By Denny Patterson
Hailing from Leesburg, Florida, Ginger Minj first gained international recognition as a finalist on Season 7 of RuPaul’s Drag Race, and subsequently returned to compete on All Stars 2 and 6. The Emmy Award-winning series has catapulted the careers of several drag artists, and Ginger is unquestionably thriving in the limelight, showcasing a diverse array of talents including acting, singing, and writing.
OutClique had the opportunity to catch up with the drag superstar and talk about her latest endeavors including a brand-new tour titled The Broads Way, where she and longtime collaborator Gidget Galore take audiences on a musical journey through some of the best Broadway shows to ever grace the Great White Way, her recently published memoir/cookbook, Southern Fried Sass, and her perspectives on the anti-drag sentiments prevailing in the Sunshine State.
Denny Patterson: Ginger, I’d like to begin by asking about The Broads Way. How has the show been going, and can you tell us what it’s about?
Ginger Minj: It’s been going great! The Broads Way is an hour long show, and it’s chaotic. It’s 24 Broadway hits that everybody knows and loves, 20 costume changes, and there’s something for everybody. They always say make them laugh every 30 seconds, but we’re doing it every 10. It’s unhinged, ridiculous, and if you love Broadway and showtunes, you’re going to love this. If you don’t like Broadway and showtunes, we found a way to make you love them.
Denny Patterson: You took the show to Chicago, New York, and Los Angeles last month. Will more dates be added?
Ginger Minj: We are in negotiations to add a couple more stops in March, so make sure to follow my social media because we always keep the most up-to-date posts there.
Denny Patterson: When did the show initially debut?
Ginger Minj: We opened The Broads Way in P-Town this past summer and sold out every night. That was my third summer there, and Gidget’s second. She’s been my best friend for 21 years and we started drag together. After my first summer in P-Town, I was like, you’ve got to come here. Your mind will be blown, your life is going to change – you have to do this. So, we did a big Disney cabaret, which was a lot of fun. Then last year going in, because we both started drag through theater, we wanted to do something centered around Broadway. When we started all those years ago in Orlando, decades ago at this point, there was no space for us. Everybody knew and liked us, but they were like, we don’t really know where the Broadway thing fits in. Therefore, we created our own spaces and shows, and a lot of the shows are still running to this day without us. So, we wanted to get back to our roots and create something fun with lots of costumes and glitz. We didn’t know what the Broadway thing was going to be, but we’d go back and forth, like we do, and say the stupidest things to each other. There were times when we’d put something in the script, and we’d go, this is never going to work, but it ended up getting the biggest laugh. Like I said, we sold out every night, and all the reviews were like, this is the best show to hit P-Town in decades. It was news to us. We were just two idiots simply going out there and having a good time!
Denny Patterson: Out of all the productions you explore in The Broads Way, which one is your absolute favorite?
Ginger Minj: Gypsy is probably my favorite. I accidentally played Mama Rose when I was 18 years old, before I ever even started drag. I was costuming a production of Gypsy at our local community theater, and the night before opening, our Mama Rose got into a knockout fist fight with the director and quit. We were like, what do we do? We opened in less than 24 hours, and I was like, well, I fit the costumes and know the show. They laughed, but then were like, maybe! I’ve never done drag a day in my life at this point, and they said, put on the costume and sing a couple songs. I did, and they’re like, okay, it’ll work (laughs). It wasn’t like, oh, a star is born! It was more like, maybe this will help us out of this jam. I ended up playing Mama Rose for a week and a half until they brought the new actress in from New York to take over, but I loved doing it, and I would love to purposefully do it at this point in my career. Rose, to me, is the pinnacle of musical theater. It’s that moment where everything has led up to it, and it encompasses every emotion possible. It runs the full gamut, so I knew I wanted to put that into the show for myself.
Denny Patterson: Is performing on Broadway a big goal of yours?
Ginger Minj: Definitely. I mean, that’s why I got into drag in the first place. I got into drag through theater, but I’ve always loved being in front of a live audience. I’ve learned to appreciate the nuance of film and television, and I enjoy doing that as an actor, but as an entertainer, there’s nothing like having that interaction with an audience. Feeling their energy come to you and giving it right back to them, it’s such a beautiful relationship and it’s something I will never give up. I would love to do that on the Broadway level.
Denny Patterson: Are you still based in Florida?
Ginger Minj: I am. I’m from Leesburg, which is about an hour north of Orlando. We always say in Florida, the further north you go, the further south you actually are. It’s like a totally different world from Orlando, but I’ve been in Orlando for the last almost 19 years now. As crazy as Florida is, it’s like a beautiful little blue Island oasis in the midst of a big red sea. It’s very gay, very happy, and very Disney. It does feel like home, but I’m very careful not to step too far outside of those county lines.
Denny Patterson: Yeah, because Florida has been one of the leaders in the anti-drag movement. Do you have any thoughts or opinions you would like to share about that?
Ginger Minj: I’ve said it before, but I think it’s kind of a double edged sword. On one hand, we have to look at it as ridiculous. We’ve been around for forever, and we are always the ones at the forefront of big movements, particularly within the LGBTQ+ community. We are community leaders and builders. We are the people who aren’t afraid to roll up our sleeves, get dirty, get out there, and make the world a better place. When it comes to dealing with children, that’s the thing that hurts the most because I’ve always felt so protective over children because I was abused so much in so many different ways. My life goal has been to protect those kids out there that are so much like me so they don’t have to go through what I did. They don’t have to feel the way that I did. So, there’s that side of it, but then there’s also the side that’s like, we’ve finally made it mainstream enough that we are being noticed as powerful people. That’s the silver lining of that dark cloud. That’s the good thing we need to cling on to. There is power in visibility, and we’re finally visible enough that they’re afraid of the power that we have.
Denny Patterson: What advice can you offer a newbie who would like to try drag but is too afraid to do so?
Ginger Minj: The first thing is to do what makes you happy. One of my favorite things in the world is AFAB drag, and people are like, these girls can’t be drag queens! Well, why not? To me, drag is a celebration of femininity, at least female presenting drag is, and if you’re a drag king, it’s celebrating hyper masculinity. It’s not making fun of it. It’s celebrating and pumping it up. In Orlando, we have Venus Envy, who is probably the best AFAB queen I’ve ever met. There’s something about this beautiful young woman piling on more makeup and hair in drag than I’ve ever worn at any given time and becoming this even more incredible creature. An explosion of feminine power, and I very much enjoy that. People are going to either tell you that you’re right or wrong, but it’s up to you to decide what makes you feel best, and just go with that. From a logistical standpoint, just like when you’re building a house, you have to start with a sturdy foundation. Anything you buy at the drugstore is not going to cover, blend, smooth and make you look good. Invest your money in a good, theatrical, thick cream foundation, and then everything you put on top of it can be cheap. You can learn how to work that.
Denny Patterson: In November, you released your memoir/cookbook, Southern Fried Sass. How has it been received?
Ginger Minj: Better than I ever hoped!
Denny Patterson: What inspired you to write it?
Ginger Minj: I wrote the book because when you’re blessed to be on something like RuPaul’s Drag Race, people feel like they get to know you. They do, but it’s on a very surface level because you’re sharing screen time with all these other people for an hour to an hour and a half every week. Audiences get little breadcrumbs of who we are or what our stories may be, and it was so strange for me to be out on the road and have people either come up to me or post online things about my life that had never happened or couldn’t be further from the truth. They were like, in order to get from this point to this point, this is probably what had to have happened. And I said, no, this is what actually happened. I started telling bits and pieces of my actual story, and lo and behold, there was such a power in that communication. People started going, oh my God, my mind is blown. I’ve been through the same fate. That could be my story. I didn’t do that, but I went through this and that’s kind of led me to this point. So, I decided I wanted to put pen to paper and tell my life story, fill in those gaps for everybody else. Then when Simon and Schuster came around after All Star 6, they came to my show in P-Town. My editor, Michelle, was like, I need to talk to you after the show. She comes to the dressing room and goes, I think you were robbed, and I will give you $100,000 right now if you sign this contract and write a book for me. If there’s anything I could do, it’s write about myself (laughs). So, I sat down, typed out the title, and sat there for hours and hours and hours trying to figure out where to begin. Like, what’s the thread of this thing? What’s the jumping off point? Because I don’t want to tell a story in a way that is selfish or just from my perspective. I want to tell a story that brings everybody in. I struggled with it for a while, and then my grandmother passed away. She didn’t have a whole lot of material possessions, but she had a recipe box, and it was prized. Everybody wanted it, but she left it to me because I did most of the cooking and baking with her for decades. I decided to share it with my mom, sister, and my aunt, and as we were going through the recipes, we were laughing, crying, and talking about these memories and stories. I was learning stuff about recipes I had never seen before, stories I had never heard from 60-70 years prior, and I suddenly realized, food is my love language. I’ve learned in all my travels that if you can’t communicate with somebody verbally, you can communicate with them through food. You can learn about them and understand them more about the food they share with you. So, I thought that’s a great jumping off point. Very accessible, and once I started piecing my life together in recipes, it was so easy to weave the rest of the story into it. People have lost their minds over this because they’re commiserating or laughing along with me to the things that have happened in my life, while also tagging me in pictures of their meatloaf or blueberry bars that they’ve made from my cookbook. Even more than hearing how they share the story, it’s more exciting for me to see them make this food and enjoy it.
Denny Patterson: And you said this was the most vulnerable project you’ve ever done.
Ginger Minj: My goodness, yes! There’s stuff in this book I’ve never even told my therapist. The original draft was like War and Peace or Les Mis. It was huge, and my editor was like, you cannot go from this dark subject to muffins. You’ve got to find a way where it makes a lot more sense. So, I started taking out pieces and leaving bits that propel the story forward. There’s enough for a sequel if there needs to be one, but I wanted to kind of give an overarching story instead of being bogged down by the details. When I got to do that, that was the cathartic part because things that had affected me so deeply now made no sense or had any bearing on my story. I got to snip out these dark parts of my past and throw them away. It felt like I was throwing them away for good and not having to deal with them anymore.
Denny Patterson: I love that you also share your passion for hosting in the book, which leads me to my next question. You had the opportunity to partner up with Nina West for Hulu’s Drag Me to Dinner. How much fun was that?
Ginger Minj: That was wacky! Nobody knew what Drag Me to Dinner was supposed to be at all, and originally, I was supposed to be paired up with Gidget. The format was supposed to be slightly different, I believe, and I think there were supposed to be three teams. Then suddenly, Nina was without a partner when they reformatted. She called me and was like, sister, we never get to work together, and I was like, yes, let’s do it. Gidget was so busy and competing on Sew Fierce for OutTV at the time, so she actually preferred to step back. So, we got there, and nobody really knew what was happening except for the fact that our theme was Tupperware, and we had to throw a party that encompassed Tupperware, hosting, and food. In my head, I’m thinking this is like a real competition in the sense that we have to take this very seriously. Then all of a sudden, we step on stage and see all the shenanigans that’s going on. You just have to embrace it or you’re going to get overwhelmed. Nina and I ended up having the best day ever, and it was the same day that I did the Hocus Pocus 2 premiere in New York. It was a long day, but we had the best time just being idiots. To me, that’s also the fun of food. When you can throw things together and have a good time while you’re doing it. It sometimes doesn’t turn out, and you sometimes discover a brand-new recipe that you’ll use forever for the rest of your life. We did not learn any recipes that day that we’ll be using forever because nobody wants to eat that gelatin with a hotdog ever again! But we had such a good time doing it, and I think that’s why people have been drawn to our episode more than the others because there was this pure joy of being there in the moment.
Denny Patterson: What are some future goals you hope to accomplish with your career and platform?
Ginger Minj: There’s just so much. I’m one of those queens who likes to have their hand in every pot. I always like to keep things fresh and look at what else I can sink my teeth into. There are a couple TV things coming up, such as a short film I did called Stan Behavior, which is like a comedic drag queen version of Misery. It stars myself and Yvonne Zima, who’s been in soap operas and movies. Her sister, Madeline, played Gracie on The Nanny, so we bonded over our love of Fran Drescher. The movie is so fun, and it’s making the circuit this year through all the film festivals. It’s getting a lot of good buzz already.
Denny Patterson: Before we wrap up, are there any other upcoming projects or anything else you’d like to mention or plug?
Ginger Minj: Other than what we’ve talked about? No, not really. I’m just super focused on the book and tour right now. My last album, my country album called Double Wide Diva, did very well, so we’re working on a new country album that will come out later this year. There’s also a lot in the works that I can’t talk about just yet, but stay tuned!
Stay up-to-date and connect with Ginger by following her on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok @TheGingerMinj, or visit GingerMinj.com.
