Photo: Magnus Hastings
Ginger Minj Takes a Victory Lap
by Steve Desroches
It was a slow train coming. Ginger Minj burst onto the national drag scene after finishing as a runner-up on season seven of RuPaul’s Drag Race 10 years ago. She then appeared in season two of RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars, going home quite soon, but she would reappear in season six, landing as a runner-up again. Sigh. The crown always seemed just out of reach, glimmering in the distance like a mirage that some other queen would get to first to find that indeed it wasn’t just sand, but actual victory. And then came season 10, one in which Minj went into overdrive, steamrolling the competition, leaving some bitter roadkill. As the finale aired this past July, Minj sat with the eventual runner up, the fabulous Jorgeous, feeling confident but still uncertain. After all, perhaps her narrative in the franchise was to be the Rhoda and not the Mary. But alas this was her moment and she nabbed the crown and scepter finally after a decade of being a stand out in the pop culture phenomenon.
But how to mark this auspicious occasion? Inspiration struck when just after finding out she’d won, she went straight back to her hotel in Los Angeles with photographer Magnus Hastings to recreate an iconic Hollywood moment: a photo of Faye Dunaway taken by Terry O’Neill by the pool at the Beverly Hills Hotel, bleary-eyed, looking at the Academy Award she’d won the night before for her role in the 1976 film Network. That night, Dunaway glided down the aisle at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion to accept the award and after commenting on the weight of the Oscar, said with a sly dose of confidence, “Well, I didn’t expect this to happen quite yet but I do thank you very much and I’m very grateful.”
“Well, I didn’t expect this to happen so late,” laughs Minj.
That portrait of Dunaway is now in the Smithsonian at the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, DC. And if Minj’s career trajectory continues, and once the MAGA regime is relegated to the dustbin of history, the Hastings photo may very well end up in the same place, as she fully embraces being a superstar. Over all those years chasing a crown, Minj also became a multimedia celebrity appearing in films like Dumplin’ and Hocus Pocus 2, on stage in productions of La Cage aux Folles and Chicago, in Bless Your Heart, a standup comedy special on Amazon Prime, releasing several albums and singles as well as publishing a best-selling book, Southern Fried Sass. She didn’t really need the crown as she was already on fire, but it certainly didn’t hurt to add it to her list of accomplishments. With all this attention and the incredible exposure television provides, her management encouraged her to hit the road and tour hard and fast. No way, said Minj. There’s nowhere on Earth she would rather be in this glittery moment than in Provincetown, where she’s returned with an all-new show It’s Reigning Minj at the reimagined Saki Room at Red Room.
“Provincetown is like a second home to me,” says Minj, a native Floridian. “We’d live here year-round if we could. Last year we were here all summer and into fall for Halloween and then Holly Folly. I’ve never been anywhere like Provincetown. And I never feel the same way I do here anywhere else. I just love it.”
Minj, along with her husband and manager Ceejay Russell, got to the Cape tip as soon as possible to open the first show where Minj focuses on her 10-year association with RuPaul’s Drag Race, definitely spilling some piping hot tea as several NDAs from the first few seasons she was on have expired. She feels fully free to be exactly who she is and who she wants to be…which is the very essence of Provincetown, really. But there is more to this moment in time than just crowns and television fame. Minj is on a personal health renaissance. Not long before filming All Stars, Minj was hospitalized for a serious case of pneumonia. She was overweight, pre-diabetic, and had high blood pressure as well as other maladies. When she got the call from the show’s producers she took it as motivation for the wake-up call she was receiving.
“I lost 170 pounds,” says Minj. “Which is the only thing I lost this year.”
With a big, bright smile and a glow of confidence, Minj is ready to take on the world after her Provincetown run. After August, she grabs her broomstick and takes to the road for a nationwide tour starting September 4 in Orlando with Hokus Pokus Live, her original Hocus Pocus parody co-starring fellow Drag Race alums Jujubee and Sapphira Cristál, which is sure to sell out as the day after she won the crown the tour sold 2,000 tickets alone. She’s also in talks for a starring role in a major movie and is fielding two offers from Broadway shows, of which she can only chose one. And there’s a Christmastime show to plan. The opportunities are as plentiful as the sequins on one of her costumes.
“It’s a good time to be Ginger Minj,” she says. “Please come celebrate with me…and if you buy the meet and greet you get to hold the scepter!”
Ginger Minj presents It’s Reigning Minj! Thursday, August 21 through Friday, August 29 at 8 p.m. in the Saki Room at Red Room, 258 Commercial St. Tickets ($56.50/$81.50/$126.50, which includes a sushi roll and a martini or beverage of choice) are available at the door and online at redroom.club.
