'King of Drag's Alexander the Great turned heartbreak & horror into drag excellence (exclusive)
For Austin-based drag king Alexander the Great, the hardest part of participating in King of Drag was having to keep it secret for so long. It was a literal life-changing experience, and then I had to come back home to Austin, Texas, and pretend like nothing happened, he tells PRIDE with a laugh. Just be like, 'oh, my drag didn't change. Let me just keep doing the stuff I've been doing.'Now hes a king unleashed, and Bat City better get ready for the new Alexander. My drag has already gone on such a journey of gender expansiveness and helping people understand that masculinity can be soft, flamboyant, effeminate, whatever, and still be masculine, he explains, adding he has his new drag brothers to thank for his growth. Seeing my cast mates, like my mind was just blown open every single person just expanded the possibilities for me for drag. I feel like I learned something from every single person.As always, some of the most moving and eye-opening moments on the show itself were in the interactions between the kings. This week saw the E.L.F. Cosmetics weenie challenge take a surprisingly emotional turn. It highlighted the ways in which makeup can be particularly fraught for kings. Everyone on the cast definitely has a different relationship [with makeup], and mine has certainly evolved with time, says Alexander. In the early days...I would do my little eyeliner beard and fill in my brows. But I didn't want to play too much more with that, because I was trying to emulate masculinity. But that changed for the king during the pandemic, when, like so many who found themselves isolated at home, he found themselves on a journey of self-discovery. I was able to just be at home and play with a lot of different versions of my mug and elevate. I experienced this kind of, like leveling up, this expansion, where I was like, wait a minute, even when I was...socialized as a female growing up, I never used makeup in this way. I never used makeup to this extreme. I never contoured, I never highlighted. So once I realized that I would never have used makeup in this way, it became empowering again.It was another moment that really illuminated the close bonds the cast formed, both on and off set, that allow for the kinds of raw and real conversations we see in the Man Cave. Off set, the vibes are a bit sillier, whether that was late night bonding seshess with his hotel roommate Dick Von Dyke, who Alexander joked really impressed him with his ability to fall asleep mid conversation. We would be talking, and then [he] would kind of go silent, and I would look over, and hed be passed out, unconscious. And that was like, well, I was enjoying our conversation, laughs Alexander. But it was the Tuna Can Van, that really brought the eliminated kings (EKs as they called themselves) together. What is the Tuna Can Van? Well, it's the van that Tuna Melt rented to cheer each of his fellow eliminated kings up after they left the competition. Tuna is literally a saint, Alexander gushes. Let me tell you, I prepared my package backwards. I thought I was going to the finale. I spent a long time working on my stuff for the finale. So, when I got eliminated, I was like [screams]! But Tuna was waiting for us back at the hotel, with snacks and goodies. And the next day took us to, like, Santa Monica. We drove around listening to 'Pink Pony Club,' he recalls. Tuna made it just like so special, and I love him forever for that.Sadly, this week saw Alexander, along with Pressure K, leaving the competition in a shocking double elimination after the horror challenge. For it, the kings were tasked with bringing their worst fear to the stage, and for environmental activist Alexander, nothing is more terrifying than ecocide. I'm sorry, I won the horror challenge. There is nothing more horrifying than all of us dying on the planet because of ecocide, he says with a laugh. He went against the grain aesthetically for a horror challenge, with a brightly colored cape and bodysuit, but every detail was intentional. That costume was all recycled materials, fabric, a bodysuit I already had, and everything else was, yeah, a labor of love, says Alexander. The episode, and his choice of horror, hit a little harder this week, following the passage of the Trump administration's Big Beautiful Bill, which the Sierra Club has called the most anti-environment bill in history. But Alexander still has hope for the future of the planet. I feel like anyone could get lost in the abyss forever, you know? And that just goes with the state of the world in general right now, he admits. I like to focus on the positive, the changes that are happening, the moves that we are making, the stuff that we are discovering, that we are protecting, that we are saving.Turning pain into art is something of a tradition for Alexander, who opened up about the heartbreaking experience that pushed them to chase his dreams: the shocking loss of his younger brother.At the time, Alexander was on track for a very different life. Despite having a supportive mother who put them in various classes in the arts, ranging from dance to music lessons, and even aerial acrobatics, they still didn't know how to turn that passion into a career. So they turned to their second passion: people. Specifically they began pursuing an education in Human Sciences, with plans to work in the non-profit field. I knew that I wanted to be in entertainment, but I couldn't figure it out, I was like, let me do my backup. Let me just live out my plan B right now and see what happens, he recalls. Then my younger brother passed away, tragically, unexpectedly. He was 19. When I was 22, he lost his battle with mental illness. His name was Travis. He was an incredible person. He was on a full ride at Texas A&M and was very beloved by his friends, his family, and his community. Super funny. Won the best actor award in eighth grade. He would have thought that my Bieber is like, the funniest thing ever, and yeah, it was his death that just changed everything for me, recalls Alexander. He realized plan B was not good enough, and he was just going to have to chase his real dream, so he jumped in feet first. I tell people, life is both too short and too long. It's too short not to chase your dreams and too long to not live authentically, to be miserable, to not live in your correct gender, to not live with the people that you love, that you want to love. My brother's death kind of taught me that, says Alexander. Thankfully by then, Alexander also discovered kinging, which was the one art form that brought all his years of training in various mediums all together for the first time. I worked as a burlesque dancer in my early 20s, and then discovered drag through a person that I was dating, and the first time I got into my drag king mug, I was just blown away, he recalls. I was like, Okay, this is correct I was like, 'oh, all of this is for this.It's not only brought together all of his artistic gifts, but his desire to do work for and with other people, which is why performing is as much about expressing himself through dance as it is connecting and welcoming the community into his world.For me. It's about artistry. It's about the story you're trying to tell. It's about holding space for others... If you do good drag, your drag is about others, not about yourself, he explains. Other people should see themselves, should have fun in your drag, should feel celebrated in your drag. I discovered that I could connect to others in this, like, deep, profound, but also a specific way connecting to other trans people, other queer people.That ethos is clear in how they spend their time off stage as well, For the past year and a half, I've been serving as a commissioner on the LGBTQ commission for Austin City Council, says Alexander who shares in that role he was part of a coalition who successfully lobbied to make Austin a trans sanctuary city. This, he hopes, serves as a reminder that even in these dark times, you can still make a difference. I just want to encourage people that you can do literally anything with your drag, and you can step up. You can speak out. You don't have to know how, you don't have to be an attorney, or know how the government works, because the people running the government don't know how it works, he says. You can do it too.Simply doing drag in The Lone Star State feels like a bold and radical move, but Alexander says it's the Texan in him that keeps him from backing down. Texans, we're, we're just a different, resilient breed. It's so funny to me because queer culture and Texas culture are so similar. We both are like, 'fight for our rights. Freedom!' To the point where it's comedic, he says.That's not to say he hasn't faced his struggles, However, even someone as seemingly endlessly optimistic as Alexander admits it can be hard to to be queer in his home state right now. I've had to grieve the loss of our rights, he says, and has had to watch friends flee their home to go to states with greater rights and protections for their families. But he and many in his community aren't going anywhere. It makes sense for us to be here, so we're not going to leave. It's almost kind of like this, doubling down because we are Texans. We're queer people, but we're also Texans. So we're like, 'Oh, y'all want to be stubborn about this. Okay, us too.' And the fight just keeps getting bigger and bigger. After all, as the saying goes: Yall means you all.
