Back in 2018, Monique Heart sashayed her way into our hearts and minds as one of the most charismatic and witty contestants in the history of RuPaul’s Drag Race. 2 years later, and it’s clear this in one queen whose time in the spotlight is far from over. With her latest role as a mentor on RuPaul’s Celebrity Drag Race reminding us all why we fell in love with her the first place, it seems the only way is up. Find out more with these ten little facts.
1. From Hamburger Macy’s to Drag Race
Heart didn’t get into drag until she was 25, and had never even really considered the possibility until a manager at Hamburger Macy’s spotted her potential and suggested she portray a teen glam queen. “I was like, ‘Ew. Gross. No.’” Heart told Kansas City. “I came back the next day and they handed me a check and said, ‘Go get what you need.’ They saw something I didn’t see … and it took off.”
2. Honoring Black History in Style
The February, Heart celebrated Black History Month in her own inimitable style by using her Instagram feed to show her transformations into such iconic trailblazers as Tina Turner, Josephine Baker, Grace Jones, Dorothy Dandridge, and Whitney Houston. Explaining the series to Them, Heart said, “I started this series for BHM to honor our Blackness. The various people I have chosen to embody are all people in that specific look/outfit, scene, or moment in time that spoke to me as a young queer youth. That inspired and changed my life.”
3. Last Minute Merchant
One of the main reasons Heart got the chop in season 10 of RuPaul’s Drag Race was for forgetting the words mid-way through her lip sync of “Cut to the Feeling” by Carly Rae Jepsen. The reason? The fact that at heart, Monique is a bit of a last-minute merchant. Rather than getting her outfit nailed in plenty of time, Heart left things to the very last minute, staying up well into the wee hours the night before to get it finished in time… and being too tired the day after to recall more than a few random words from her song. Fortunately, she’s since redeemed herself on All-Stars 4, winning two of four lip-syncs and proving the queen of the mic in the process.
4. Vulture’s Most Powerful
In 2019, Heart had the honor of being named one of the ‘Most Powerful Drag Queens in America’ by Vulture. Joining her on the roundup where a score of other glamorous Drag Race contestants, including fellow season 10 queens, Blair St. Claire, Eureka O’Hara, Vanessa Vanjie Mateo, The Vixen, and Mayhem Miller.
5. Brown Cow Stunning
During the premiere of RuPaul’s Drag Race: All-Stars, Heart gave us a taste of her first-ever single, ‘Brown Cow Stunning’. It wasn’t her first, or last, musical escapade: the previous year, Heart featured on both ‘Soak It Up’ with fellow RuPaul girl, Monet X Change, and ‘Everybody Say Love’ with RuPaul, Naomi Smalls, Farrah Moan, and Monét X Change, while the following year, she released ‘SUKM (Kiss Me)’.
6. More Music Maybe?
Speaking to Billboard last year, Heart revealed she had big plans when it comes to making music… although it’s bad luck for Brown Cow Stunning fans hoping for more of the same. “It will sound nothing like anything drag-related,” she confirmed. “You will not pigeonhole my music. My music will completely crossover, it will be completely successful. It will truly be an alternative R&B, gospel, jazz, funk EP. It’ll be well rounded, but it’s going to be completely beautiful. We need to cross over and really make our mark in history.”
7. You’ve Gotta Have Faith
Believe it or not, Heart once came within a hairsbreadth of becoming a pastor, even attending seminary school before dropping out to study hair instead. While she’s since given up on the idea of the priesthood, she’s still a practicing Christian and says her faith is stronger now than it’s ever been. “I rely on scripture more than people think I should because of some of the scripture that talks about homosexuality and all of these scriptures that have been twisted throughout time to use as tools of manipulation,” she told Billboard. “However, I know that God sees me, and he wants his kids to really know him for him
8. Bye Bye Kutabetch
Monique Heart may be the stage name by which we’ve come to know and love her creator, Kevin Richardson, but it wasn’t his first. Before he became Monique Heart, he was Monique ‘Kutabetch’ Heart, named for… well exactly what it sounds like. After deciding the middle name sounded a little too tough for a big-hearted former pastor, she decided to drop it entirely from the act.
9. The Black Mysterious Unicorn
When Heart got the “Yes” from the producers of RuPaul’s Drag Race, it wasn’t just the opportunity to appear before a huge, international audience that got her excited. More than anything else, it was the chance to finally meet her icon that sent his pulse into overdrive. Unfortunately, one-on-one opportunities with the man himself proved short on the ground, as she later shared with The Gay Times. “To me, RuPaul is that black mysterious unicorn, she relayed. “I used to go on AOL when it had dial-up and I would go on search engines and just find photos of RuPaul and stare at them. So, to be that close to him, and not be able to be like, ‘I love you’, y’know what I mean? That’s what kind of sucks. You wanna touch him and thank him, and you really don’t have that.”
10. Parental Problems
It took Richardson until he was 17 to fully realize he was gay (the cruncher came when he realized his feelings for a male colleague at Burger King, where he was working at the time, extended way beyond friendship). Despite being (and remaining) close to his parents, it took him a while to come out to them, and neither fully accepted his sexuality, Sadly, he’s not sure they ever will. “It’s harder being black and gay, because any ounce of femininity, any ounce of weakness, any ounce of anything that is not alpha male is considered ‘less than’,” he told KansasCity.com. “(I have) white friends who are gay who came from unaccepting families. But I have even more of them who have parents who are affirming, who say, ‘We want to be with you, we want to meet your partner da da da.’ But with African Americans and even Latinos, you rarely see that.”
Follow Us
