Lexi Love: 'It's a Battle and We're Not Giving Up Any Time Soon'

How are you feeling this far into the season? You've made quite an impression with the fans.

Girl, I'm amazed, in all honesty. At Roscoe’s, they just asked me, “What, did you think you were going to slay the entire time?” And I was like, “I don't think that.” I thought I'm going to go and do my best, and if I win something, I'm going to be happy. It’s just a beautiful, beautiful whirlwind so far.

It seems like you really hit the ground running with touring and traveling and performing. I feel like you're always popping up somewhere new every time I open Instagram.

Well, I'll tell you this. Before Drag Race, I was working seven days a week. So I had a day job Monday through Friday, Friday through Sunday I ran a show in another city. Monday morning I would be done with my drag show at 2:30 AM. I'd wake up at 6 AM to be back at where I live at 8 AM and to do the whole thing again. I did that for three years straight. So when they said, “Do you want to tour? Do you want to go through these bookings?” I'm like, “Baby, double stack me. I can do it.”

Are you taking time off from your day job, or are you still doing your day job?

About September, I went back to my day job after filming and they were wonderful, very accommodating. It's just that I had used all of my vacation time. I used all of my sabbatical time. There was nothing left. I have taketh all they could give.

On the topic of working, it seems like there is this generational divide that the cast has set up with you, whether it's playful or not, even though you're not much older than some of them. Do you feel like part of that was just because you are so seasoned now in drag, maybe more than some of the, let's say, baby queens, and you wanted to impart some of your wisdom to them?

Yeah, I think that happened without me knowing or wanting it to happen. So I took a motherly role, like I just started helping people. I don't think I was even helping them bitches, like I was trying to protect me. And I was like, “I can't have you doing bad, because then I'm not beating the best.” And I'm like, “Okay, I've got to help you now.” It was just a beautiful surprise, as I continued to progress, at how many people I affected in a positive way. I didn't necessarily know that I could do that. I have drag kids back home that I've started to raise in the last three years and that I took more out of that than I realized.

It feels like the first time we've had multiple drag dynasties get represented, like multiple generations into the franchise, whether that's people like Sam Star who has a winner in the family, or people who are dynasties in the South. With the Love family, Do you guys call yourself the Love family? The Love Dynasty?

House of Love, just like the cocktail.

You need to get that brand deal going.

Oh, baby, baby. Oh, Drag Con? House of Love booth? I said it every day and then talked to the camera, and I was like, “House of Love, sponsor me!” They took them all out.

On families, it's interesting watching that happen, because it feels like there was a time when we weren't really seeing drag lineage get represented on the show, and it's all back. What do you feel being from that world? How did that affect you going into the competition? Do you feel like having that support system brings you to a different level than the other girls?

So here's the thing: a lot of them thought that I was, like, related to Kylie Sonique Love, that I had these connections. And I said, “Listen, I've been all by myself out here on the East Coast. Ain't nobody cared about Loves on the East Coast. Now we're here.” So I'm East Coast, Kylie's West Coast.

I honestly thought in my brain, being not a part of a nepotism family, that I was at a disadvantage, and they were at an advantage just because of the exposure, because of the experience through the family, because of the expertise that they have. Like, it's a full shebang, it feels like from people like that. So I was very in my head about what they could possibly be bringing and that people would acknowledge me and be impressed or proud of me. It gave me a whole new view on what I'm capable of on my own.

I have a few questions about your mother, Nomi Love, but one thing that I'm always really interested in: Do you think that the drag family dynamic has gone away with a lot of the newer girls coming up? That it’s not necessarily a structure that they're being brought into these days?

At all. It's gone, it has disappeared. The drag families now, they are drag families, but they don't live together. They don't support each other. They're not relying on each other because their families have disowned them, and that's a great thing. I am so happy that that's happening. However, there was a whole faction of our lifestyle that is disappearing, because we don't have that same experience.

That created a whole different environment. With the drag family, the dynamic, you have to respect your mother, you have to listen to your mother. You have to work for the household, you have to be a part of the household. Now, it's just: I'm using your name because you think that I will make you look good. It's a little sad. And when I started my drag kids in Louisville, I based it off people that wanted or needed help. So it wasn't anybody that I wanted to ask to be my drag kid. It's only people that inquired with me, and then people that were wanting to work and wanting to be serious about it. I gave them a space to work every single Sunday. I created a show just for them, I created an environment where I could allow their creativity to blossom. And it really worked. I wish there were more places that did that.

It made me emotional watching you talk about being taken into the house you found yourself in, and you talked about it feeling like the first time in your life you felt loved or understood, even though it was a really desperate circumstance. It reminded me of that time in my life too, living with my trans siblings.

Goosebumps. You just gave me goosebumps.

You just had that feeling like: We have no money, we're living off the McDonald’s dollar menu, we’re working the shittiest jobs, but it was the most love I ever felt in my life. It was the safest I ever felt in my life.

It’s something, again, I wouldn’t trade for the world. I would not.

Do you look back now, with the success you’re having, and ever find yourself getting nostalgic for that time, or going back to that time in your life, especially with this upswing you’re having with Drag Race?

Ever since I got sober off hard party drugs, that is constantly happening, and it's because, honestly, I feel like I've lived a life that is crazy, and has its ups and downs. I've had very low lows, but my high highs, my good feelings, my good vibes, have been just astronomical. And some people's lives, they just don't get those types of experiences that make you feel that seen or loved or heard or felt, and the fact that I got to experience those... I constantly find myself being like, “Ah, if I could only, again. If I could create that for someone else.” It gives me goosebumps all over my body.

It does give me goosebumps to think about it. Sometimes when you're in a position like this, you think, Oh my god, the girls that didn't make it this far. I think about them all the time.

I just had a friend pass away three weeks ago.

I'm so sorry.

He was one of the people that helped me, forced me to want to get clean. He kind of scared me out of the lifestyle. He was somebody that when I finally told I got on the show, he was so happy for me. I was going to bring him to some of the events, I was gonna show him that there were better parts of life that he could still enjoy, even if he didn't do the show. We were fully preparing for that and he just passed away. I was like, you were one of the few people that I was going to show the glow up to, the good times to. And couldn't even do that. It devastates me, but everything happens for a reason.

I know he would be so proud of you. Onto lighter topics for a moment, I gagged for your quilted look by Utica. You looked like an ultra glam Chanel model from the late ’80s. Where does your love of fashion come from?

My love of fashion comes from my hatred of Kentucky. My whole life I was just like, I’m not here, I’m not in this place and I’m around these people not doing these things. So I’d be obsessed with fashion, that was my entire life. It was the thing that got me excited, and for the last five years that I’ve been auditioning, in a row, I’ve had my notes on my iPhone. I would sift through YouTube and TikTok and Instagram, and whenever I’d find somebody with something, or a designer, a wig or a shoe, I would add it to my list. Five years later, that list got to be used. When I started to get accreditation from people and acknowledgement from my point of view, with style and or fashion, I was like, “I’m not crazy! I’m not crazy!”

The viewing party I was at erupted when you came around that corner... the stones! The netting! The hat! I think people said it on the show, but it was pure, high drag excellence. And the bridal look, you have skills with the sewing machine. Have you always made your own stuff?

I am a crafty girl. Since I grew up in that drag house, honey, first ever pride, I made a bathing suit out of duct tape for me and my best friend. I still have the photos on Facebook and they were cute. I've always been somebody who's creating out of unconventional materials. I have, like, a cigarette pack outfit that they showed on the show. I quit smoking cigarettes. I saved like 250 boxes of them and then covered an outfit in them. There's a couple other things that I've done like that. There are some things coming up that you might see in the season that I made.

I want to go back to talking about Kentucky and the fashion element, because I feel like a lot of drag queens come to drag out of needing to find a fantasy in the places that they’re from. Is that something that you remember growing up, being mystified by glamour and beauty and elegance?

Yes, I was obsessed, obsessive, maybe, with the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Shows. My mom loved that I watched them because she thought that I was into the girls. And I was literally like, I could be her. I could be her. I think my body looks like that, I think I could walk like that, that was really where my mind was. I took so much from that, that was all I was interested in.

So when it came time to do drag, when I went to my first gay bar, I saw this drag queen, Mirage Love, who ended up being my foster mom. I had so many moms eventually in this scene, because it was a fickle scene. But Mirage came out, a beautiful Black trans woman, and had this beautiful, Asian print silk on her, and it was a skin tight dress that stopped at her waist. She had two feathery pieces right here and her hair was up, but she had like 100 chopsticks in it. She was just electrifying. And I was like, That's what I want to do. I want to be just like that. And I've been chasing it ever since.

When you stumbled into drag in this house that you talk about on the show, was it something where you had to go to the city to find that? Was it in your area?

I grew up probably 15 minutes outside of the metropolitan area, like downtown, and when I left — or ran away from — home, or escaped, I went very close to downtown Cincinnati. So the clubs that I was going to were probably a seven minute ride from where we lived all together in that drag house. It was conveniently located for us to be successful.

You were just talking about Mirage and I brought up Nomi earlier. Of your mothers, how many do you claim?

Surprisingly enough, there’s a third. Nomi’s best friend was Jessica Diamond. They all started together, all three trans women. All three were from a different generation. So all of them were also going through their own traumas and life struggles they were coming in and out of. So they interchangeably helped look out for me and my drag sister during that time. But my most recent drag mom, Jessica Diamond, she’s the one that’s still doing it. She’s the one that when I got clean off drugs, she gave me my second go of it. She’s my little guardian angel.

I also have a drag dad, Mykul Jay Valentine. He is a three time national champion. He is a former Mr. Continental. We both worked at Play Louisville together. He’s somebody that believed in me and didn’t want anything from me, and that meant the most to me. How could I turn down somebody that wants to be family with me?

I mean, Continental royalty!

Let’s go, right!

That’s another thing too that I loved, back in the beginning of Drag Race. It meant a lot to see Continental winners, contestants, Miss Gay America... those were our celebrities. What Continental means to people has changed a lot. But I always love when the lineage is back, nobody does it like a pageant queen.

No one has it like Continental, honey! I started six months before Drag Race premiered, so when I started drag, Continental was Drag Race. That was Nomi, Jessica, Mirage, all of them. “You’re doing Continental.” That was our only goal. And I was like, “Yes, ma’am.” Trust me, I’m still going to compete.

So first we’re taking home the Drag Race crown, and then we’re gonna go win the Continental crown.

I love this plan. I love the way you think.

I also love learning about local establishments, and where people were performing prior to being on the show. You mentioned Play Louisville, what are other bars people could find you at back in the day?

So we started off at The Dock in Cincinnati. That closed down. Eventually we had Hamburger Mary’s, but that closed down. Eventually we had Shooters, that closed down. Like everything... it's tough in the Cincinnati metropolitan area. Honestly, that's why I started to branch out. I ended up in Lexington at the bar Complex. I ended up in Louisville on cast at Play. Bloom in Cincinnati, Main Event in Cincinnati. I've been on cast at every gay bar that my little feet could take me to.

We are running out of places to go see good drag. Even in major cities, I know so many of them are gone. Establishments that felt like holy grails of queer culture are just gone.

Gone, gone, gone. We used to have a place called The Serpent. Imagine what's happening at The Serpent, honey. The walls were black, as well as the ceiling, and the floor naturally. Things like that don't exist anymore, and there's soon going to be a whole group of people that don't even know it did exist.

On that same note, it is a scary time for people all over, especially in the South, the Midwest, with what’s happening in Iowa, what’s happening in Texas. Do you have anything that you’re holding onto at this time to keep yourself going?

This is a very unique thing that I'm holding on to, and I've never had the opportunity to hold on to it before. The first time in my life, I honestly believe that the things I'm passionate about and the things that I want to be more vocal about, are things that actually need someone to be vocal about. There is an actual space for me and my mindset and I feel supported. I know there's plenty of times that I've been like, “I think it should be this way,” and there's no one really around to be like, “Yeah, girl, she's right.”

To have this type of unwavering support, like when I posted the first thing about my [HIV] status, and it went everywhere. I really didn't think anybody cared. I still don't think that people know who I am. I go to a gay bar and I'm like, “Wait, you know who I am?” And they're like, “Lexi, you're so funny.” It's still surprising to me.

You talked about this platform, and this voice you’re finding. For people much earlier in their journey, or even feeling confused in their journey, with transition, being gay or queer, if you could give them a piece of advice, what would it be?

There's no one on this planet that can validate or invalidate your transition. There's no one on this planet that can give you an M or an F marker on a piece of paper that's going to change the true identity of your gender, of your self-expression. They want to, they will always try to, but they really have no effect on it. Something that they've taken away now, we can take back. It’s a battle and we are not giving up anytime soon.

That is beautifully said, and I will end with a pop quiz question: your dream lip sync song and dream lip sync outfit, go!

If it was right now, I would be lip sync battling “Revolving Door” by Tate McRae, and I would be in a 6- inch human wig that is painted like my blue and white hair that everybody hates.

Something that they've taken away now, we can take back. It’s a battle and we are not giving up anytime soon.

Photos courtesy of Lexi Love