Jinkx Monsoon

Episode notes

(Photo: Evan Zimmerman / MurphyMade)

Jinkx Monsoon is a legend in the world of drag. For fans of RuPaul’s Drag Race she is often referred to as “Queen of All Queens” – she’s the only performer to win that competition show twice.

More recently she’s been performing on stage in shows like Little Shop of Horrors and Chicago.

When we talked with Jinkx last year, she’d just started performing in Cole Escola’s Tony award-winning play Oh, Mary on Broadway. Now that the show has taken to the road, Monsoon is set to make her debut on London’s West End this August at the Trafalgar Theatre in London.

The play tells the fictionalized story of Mary Todd Lincoln in the days running up to the death of her husband, Abraham Lincoln. This Mary Todd Lincoln is not the one you’d read about in a history book. She’s a frustrated cabaret performer. A very intense alcoholic. Nobody better than Jinkx Monsoon to play a part as unhinged and endearing as that of Mary Todd Lincoln.

We discuss Jinkx’s latest gigs on the stage and how she found herself through drag performances. She also talks about being a drag performer today which sometimes is a very fraught, difficult thing.

A version of this interview originally aired in September of 2025.

In this episode...

Jesse Thorn

Host

Kevin Ferguson

Senior Producer

Jesus Ambrosio

Producer

Richard Robey

Maximum Fun Producer

Daniel Arón Speer

Video Editor

Hannah Moroz

Maximum Fun Production Fellow

Guests

Jinkx Monsoon

About the show

Bullseye is a celebration of the best of arts and culture in public radio form. Host Jesse Thorn sifts the wheat from the chaff to bring you in-depth interviews with the most revered and revolutionary minds in our culture.

Bullseye has been featured in Time, The New York Times, GQ and McSweeney’s, which called it “the kind of show people listen to in a more perfect world.” Since April 2013, the show has been distributed by NPR.

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