Yvie Oddly

When people still try to label and put someone in a box, along comes world-famous drag artist Yvie Oddly to change the game. This queen displayed charisma, uniqueness, nerve and talent on the eleventh season of RuPaul’s Drag Race and eventually took home the crown.   

She returned to the franchise for the seventh season of RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars in 2022 and has been a frequent performer on the Werq the World concert tour since 2019.

Fashion and music have also been a part of Oddly’s brand and she released a debut album titled Drag Trap in 2020.

In 2024, Oddly opened up about her journey throughout life for a new book titled All About Yvie: Into the Oddity. While out on the book tour, she sat down at The Book Cellar to chat about the project.

JN: (Jerry Nunn) How are you today?

YO: (Yvie Oddly) I’m lovely!

JN: Pronouns are addressed right at the beginning of the book. What pronouns would you like for this article?

YO: She/her is good. That’s easiest for my drag self.

JN: What do you tell other people about your complex identity? Is it continually evolving?

YO: It is constantly evolving and everything is always changing, which is why it’s best to not root yourself in too hard.

The only identity I have put in the forefront is queer. No matter where I travel in life, queer still explains it all, including my race. I could tell everyone that I have two parents who have the exact same skin color as me, but if you go a generation back we have lots of interracial couples, or I could just say my race is queer.

I could tell people about my complex health issues or I could just explain that I have a queer body. [laughs]

JN: How are you health-wise by the way?

YO: Oh, horrible. We are all dying! Didn’t you know? It’s pretty sad actually. I found out the day I was born!

JN: Well, you look amazing visually.

YO: Thank you. It’s the makeup!

JN: So are you an All About Eve movie fan?

YO: It’s just the title and was the co-author Michael Bach’s idea. He thought it was a perfect reference because the TikTokers wouldn’t get it, but they would want to say it over and over.

JN: You dedicated the book to your cats. What are their names?

YO: Lucky and Gus.

JN: Where do they live?

YO: My cats and husband are in New York. All of my drag is in Denver. I live at the airport, although I am not sure which one because they keep moving me around!

JN: Do you like all the traveling?

YO: I have always needed lots of change. When I have had too many things going consistently in the past I get really depressed. I need a little bit of a tour life and then I need some time to work a 9 to 5 job. Sometimes I need to know where I am going tomorrow and then sometimes I need nothing inside my brain. To answer your question in the most obnoxious way, no I don’t like it, but I need it.

JN: Got it. Have you had an unusual job in the past?

YO: I worked in a grocery store, but that wasn’t really unusual. Oh, I scammed my way into being a field manager on the Obama campaign. I was one of the teenagers who yelled at people to knock on more doors in various neighborhoods.

JN: Was that a rewarding job?

YO: I quit a month in. It was too cold outside! [laughs]

JN: For the book were there parts left on the cutting room floor?

YO: Yes. To be vague and shadowy, the entire reason I wrote the book is left out. I talk about it a little bit in the book and it’s hinted at, but I don’t tell people the reason because they are not ready for it.

JN: Would you write a sequel?

YO: I have thought about it. I would want to write it by myself so it could trigger more of my own thoughts.

JN: How was it working with a co-author?

YO: Amazing! I did a deep dive into a lot of things that I wasn’t thinking about before writing it and had been tucked away inside me as parts of my personality. It was therapeutic. It made me realize how much more I could do if there was no middle person in between me and the paper. Someday when I snap an ankle and have some free time I will write another book!

JN: Or if there is another pandemic and we are stuck inside again…

YO: I know the pandemic wasn’t a good thing, my husband lost his grandmother, but I was able to accomplish many things during that time. I made art and was able to stop and breathe for the first time in a year. I was able to reconnect with all of the people in my life that I thought were lost forever because of my being on Drag Race. After all that was done, I was ready for the pandemic to end.

JN: I heard you talking to your fans after this book presentation and noticed they asked you very personal questions. What has been your most interesting moment with a fan ever?

YO: All of it is really wild. Anyone who sees Beyonce walking down the street is going to scream and run after her, so that is just being human. The only time I don’t like it is when it starts to intrude on my personal time and space. People will think they know me and then I get a little rude and reset my boundaries. They eventually understand I am a human being like everyone else and they don’t completely know me.

JN: That sounds like what happened to RuPaul because after four interviews she was rude to me.

YO: She gave out niceness to interviewers for 30 years and now rarely does interviews. I think about that sometimes. RuPaul is very world-weary now and it must be exhausting to have no one to relate to. The harder she works the bigger she grows. She will never be a straight celebrity. She won’t have the access and seclusion of somebody who did half as much as her while still being a role model for all of us, the queers and the queens.

It’s weird to know that there’s no space left for her humanity. I think about this when I think about her sex life, which she might even be asexual at this point! [laughs]

JN: That explains why she became more difficult over time.

YO: She’s the beast we make her and that can be isolating.

JN: You wrote about celebrities and how people relate to them in the book. Did you read Gottmik’s book The T Guide?

YO: No, no offense, I’m not interested in the queens! I’m kidding. I’m interested in them, just not their stories in writing. I want to see their fashion and they can tell me their stories in person.

RuPaul is different for me because there was something where I always felt like I related to her. I feel it every time she looks at me.

The judges told me that they were not allowed to say it publicly but they noticed RuPaul saw herself in me and they described me as her before she got pretty.

JN: I can see that as they were referring to when she was a club kid in Atlanta then later became a pageant queen, which you are not.

YO: Yes, that is why I am very slowly working my way through her memoir. With everyone else I prefer fiction! [laughs]

JN: Did you ever feel you had to stifle your infectious laugh in the past?

YO: All the time. I have had a lot of laughs over the years and most of them are stifled. When I let out an actual real laugh I do the same thing that people do when they chew with their mouths open. I cover my mouth and apologize. I will unpack that in therapy one day.

JN: What would you like readers to take away from All About Yvie?

YO: I just hope they take away something. People got so much out of my story that I had no part in telling on Drag Race. I danced around and dumped my trauma on camera then the editors chose what was important enough to show people.

It’s been weird that strangers will come up to me and tell me one of the 10 things they learned about me on TV. I am hoping that in the future there will be conversations about much more than Drag Race. Hopefully, they will come up to me and say that their favorite sex position is the same as mine instead!

JN: What projects are you working on for the rest of this year?

YO: Right now, I have to write a full one-woman show in two days. Don’t worry, I have done it before. I want to work on another one-woman show without such a tight deadline in the future.

JN: Are you working on more music?

YO: Always, but I learned to never take it seriously. That’s not good for me and I’m a drag queen, so I am here to make something fun. Screw the Grammys! [laughs]

JN: You have meant so much to people who don’t want to be stuck in a box. You must hear that often out on the road.

YO: It’s wild to be a staple of that belief and that fans think I am way weirder than I actually am. Sometimes I wish I could take my skin off and hang it up. It would be nice to take a step back and appreciate everything. One day I will tackle it all in therapy as well!

Pick up Oddly’s memoir at oddlyyvie.com or wherever books are sold.