For her last episode of “RuPaul’s Drag Race: All Stars 5,” Jujubee sashayed down the main stage wearing an immaculate orange-gold-and-nude ensemble that paid homage to the Hindu god whose paintings were all over her household while growing up.
As a young person, she was always so taken by the spirituality of the iconography. She never cared whether they were male or female but just valued knowing that their energy was that of hope, enlightenment and happiness. It’s these works that inspire her drag, she told NBC Asian America.
“I wanted to portray that through drag,” she said. “What better way than to celebrate me, my family, my heritage and my spirituality than to dress as a person I want to be?”
Jujubee, the stage name of Airline Inthyrath, first appeared on the second season of “RuPaul’s Drag Race” in 2010 and quickly captivated audiences with her quick wit. Juju, along with season one’s Ongina and season three’s Manila Luzon and Raja, paved the way for other Asian American queens and queens of Asian descent on television.
In recent years, strides have been made for Asian representation in mainstream entertainment, but there’s still much work to be done to get Southeast Asian stories in the spotlight. By infusing her culture into her drag, Juju is part of that progress, critics say.
Her culture was infused into the show as well in rich and lighthearted ways. RuPaul lovingly proclaimed “Laos in the haos” one week when Juju strutted down the runway. In the famous reading challenge, during which queens roast one another and which Jujubee has won every time, she once read a fellow contestant in full Lao. Additionally, her drag has always been an amalgamation of all the women in her life: grandmother, aunts and sisters.
“So, of course, they’re Laotian. I wanted to be the idea of what a great mother would be. I talk about my relationship with my mother and I didn’t really have one for that long,” she said, referring to how her mother left her and her two sisters following the death of their father. “So I wanted Jujubee to be this super woman, this person who just spreads love.”
Some of Jujubee’s fondest memories about her Laotian family are centered around food, when everyone would come together and bring their own version of the minced meat dish laap. Her family lived traditionally as Laotian Buddhists, which gave her an appreciation for spirituality from an early age.
Juju talks about other drag queens such as Ongina, the Filipino competitor from the inaugural season of RuPaul’s Drag Race, who was a beacon of representation.
“When I watched season one of ‘RuPaul’s Drag Race,’ when Ongina popped up on the screen, my heart melted and I was just like, ‘Oh my gosh, there’s a space for me.’ The representation is incredible. I’m very honored to even be considered at the same level. I just do what I love. So when somebody sees that I’m this Laotian drag queen and I’m proud of it and it’s inspiring to other Asian queens, I’m just very humbled by that,” she said.
Back home in Boston, Juju has a big drag family full of queens that are Filipino, Cambodian, Laotian and more. She says she’s excited that televised and mainstream drag is catching up to reflect what real social circles look like. “The queer Asian community is huge, but the queer Asian drag community, it’s still growing, and I think it’s pretty cool,” she said.
She also notes the conversations she has with fellow queens such as Ongina, Manila and Jiggly Caliente about the “incredible bond” between Asian fans and queens. That love for Juju has been clear on social media.
“As a little gay Southeast Asian kid who relies on humor to be endearing and relate to others and feel more confident in his own identity… I’m #TeamJujubee all the way,” wrote one fan. “Consistent, poised, hilarious, and all around amazing, Jujubee deserves this crown.” Another tweeted, “I’m so proud of Jujubee. She did that for all the southeast asian gays out there. A winner in my heart.” Asian American writer Sara David posted “southeast asians with grey tabbies for jujubee,” in reference to Juju’s cats whom she loves dearly and brought up several times during this past season of “Drag Race.”
Beyond being a trailblazer when it comes to representation in the world of drag, Jujubee has used her platform to embrace femininity when there continues to be a toxic obsession with masculinity in certain parts of the gay community. And the artist has been open about her journey with sobriety.
“In these meeting rooms that I go to, and now they’re online, whenever I see another Asian person, there’s this almost calming excitement. The Laotian community, we don’t talk about mental health. We don’t talk about addiction. It’s just something that is a no-no,” Jujubee said. “I’m going day by day and I’m trying to live my life to the fullest because this is a pretty cool experience and I want people to see that there is another way to live and we do recover, especially our queer Asian community.”
Fans point out Jujubee is not only an inspiration but she’s also just a talented entertainer. Many of the standout memes from “All Stars 5” were Jujubee moments, whether it was her impersonation of Eartha Kitt turning the thermostat to a “sensible 74” or simply narrating. She admits that she shares the memes of herself, appreciating that “love and light is being carried on and spread through the world through memes.”
For those looking for more Jujubee, they can check out TLC’s “Dragnificent!,” where Juju and a slew of other Drag Race alums help transform women into their best and most confident selves. She recently released her debut EP “Good Juju, Volumes 1 and 2.” And if there’s Good Juju, she teases that there has to be Bad Juju, which will be a collection of remixes and feature a new collab with a Drag Race sister.
Even before the close of “RuPaul’s Drag Race: All Stars 5,” many viewers had an important question: How do we get more Jujubee on television? When asked what a standalone Jujubee television show would look like, she had two pitches.
“There could be ‘Jujubee the Cat Whisperer,’ and all I do is whisper things to cats,” she said. “That would be hilarious. Or it could be, you know that show Reba with Reba McEntire? It will be that, but it’ll just be Juju, same characters and everything. I’ll just be Reba’s part, and we’ll just call it Juju.”