Denver PrideFest Headliner Spotlight: Kylie Sonique Love

In a competition all about redemption, Kylie Sonique Love’s journey on All Stars 6 is one of the most impressive full-circle success stories in RuPaul’s Drag Race herstory.

First introducing herself to the world on Season Two, a time when the series was still in its infancy, Kylie’s time was cut short after sashaying away on the fourth episode. However, she made a lasting impact by being the first queen to come out as transgender, which she did on the Season Two reunion in 2010.

Determined to show growth and evolution, Kylie came back 11 years later to All Stars and ultimately slayed the competition. She may have famously tripped during the final lip sync, but she landed with a crown and secured a spot in the Drag Race Hall of Fame, proving she is an undeniable champion and entertainer.

Beyond that, Kylie’s win was historic because she is now the first openly transgender woman to take the crown in a U.S. season. Originally from Albany, Georgia, her talent shines in all forms as her captivating personality shines both on and off air.

Kylie will be a headliner at Denver PrideFest this year, and she is scheduled to perform on Sunday, June 26. OFM caught up with the superstar to talk more about her upcoming appearance, Drag Race, making her feature film debut, and more.

We are so excited that you will be a headliner at Denver’s PrideFest! What are you looking forward to the most about this event?

Oh, my goodness. I’m just looking forward to doing festivals again and having Pride back the way that we’re used to it being. This will also be my first Pride in Denver, and I’m excited to be a part of Pride as a newly crowned All Stars winner. There are so many great things that I’m looking forward to.

What can audiences expect from your set? You’re doing a tag team performance with Cazwell?

I am. We have a couple songs that we’re going to do together. We recently finished recording our second song together, which I’m very excited about. It’s very nostalgic, and it’s a cover song that represents part of my queer awakening when I was 17. I went to him and was like, “Let’s do this song.” I told him what it meant to me, and he agreed. We already have one song together called “Gooey,” and we were like, “If we’re going to be working together again, let’s make something a little bit bigger than just one song.”

What does Pride personally mean to you?

I think Pride is an opportunity to celebrate with a lot of people who have dug their way out of the closet, so to speak, and have liberated themselves to express their true identity, feelings, and heart. They liberated themselves from being suppressed and being told that they were not good enough, and I think it’s great. We also get to share that with our allies. It’s a big celebration.

Do you remember the first Pride event you ever attended?

I do. It was in Atlanta, I think I was 18, but I didn’t fully attend it. I had a boyfriend of mine drop me off on a Sunday in Midtown right towards the end of the parade, and it was all so new to me. It was weird to see queer people out in the streets half naked and rainbow flags everywhere. I remember when it used to kind of almost be a little taboo to have rainbow anything because you knew that it stood for gay.

I remember when I was 16 or 17, I put a gay sticker on the back of my car, and I when I went to my car one day, it was gone. It was ripped off. I remember feeling kind of violated and scared. Like, “Oh my God, this is that thing they warned us about.” Then I found out it was my grandma who did it. I came inside concerned and told her what happened, and she’s like, “Oh, I took it off.” I was like, “For what?” She said, “I don’t want you advertising.” I didn’t feel like I was advertising, but I think they were just scared.

This was South Georgia, and I was a very, very proud person once I got to a certain part of my life. There weren’t a lot of out people, especially teenagers, and when I had that rainbow sticker on my car, people would write notes and put them in my windshield wiper saying things like, seeing this really makes me feel safe. Other people would ask if I knew of any place where gay people could go and hang out. It’s so crazy the way things have changed since then.

The world was first introduced to Kylie when you competed on RuPaul’s Drag Race Season Two, but I feel like we truly got to know you during All Stars 6. Do you feel the same?

Absolutely. I was still in the beginning stages of my transition then. Mentally, I was prepared to start the journey and I knew in my heart where I wanted to be, but physically, I hadn’t caught up with my heart and head. It used to be very hard for me to talk or think about Season Two. I almost wrote it off as if it never happened because looking back, I don’t see the person that I feel like I know. It wasn’t like I had an amazing run on the show either. I remember having a great time doing the show, but for some reason, it just didn’t come across that way. Maybe I was just so new to television, and I didn’t fully understand it, but I don’t feel like I was fully present.

When I see myself on All Stars, I do see myself and it’s so good because people that know me, they’re like, “That’s the Kylie we know. That’s exactly how you are,” and that makes me proud because I see myself on TV for a change, instead of this version of me that I don’t relate to. All Stars was a true introduction of who I am. Even when I did the Christmas special, there wasn’t a lot of conversation there, and a lot of people were kind of thrown off. Like, “Why was Sonique on the Christmas special? She didn’t do great in her original season,” and to be up there with people like Trixie, Kim Chi, Latrice, and Shangela, a lot of people were confused as to why I was there, but I was so grateful to be a part of it.

I wasn’t sure I would ever get an opportunity to do All Stars, so whenever I was asked to do the Christmas special, I was like, “I know this isn’t a real competition, but I’m going to go in and treat it as if this is my All Stars.” I gave it my all and I made sure that I was present for interviews. I was just so happy to be there on set and work with everybody to create something special for the holidays. I think the response was great, and that probably helped open the doors for me to compete on All Stars.

Were you at all surprised or thrown off by how much the show and format has changed since Season Two?

There’s a lot that has changed, but honestly, there’s so much that stayed the same in a lot of ways. Because the show is so successful, they’ve been able to add more people, have bigger budgets, and provide better craft services. In my original season, the show was really new, and we were working with a small budget, so a lot of corners were probably cut to make it work, but I think a lot did change as far as the impact the show makes now, versus what it did.

Season Two, we didn’t have managers or agents. A lot of us didn’t even have merch, and only a few of us got to travel outside of the country. The show is a phenomenon now, and drag entertainers all over the world are benefiting from it. Drag brunch is a big thing now, and it’s so crazy because I remember when people first started doing drag brunch, it was a little weird to have drag during the day because most drag queens don’t get home ’til the morning from being out all night. It’s so cool what it’s turned into.

It was so exciting to see you grow as a performer and excel at the challenges. Which one was your favorite and why?

There are so many challenges that I did on All Stars that were favorites of mine, but I loved doing Snatch Game, especially because it turned out very well. I remember being up there being critiqued for it, and I got a lot of great reviews from the judges. A part of me was like, “Oh my God, I could totally win this,” and it just felt really good because that’s kind of the challenge that haunted me for a long time. Season Two was the first time they ever had Snatch Game, and I didn’t fully understand how to play it. Once I did, it was too late (laughs).

I also like that I challenged myself and did Steven Tyler for the Super Bowl. They gave us a list in an email when we first got selected to be on All Stars of the different people we could pick from. There were a lot of people on the first list, but every time I sent in who I wanted to be, somebody else already called them. Then it became a short list that included Wynonna Judd, Tanya Tucker, Shania Twain, Janet Jackson, and Steven Tyler. I thought to myself, I don’t want to be Shania Twain, and I love Wynonna and Tanya, but I don’t know if I could see myself doing them.

Then I was like, people aren’t going to expect me to come back on TV as a fully realized, in-my-skin trans woman to play a male character. I remember thinking, “Don’t go the easy way in. Go and challenge yourself. This is an opportunity to challenge yourself. Don’t just do what you know and take a risk.” When I received the song for the Steven Tyler character, it was a lot slower than everybody else’s, and I was like, “Oh my God, they’re trying to get rid of me.” I kept thinking about Thorgy when she played Stevie Nicks. I knew I had to go all in on this, and they’re either going to love it or hate it.

During the final lip sync you famously tripped but made an epic recovery. I must ask, did you think it was all over?

Yes! I remember feeling like everything I worked so hard for was going to disappear at that moment because I slipped. I had no idea, but I had nothing to lose and everything to gain. When I got offstage, even though I recovered very well, a part of me was like, “Hold your head up high, and don’t look defeated.” I remember walking off the side of the stage, and I heard Carson say, “I cannot believe she saved herself.” A lot of people were like, “Did you get to do it twice? Is that something they set up?” No. There are a lot of things in reality TV where they want you to reset or redo, but some stuff is done authentically in one take.

This summer, we will see you make your debut movie role in Grafton Doyle’s Dope Queens. How excited are you for that?

I’m very, very excited to be a part of this film, and the fact that I get to have a speaking role! I’ve been on television and in films before, but I was in the background or didn’t have a speaking part. This really is an opportunity for me to show what I’ve learned, and I get to express myself as someone else. I’m very grateful for it because it’s something I’ve wanted to do since I was a kid. I’ve always wanted to be an actress. I never got an opportunity to be in theater while growing up, so for someone who’s never had any training to be in a movie, I think it’s really cool, and I’m looking forward to doing more.

The film is one of few pieces of mainstream media to explore the Tenderloin region, the home of Compton’s Transgender Cultural District. What do you hope audiences take away from the film?

I really hope that people can see trans people as humans. At the end of the day, we all go through some crazy shit, and I hope that people not only see us as just human, but also see where we’ve come from to where we are today. It can relate to the civil rights movement, and I think there’s a lot of similarity in that. Maybe not fully, but there are things that we can relate to as queer and trans people, and I think being able to see ourselves in film and tell our stories is super important because it helps people to understand more.

I’m also learning about what San Francisco was once upon a time. It’s not just going to be a learning experience for the audience, but it was for me as well because I had no idea what San Francisco was like back then. I learned about the area of town that we were in and what used to go down here. Even the club that we’re at, it’s a historical landmark for San Francisco. It was really cool.

Can you tell us more about your character, Monika, and how you personally relate to her?

Monika is a trans drag performer who knows where she’s going, and she has a good time getting there. I love that she’s a show girl because I can relate to that, and I tried to put a lot of meat and the side of me that people don’t really know into this character. With something like Drag Race, they know the tone of how they want you to be on TV. They have so much footage, and I feel like they got a lot of it right, but there are a lot of silly parts of me that you don’t see. I wanted to make sure I added my sassiness and those elements of me into Monika.

What else would you like to accomplish with your career and platform?

The possibilities are endless! I would like to do more film, more music, more music videos, and I’d also like to get to a place where I feel comfortable vocally advocating for trans rights. I’m still learning a lot, especially with so many different gender expressions and things like that. I grew up in a time where we had one flag to represent us all. Now, there are so many flags, symbols, and terms. Oftentimes, I know I’m this trans person that people see on a platform, but I don’t always necessarily feel like I’m worthy enough to speak for a community. When I do speak about trans feelings and rights, I do it from my perspective and experience. I don’t speak for other trans people.

I also try to not make me being trans the most interesting thing about me because I don’t think it is. It’s just a fact, not a factor of who I am. When you hear about it every single day, especially being a trans person, it gets a little old after a while. You start hearing the same conversations over and over and the same vocabulary over and over, and it’s coming from all over the place. I’m like, “Are people just repeating what they’ve heard, or are they speaking on experience?” Whenever I speak about it, I feel like I don’t have the same conversation. So, I’m learning more and more every day to be open and accepting of everyone’s identities.

Before we wrap up, are there any other upcoming projects or anything else you’d like to mention or plug?

I’m in the process of getting things together for a book; I’m working on more music; I’m doing some campaigns with a couple brands, and I’m looking forward to doing more film. There’s a lot that people can look forward to from me. Since I’ve won, and even before then, I’ve just been going around the world doing club gigs and venues, so I haven’t really allotted time to work on some of these projects, but hopefully, we’ll get some time because that’s really where I want to go with my career.

Stay up-to-date and connect with Kylie Sonique Love by following her on Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube @xosonique. For more information on Denver PrideFest, visit denverpride.org.

Photos courtesy of Kylie Sonique Love