Vivian Wilson Meets Her Favorite Drag Queen Sasha Colby

If conservatives are talking about me,

they're making money off of my name,

so they're thanking me behind the screen.

You're welcome.

[upbeat music]

I'm shaking in every single orifice of my body.

Oh my God!

It's so nice to meet you.

Finally.

She's like, you're so gorgeous.

Jesus Christ.

Sasha Colby.

I'm talking to Sasha Colby.

Okay, hold on. Sorry.

I'm good, I'm good. I'm great.

I'm very normal.

How are things?

Things are, life is great.

I love that for you.

Yeah, I'm having so much fun.

It's pride season.

Yes. So we are kicking off pride

all over the place.

What have you been up to?

I've been doing things.

I'm trying to move on with what I am doing with my career,

and I am trying a bunch of new things,

which is very exciting for me.

Obviously modeling is like the main thing.

What was your like favorite modeling experience to date?

I think Tomboy X.

I did an underwear shoot with them.

That was cool 'cause like before then,

I was very like a modest and demure person.

Like, even when I was going to the beach,

I wear like a shirt and pants and now I don't.

I will wear like crop tops and stuff after that.

It kind of helps with my confidence.

So Sasha, what was your proudest moment

on RuPaul's Drag Race, the television show?

Well, winning was my favorite part, but I mean, hello.

Very lucky to win four challenges my season.

That was the most that season,

and they were all for different things.

I did one for interviewing,

Hello.

Someone celebrity interview.

[beep] straight people have no idea.

Straight people have no idea who I am.

Proudest moment, I think it was Blame It On The Edit.

Like, the finale. It looked

really, really good.

It was so much fun.

Yeah. And I just felt like,

okay, I got through all the hard parts,

like the makeover and the roast,

and all those like, ones that'll keep you anxious,

and I was like, okay, this last challenge

is something I do every day, you know?

And some lip sync, so it felt good.

Well, I can imagine.

It really did, and RuPaul is like super sweet

and was so nice. She is?

Yeah, she was sweet. She kind of

scares me a little bit.

Yeah, I definitely have the fear of God in her.

She kind of to me has that kind of like,

ethereal, otherworldly quality that you also kind of have.

Oh, thank you. Which,

so it's kind of surprising to hear that, to be honest.

[Sasha] That she's down to earth?

Is she?

To me, but yet I also am otherworldly. [laughs]

So maybe my relatability is not like the normal person.

I know that you were just a cover girl for Teen Vogue.

How did that feel?

That was honestly the most insane experience

of my entire life.

I mean, it was like amazing.

It obviously changed my life.

The reception of it was so sweet.

I received so many kind messages

and so many hateful messages,

which was also like really funny.

Yeah, it's really, like, it's motivating

when you get the hate.

Yeah, no, its like, wow.

Yeah. You're sad.

The phrase, your favorite drag queen's

favorite drag queen.

What does it all mean?

It's so wild.

Like, I was just we were at Meet the Queens,

we were filming, we had already finished the show

so we kind of knew where we were lined up

for like, the top four, who we were.

They were like, oh, think of like a catchphrase

or something that you would wanna say

that just kind of describes you,

and I don't know where that came from.

Probably from somewhere like, really like,

snide and like drag queen, you know?

No, but it's amazing.

You know, like, I love my daughter Carrie Colby,

but if you ever heard of like perfumes,

the designer, imposter perfumes.

Like, if you like Giorgio Armani you'll love.

So that's like, if you like Carrie Colby,

you would love Sasha Colby.

Yeah. So like,

that's your favorite drag queen's favorite drag queen,

and now it's like a life of its own.

Like, I just heard like a rapper saying

your favorite rapper's favorite rapper.

[Vivian] Really?

I mean, Chapel said

your favorite artist's favorite artist.

Obviously.

I mean, there was a like an animal at Disneyland

that said Your favorite hippo's favorite hippo.

I was like.

So how does it feel having drag be this like,

I dunno if mainstream is the right word,

but like mainstream adjacent phenomenon.

You know, drag has always been

like a mirror to pop culture,

and we definitely still are,

but the Venn diagrams just crossed so much

and now I feel it's getting so mainstream,

but I feel like instead of us

being a mirror to pop culture,

now pop culture's mirroring us

and we're setting this like the trends.

I would agree.

The fandoms don't stop

so we have to give them more every time.

Yes.

Speaking of pop culture,

and you've been all over the place.

Have I?

You're definitely a viral sensation.

Oh God, I don't wanna think about it.

For being yourself

and for being unapologetically outspoken

because I have a hard time with my social media.

Like, I always think like, oh gosh,

I can't get too sucked in.

Like, if I look at the good comments,

then I have to be okay with the bad ones,

and my ego can't handle so I just stay away from it.

The bad ones give me life.

They keep you alive.

See, that's Gen Z. I think they're so funny.

I think they're so funny.

It's like your life is so much sadder than mine,

and yet you think you can come for me.

See, that's that Gen Z attitude

that I wish I had as a poor millennial.

I'm just like victimizing myself.

But it's hard, right?

How do you view your social media presence?

Do you see it like as activism or as like, your resume?

I view my social media presence

as me doing what I feel like,

and then people watch it sometimes,

which I think is the best.

It's the purest form.

What they should be. Yeah!

It's the most accurate way to describe it.

I have thoughts. Unadulterated.

Yeah, I have thoughts, I have ideas, a budget of about $0,

and I do things, and then people watch them,

and sometimes they like them,

and I think that's the philosophy you need to have.

Right, you do it for you, yeah.

Exactly.

Whoever watches it should be so lucky.

Yeah. They should be.

We should.

And I must say like, with that idea of like,

how you not attack, but pro-

I do attack.

How you attack social media-

And people.

Yeah, and the people,

and being a trans gamist, you know, myself,

like, I've been like up for fodder

for the right wing and it gets a little scary.

You're like just so resilient with it.

Like, you just go for it, you welcome it.

What is that drive?

Where is that from?

Well, drive of not giving a [beep].

First of all, if conservatives are talking about me,

they're making money off of my name

so that you're thanking me behind the screen.

You're welcome.

Second of all, if they're talking about me,

then they're free to talk about me,

but I don't have to listen.

She just saved me like 10 of the past years in therapy.

Like, I just remember that.

God, I care about how people think of me.

But also I get a lot of my confidence,

this is gonna sound like super [beep] cheesy or whatever,

I do get it from drag.

And like watching drag 'cause I was really like anxious,

and shy, and closed off in high school.

I was basically like this like anxious fem boy

who was obsessed with languages and didn't go outside.

Sounds like me in high school.

Yeah.

Literally.

Watching like people like you and...

How do I make this not sound like I'm sucking up?

Oh dear God.

Honestly, it was kind of like life changing.

It kind of made me be like, oh, okay,

it's okay to be confident in myself.

Not giving a [beep] is not that hard

after you've kind of been dragged across the coals.

After you get dragged across like burning coals,

being dragged across normal coals, it's a massage.

Someone put that in a quote book.

It's a massage. It's a massage.

This is what happens when the trans trauma is so deep

we take even like smiled abuse.

Like, it's better than nothing.

Oh dear God.

After having to deal with so many really heavy things,

this seems like a bit trivial because honestly,

being somebody that's inspirational to you

yet still like in my own way,

has a lot of like self-esteem issues or trans, like,

just dysphoria and like of the society.

It's just so wild to see that I inspired you

with like the facade I try to, you know, my armor,

and then that becomes like your actual like being,

which is so cool.

Like how that transmutes, like,

you don't have to put on the front, you're just you.

And even though I couldn't, like,

I'm still trying to find-

Girl, I'm tearing up.

Gonna ruin my mascara.

So, obviously you've been a public figure

for much longer than the slightly less than 10 months

that I've been.

So like, has there ever been any moment

that like really struggled

with that sort of public facing side?

Honestly, just my being, just me being a trans person

in the spotlight, it welcomes everyone's opinion

'cause honestly I'm a Leo.

I [beep] love the spotlight.

I love attention.

I welcome it.

Like, I'm like, come on, let's take a picture.

Exactly. Not all the time,

but if I look cute I can take picture.

But yeah, I've never had like a really hard time

with like media, or like, how you've been like

with like literal politics being talked

and thrown about your existence, things like that.

Like, I've never had to deal with it that deep.

Thank goodness, but the night's still young. [laughs]

It'll happen eventually.

It will. I'm sure.

Drag has been, first of all, the only profession I know.

Like, I have not done anything else besides work at the Gap

when I was like in high school.

Like, as a cashier?

As like a folder cashier, all that stuff, but like,

I literally don't know how to do anything else.

So I mean, I had to do drag.

It just came so naturally,

but it's been like my best friend for 25 years.

It's been my therapist.

It's saved my life like a few times.

Just being able to find drag when I was a like,

a struggling kid who knew I was trans

but didn't have any resources or examples

of what like a trans person was except like, To Wong Foo

because that was

a trans story. What is that?

Oh, do you know To Wong Foo?

I don't know what that is. That movie.

Is it good?

Roll the clip.

Let's give it to 'em, girls.

I don't watch old movies.

It's an old movie.

It's about like three drag queens going cross country.

It's hilarious. Oh, I've heard of this!

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I know that.

But if you think about it, To Wong Foo is a trans story

played by three straight men

who are acting like drag queens,

but no drag queen is driving cross country full drag.

That's a trans experience.

Yeah. So in my head, I was like,

oh, you gotta look like that until like,

I saw like my first like goddess drag performer.

I was like 17,

and that was the first like lifesaving moment

'cause I realized, oh, I could actually

look and be like how I want to.

Sign me up immediately.

Drag helped me when I had to get out of, you know,

doing crystal meth.

Like, getting a job offer at the Baton

while I was high was insane,

and it made me quit cold turkey actually.

That's like threw everything in the toilet.

It's been just so personal to me,

and to see it being so received now is amazing,

but how has like a viewer or a trans woman, like,

how has drag affected your life?

It really has.

It kind of like re-contextualized

my idea of gender expression,

especially as someone who was like,

I was figuring out my own queerness at the time.

Well, not queerness, I was a femboy.

I was figuring out the fact

that I was actually a woman

instead of a lonely, lonely fem boy.

It was kind of during that process

when I was also figuring out my own trans identity,

and it completely re-contextualized

my idea of gender expression,

which I think was really helpful for me

especially because like, not only was it okay

in the terms of like, yes being trans is like okay

and it's a natural thing obviously,

but it also like completely changed my idea

of like the need for gender expression.

Like, I think if drag was not something

that I was a consistent spectator of,

I would be much more insecure

about my own femininity or lack thereof.

Like, you can be a trans woman,

and then also you can do drag.

You can like wear suits, you can wear tuxedos,

you could cross dress as a trans woman with men's clothes.

It's very fun.

I love a good oversized suit.

Yeah! On a trans woman.

Yeah, no, I love that. You couldn't get me

in a suit when I was like a little boy.

Yeah, no, no, exactly.

I was the same way.

When I was 21, I was definitely not on the cover

of Teen Vogue.

I was literally high on meth at 21.

Oh wow.

From like, 19 to 23 I was fully addicted.

Oh my goodness.

Continental got me clean.

I got to grow up at 23 having like, my first job

and first house, and coming off of heavy addiction,

which was a lot of like deep rooted in like body issues

and, you know, gender dysphoria

and not really feeling like I could be,

you know, the woman I see in myself.

It was pretty scary even being like trans.

Like, there was no gender marker change and, you know,

you had the M on your passport and your ID,

and you just kind of went through life

hoping that you could just not be noticed.

How does it feel to be a 21-year-old now in 2025?

I feel really grateful that it is obviously 2025.

Obviously, there is still so much work to do

regarding trans rights and the trans experience,

and especially right now we are kind of going backwards,

which is great.

It's kind of like we're going back to when I was 21.

[Vivian] Oh God!

[Sasha] Step back 20 years.

Yeah, no. Hopefully not.

It's very important for everyone

to know their queer history.

I do feel so grateful to be able to like benefit

from all the work that was done

by all the trans advocates and queer rights movements

from before my time.

I do feel like I'm just like so eternally grateful

for all the queer people who came before me

'cause it's very much

like the standing on their shoulders type of thing.

Like, the reason we have all these like trans people

who are pretty much mainstream now,

especially people like Hunter Schafer

and Alex Consani who was on my wall

and also follows me on Instagram,

which is a really weird dichotomy.

But there is still so much, I feel like,

work that needs to be done,

especially with the intersectionality

of like transphobia, and racism, and representation.

When you know like the patterns of the fall of an empire,

you can kind of see what's going on.

We just demand that we get treated equally,

and by default we're activists.

Exactly.

It's not always something like we wanna hold onto

and we wanna always have to be the one.

So yeah, it's time especially in these times to like,

make sure we have some good people around us.

Yes, very much so.

Like, do you have chosen family?

What's your like tribe that you have around you?

I would say so, especially after I sort of became,

I like to use the word notorious,

'cause I think it's much funnier

and more aesthetically pleasing.

I started calling myself goddess.

You can start calling yourself notorious. [laughs]

A lot of people who are in the trans community

and were also famous, or notorious,

or influential or whatever, a lot of them reached out,

and I'm good friends and I didn't expect to become so close

to people who I sort of like used to engage with as a fan.

It's kind of really strange to be on the other end of that.

I really gotten close

with a lot of people in the trans community

before my notoriety.

I have this like really tight knit circle of friends

who are actually like online,

but I do feel like online friendships are consistently like,

undervalued or underappreciated by those outside of them.

It's like, no, I genuinely treasure these people

like so much.

And it's not like there's a like faceless profile.

Like, I know who they are obviously.

But there is a level of like,

you can really be yourself to like-

Yeah.

On with your online friends

that you would be like embarrassed to say like to your-

Yeah. It just gives it

a level of like security maybe,

and then you can like let down your guard for sure.

I am hopefully meeting some of them in real life.

So if I get murdered.

[Sasha laughs]

If I get murdered, play like,

Megan Thee Stallion on my funeral or something.

But yeah, no, they've really helped me.

You know what's funny is eventually they figured out

'cause there was this like paparazzi photo

on like TMZ or something.

Some of them started to connect the dots

before I told them,

especially after I made the Threads post

that got me like viral or whatever.

I mean, the online community.

They're CIA.

They can find out anything.

It's really funny because the range of reactions was,

oh I already knew, to you're [beep] with me

and literally would not believe me for like two hours

after I explained everything.

So yeah, they're all cool though.

They were all chill.

But they still like love you for you.

They're also all gonna freak the [beep] out

when they realize I'm talking to you.

Hi, friends.

Have you had like a good like, group of friends

growing up in high school or like in school?

Like, how was school for you?

High school I was actually kind of like a loner.

The tragic part is I only really like made friends

with people in my high school after senior year ended

'cause also I was in high school during COVID.

Yeah.

What's that like?

Ah, it was kind of traumatizing and everything.

[Sasha] You had cool vacation for a couple of weeks or?

It was a year we were doing online.

[Sasha] Wow.

I kind of loved it though.

I was like, I don't have to talk to these [beep].

Completely honest, like, I could have stayed locked up

for a little while.

I was fine.

I was working so much before.

I was like, thank goodness.

So speaking of being a homebody,

so what does that look like for you,

especially in terms of like self care?

I'm a bit of an empath,

and I can take on other people's energies.

So sometimes I'll come home after like, you know,

a bunch of trauma dumping.

And I'm like sad or that's someone else's energy,

so I'm like a big energy rinser.

Like, I love taking showers and like,

water literally cleanses and like, kind of calms me.

So I do like a lot of like baths when I can.

I'm like obsessed with like skincare

so I could just like pile on

the 17 step Korean skincare and just like,

live my life in a hair mask.

I'm also like a nerd, like I like to watch

like just endless like facts or like trivia.

I'm like obsessed with like civilization and world history.

No, no, no, no, no, no, same.

Girl, I watch like a bunch of like videos

about like geography, a bunch of different countries.

Same! Yeah!

No, I love those videos. Love that.

Literally on my Google main page,

it's like this map thing and you can go from 300 BC to now

and see all like how civilization changes.

Oh, that is so cool.

It is so cool. Yeah.

It's like growing up in Hawaii, we were just so colonized,

and couldn't really like explore being Hawaiian.

Yes.

The religion and stuff.

But then when I got into it,

I was just so fascinated how our king and queens

really were just modeling themselves

after this like colonization

and this, you know, imperialism.

Polynesian.

I could literally nerd out on like YouTube things about,

and I also watched this, I like this podcast

called Noble Blood.

It's like 30 minutes and they show all different histories

from all different cultures,

and she does a lot of like queer history.

Oh, I love that. Yeah!

So cool. I'll send you some.

Oh my God, you need to actually.

This is the best part of our interview.

No, this is crazy

that we have something like this in common.