When Yvie Oddly was first approached to write a memoir, her response was: “Hell yeah, I need therapy.”
The iconic drag artist, winner of RuPaul’s Drag Race season eleven, has used her book not just as a way to give audiences a glimpse behind the curtain, but also as a way for herself to untangle the ropes backstage. All About Yvie: Into the Oddity explores what it takes to be the "oddest drag queen in history,” diving into Oddly’s childhood, health, career, and legacy with raw honesty.
“I have a story,” Oddly told The Advocate. “I was going through a lot of things at the time when the idea was first tossed around, and I was really having a hard time piecing together a future for myself.”
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The idea of sharing her life with the world is “definitely a little bit nerve-wracking,” Oddly said, because she’s “seen some of the feedback that you can get, positive and negative.” The queen is accustomed to vulnerability after multiple stints in reality television, though crafting a book all about herself has taken a new level of openness. Still, Oddly shared that “more than anything, I'm excited.”
“It can be overwhelming,” she said. “But I'm excited to get to share a little piece more of me so that anybody who is a fan or isn't a fan or doesn't know me can at least have a reason to justify whatever they're feeling. I want to give people some backstory, because Drag Race, even being my favorite TV show, is not able to capture everything of a girl's story.”
Because Drag Race can’t capture everything, Oddly’s book dives into some moments from her time on the show that audiences haven’t yet seen. The tea particularly involves her time on season seven of RuPaul’s Drag Race: All Stars, when Oddly was among eight victors who returned to the series to compete again.
“The biggest moment that [fans] didn't get to see was most of All Stars [season] seven,” Oddly said, explaining, “There are a few experiences I talk about in the book about how I guess it didn't line up to what I thought I was signing up for.”
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But that’s not the only drag drama the queen is opening up about – Oddly’s memoir also dives into the dynamic between her and her fans, which she has dubbed a “love-hate relationship.” As Oddly described it: “They love me and I hate them.”
Though it’s more complicated than that, as Oddly explained it just “took me a while to get used to the fact that the way people view me is probably going to be different” due to her notoriety.
“Getting on Drag Race, the last thing I was prepared for was the fame part of it. I wanted to be an artist,” she said. “I never thought about what it would be like to actually get to that level of recognition, how it might make me feel, how people would deal with me. So while I was wrestling with all of this and wrestling with my interpersonal relationships, I had the most crossing over of my boundaries I had ever experienced in my life so hardcore and so rapidly.”
Oddly added: “I know we're fabulous creatures, but all the drag artists you've ever seen on that show are humans first and foremost, which means our thoughts, our needs, and our well-being have to come first.”
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While Oddly is not shy in discussing her career, her memoir also promises to explore the grittier moments of her personal life. This ranges from her complicated youth as a multiracial kid growing up in Denver, to her current life as a drag superstar living with Ehlers-Danlos syndrome.
The queen has long been open about her experiences with the condition – a group of genetic connective-tissue disorders that can cause joint dislocations, scoliosis, arthritis, and chronic pain – though it isn’t often she lets her fans see the extent to which it affects her.
“I know I'm disabled. I can feel it every day. I can feel it in the things I can do, and I can feel it in the things I can't do,” Oddly explained. “As far as all the parts of my identity that make up the intersectionality that is me, I don't let being disabled define a lot of my existence until it literally has to.”
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That was something Oddly especially had to reckon with after her victory on Drag Race season eleven, which came shortly before the COVID-19 pandemic began. The queen’s reign was hindered by the inability to hold live performances or travel, though she said some of the stoppages were actually “a blessing in disguise.”
“As somebody who has preexisting conditions and was already beating their body into the ground, when COVID came around, it forced me to sit and reflect on what I was capable of and what I actually wanted to do,” Oddly said. “It was painful not getting to see my friends and my family. It was painful like losing members in my community. The isolation wasn't easy, but I needed space to breathe.”
“The lifestyle that we live with the going, going, going definitely isn't good for you, isn't good for my body, my creativity,” she continued. “COVID allowed me some time and an excuse to sit at home and experiment with all these different sorts of art without snapping my body in half for the first time throughout my whole reign.”
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All About Yvie: Into the Oddity releases on June 19, Juneteenth, the holiday marking the end of slavery in the United States. The date also comes in the midst of LGBTQ+ Pride Month, which Oddly will be celebrating in her Colorado community. As for what the queen has planned for the future, Oddly said she’ll continue to do “the same thing I've done every year for Pride since I've come out, and every other non-Pride Day of the year, which is go out and chase the things that feel authentically fantastic to me.”
“The boiling down of our pride movement is that people have always opposed the idea of queerness, because it's embracing being happy even if it doesn't look like what the rest of the world looks like,” Oddly said. “So, you know what? I'm gonna spread some queerness, I'm gonna try and uplift others, I'm gonna tear down a few, and I'm really gonna try and cherish the time I have with the people I have, the community I have, because it's so special. And I know that we're never out of jeopardy of people trying to take away our freedom and our happiness.”
Watch Oddly's full conversation with The Advocate below.
