Trixie Mattel announces break from drag and says she won't return "at full speed"

Trixie Mattel, who rose to fame after appearing on the seventh season of RuPaul’s Drag Race before returning to snatch the crown on RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars 3, has announced that she will be taking a break from her drag career later this year. 

Trixie first discussed the idea on the Zach Sang Show last month, saying: “I think, now, I’m a little more interested in work-life balance. I certainly haven’t mastered that yet, but this is my sixth day in drag this week, which is a little heavy for me.

“I’m going on a three-month break: July, August, September,” Mattel added. “(It’s) my first-ever break. I’m going to Alaska. I’ve never worked there, and I probably never will, and I want to see what the vibe is.” 

Mattel kicked off her drag career in 2008 in Wisconsin, working closely with now well-established drag personas and Drag Race alumni like Kim Chi and Shea Coulee. 

In the 16 years that Mattel has been doing drag, the queen has never once taken a vacation, a work ethic that has paid off in spades as Trixie has since become one of the most-followed and most recognisable queens to come out of the franchise. 

Apart from her appearances on RuPaul’s Drag Race, Mattel similarly co-hosts her own YouTube series UHHNNN alongside her Season 7 sister Katya. Together the iconic duo have toured the world with shows like Trixie and Katya Live! and The Bald and the Beautiful Tour, as well as having published two books together: Trixie and Katya’s Guide to Modern Womanhood (2020), and Working Girls: Trixie and Katya’s Guide to Professional Womanhood (2022). 

In addition to being a television personality, a YouTube celebrity, and a drag icon, Mattel has similarly found success in other ventures such as stand-up comedy and folk music, having headlined six separate stage shows since 2015, including her premiere show Ages 3 and Up, and her most recent tour The Solid Pink Disco Tour. The hard-working queen has similarly released four best-selling folk albums, including her debut Two Birds record, which released in 2017. 

Presently, Trixie is the head of her own make-up company, Trixie Cosmetics, the owner of her own motel, Trixie Motel in Palm Springs, California, and the host of The Pit Stop, an official Drag Race recap show on YouTube. 

With so much on her plate, it’s no wonder that the performer is looking forward to a break. However, Mattel has notified fans that, following her sabbatical, she’s “probably not going to come back at the full speed of Trixie anymore”. 

“The Trixie we know, the Trixie that is on every YouTube video, on every show, and every TV show, I just can’t sustain that anymore,” Mattel admitted to ELLE. 

She continued, “This giant rat wheel that I’ve been running on, I need to pull back a lot. So it will be honestly this phase of everybody being like, ‘You’re everywhere. How do you do it?’ You do it by running yourself in the ground. I want a family, and I want a life, and I haven’t really had that. I’ll probably grow a beard.

“Besides, other drag queens have been waiting for me to take my high heels off their throats for years. They love it when I get a sick day. Those f*cking b*tches love it when I get sick. They love it.” 

Trixie Mattel’s announcement of her sabbatical comes just months after her The Bald and the Beautiful co-star Katya took a break from drag to attend a rehab facility. 

If you want to get as much Trixie into your system as possible before she takes a well-deserved break from the public eye, be sure to check out new episodes of Trixie Motel: Drag Me Home, streaming every Saturday on Max.

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