nerd side that you wouldn’t guess about her when she’s in a sequin gown lip synching something so fiercely on the stage — that I’ll miss.
I went to go visit her in the hospital in New York City last week. I had been aware of her situation, and was in contact with her brother. I was being patient; she had a severe infection and at first, it was mostly a concern of, “Well, how is my friend going to feel that she had to have a limb amputated?” Jiggly became so popular because she was such an amazing dancer, you know? She was high-kicking and doing cartwheels, so for a short, round little drag queen, it was always a crowd-pleaser. So it was devastating to hear the news about her limb. So I was just trying to be very patient for her to recover. But the infection was so severe, and her body was under so much trauma, and it was really hard to see her in the hospital.
When I finally heard she had passed on Sunday, obviously I felt really sad. But I was also relieved. We would have gotten her a really fierce rhinestoned prosthetic and some gorgeous gowns. But I know that would have been very difficult for her, so in a way, I was relieved. She was surrounded by her family and her friends and her drag family, and I know that she felt the love and all of the positive energy from around the world once her family released the statement about her condition. I mean, there was this outpouring of love, and she got so many visitors in the hospital: friends, co-stars, family, people from all points in her life were able to come visit her. We were all able to see her in her last days, and to be with her and share our stories.
As drag artists, a lot of us are seen as rich and famous because we were on TV, but drag is a very expensive career. We have very expensive uniforms for work. Jiggly deserves a send-off worthy of the star that she was, and we also want to make sure that her family does not have to worry about finances. They’re worried enough about the loss of Jiggly. So, we’re turning to the fans to help support by helping out with some of the medical bills, and helping with the funeral arrangements so that burden isn’t there as well. Jiggly just has her brother left now — she had lost her mother many years ago. So, my heart goes out to her brother, Gian, who now has had to say goodbye to both his mother and his sister.
I don’t have to hope; I know she secured her legacy. She went on Drag Race as a trans woman when it was still taboo, because she knew she had to get on the show. After that, everyone agreed that she was a star. But I really hope people remember her for not taking herself too seriously, while still taking herself seriously enough as a woman. I hope people remember what she’s done for her communities — the Filipino community, in representing Filipinos and Asian-Americans in the media, and for her activism and representation in the trans community. She produced the show Translation with Peppermint, Carmen Carrera and Kylie Sonique Love, where they openly talked about trans issues. She made that happen — that was her concept and her idea. Her gender identity was always so important to her, and she was a woman as long as I knew her. I know that she will be remembered for that.
She will always be remembered by the people she loved as the fun, loving, shady, goofy little Jiggly. And I will always remember her as my sister.
As told to Stephen Daw.
Jiggly Caliente, who rose to fame on season four of RuPaul’s Drag Race, has died at 44.
Caliente, whose real name was Bianca Castro, passed away on Sunday (April 27), just days after undergoing a leg amputation following a severe infection. Her family announced the sad news in a post on Instagram.
“It is with profound sorrow that we announce the passing of Bianca Castro-Arabejo, known to the world and cherished by many as Jiggly Caliente,” the statement read. “Bianca passed away peacefully on April 27, 2025, at 4:42 am, surrounded by her loving family and close friends.”
“A luminous presence in the worlds of entertainment and advocacy, Jiggly Caliente was celebrated for her infectious energy, fierce wit, and unwavering authenticity. She touched countless lives through her artistry, activism, and the genuine connection she fostered with fans around the world.”
The family continued, “Her legacy is one of love, courage, and light. Though her physical presence is gone, the joy she shared and the space she helped create for so many will remain forever. She will be deeply missed, always loved, and eternally remembered.”
News of her passing follows an earlier family update shared on April 24, in which they revealed that Caliente had suffered “a serious health setback” and had undergone the amputation of most of her right leg due to a “severe infection.”
At the time, they noted that she would be unable to participate in the upcoming season of Drag Race Philippines or any public engagements as her recovery was expected to be extensive.
“At this time, we kindly ask for privacy for Bianca and her family as they navigate this difficult journey together,” the earlier statement read. “While Jiggly concentrates on healing, we invite her friends, fans, and community to uplift her with messages of hope and love on her social media channels. Bianca’s family and drag house are deeply grateful for the continued outpouring of support, strength and prayers.”
Caliente first gained attention with her run on RuPaul’s Drag Race season four, where she finished in eighth place. She later returned to the franchise for All Stars season six and joined Drag Race Philippines as a recurring judge in 2022.
Caliente also portrayed Veronica Ferocity in FX’s hit series Pose, appearing in 12 episodes over the show’s three-season run.
Read her family’s full statement on Instagram below.
Drag Race season four star Jiggly Caliente won’t be returning to her position as a judge on Drag Race Philippines after the drag performer had most of her right leg amputated following an infection. Explore Explore See latest videos, charts and news See latest videos, charts and news In a post to Caliente’s social media, […]
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With RuPaul’s Drag Race bringing back their Rate-a-Queen system for season 17, Billboard decided to rate each of the new queens every week based on their performance. Below, we look at the final main stage challenge of the season to see who made the cut for the finale. Spoilers ahead for episode 14. Fourteen episodes […]
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