Kim Chi Breaks Down RuPaul's Drag Race Season 8, Creating KimChi Chic Beauty & Mukbang with Trixie

I made it into the show first time I applied.

It was very surreal.

And also I'm like, naturally a very cautious person.

Part of me is like, Am I getting scammed right now?

Like If I go to LA, like will I get kidnapped

and like wake up in a bathtub with my organs missing?

[Kim laughs] [television beeps]

Hello, I'm Kim Chi

and today I'm gonna be looking back at some of the moments

that shaped my career and my identity.

This is 'Becoming Kim Chi'.

[upbeat music]

So I was the problem child of the family,

but like, I never did anything bad.

You know, like I never drank, smoked

or like partied or anything like that.

But I was the problem child in the sense that I wasn't

like a traditional like Korean academic student.

So it was 2012

and my best friend at the time was like,

I wanna try drag for fun on Halloween.

Do you want to do it with me?

And I was like, I've never done it before

but it sounds fun, like let's do it.

So the first night I was like a little

Minnie Mouse inspired drag.

And by Minnie Mouse it was just like an Asian woman

with Minnie Mouse ears and some like,

red and white polka dotted like sweater. [laughs]

And my drag name the first night I went out was

Jizzney Princess. [crew laughing]

And I quickly dropped it after the first time.

What's next? [electronic music]

[Queen] Yes! [Dax gasps]

My name is Kim Chi

and I came here to destroy everyone.

I made onto the show first time I applied.

It was very surreal,

and also I'm like naturally a very cautious person.

Part of me is like, Am I getting scammed right now?

Like If I go to LA, like will I get kidnapped

and like wake up in a bathtub with my organs missing?

[Kim laughs]

I think my personal favorite look that I wore

is the hanbok I wore in like the book ball challenge.

You know, that is like the one look like,

even if I go home first,

like I hope I get to show this look on television

because I have to show a traditional Korean outfit

on like a national television.

I mean to be honest, like when I went on 'Drag Race',

my goal was never to win.

My goal was just like,

make it far enough to be remembered. [laughs]

Because it doesn't matter like how great you are.

Every winner gets so much hate from people saying like

So and so should have won.

And that just kind of like follows them

for like the rest of their career.

Maybe the only exception is maybe Bianca Del Rio.

But like everybody else, you know.

And I just like didn't want to deal with that.

The real race is after 'Drag Race'

and like what happens after that.

And if you had a bad week,

your inboxes get just like filled with like

hate messages from like random people.

And then if you had a great week,

your like tagged photos are just like filled with fan art.

[Kim laughs]

So after I won the first episode, I got $3,000 as a prize

and I knew at the time I was talking to my mom

and she was like struggling financially.

So I sent her the money and I told her it was

money I earned through doing like makeup gigs.

And then she googled the email address,

like where the money was from

and then she found all this stuff about Kim Chi.

And then she calls me up

and the first thing she asked was,

How much money do you make doing this?

And I told her and she was like,

Keep living your dream. [laughs]

'Cause for Asian parents, you know like,

financial success equates to success.

And I think at the end of the day

they just wanna see us like live comfortably

and not struggle like the way they did.

Oh, I know what's coming up.

[electronic music] ♪ Yeah, fat, fem and Asian ♪

♪ Fat, fem and Asian ♪

When I first started performing,

I would only purposely pick Korean pop songs.

And this is before like BTS and like,

even American public knew about K-pop.

In my own way, I was forcing my culture

into the gay night life.

So when people come to the drag show

and I'm performing a K-pop song,

they have no choice but to listen to the K-pop song.

So the moment that inspired the song 'Fat Fem and Asian'

was when on 'Drag Race', when I talked about how

in a lot of gay dating apps,

a lot of people would have in their profile

No fats, no fem, no Asian.

And this is before like the woke culture.

And nowadays like you don't find that

like in the gay dating profile,

but back then that was just like a common thing.

No spice, no rice, no fats, no fem, no Asian.

And as a person who is like pretty much like all the above,

you know, you always feel like alienated

and you almost don't feel like welcome in gay spaces.

So then I talked about that moment in the show

and then that inspired the whole

'Fat Fem and Asian' performance.

So I was very nervous when I performed this.

I'm like scared shitless the entire time.

And on top of that, when we were rehearsing,

the cage of the skirt kept catching into my heel,

which like sunk the entire skirt like in half.

The whole time I'm just wishing like,

Oh my God, I hope I don't step on the skirt,

I hope I don't fall.

I was like a nervous wreck.

But then afterwards a lot of people loved this performance,

which thank you. [laughs]

Thank you.

And with that, let's talk about my favorite makeup line,

Kim Chic Beauty.

[bright music]

[indistinct vocalizing]

So when I first started doing drag,

at the time there weren't that many products in the market

that were super pigmented.

You get a big variety and cheap at the same time.

If you want to get good products you'd have to pay so much.

And I want to try as many different products as possible.

But you know, on a poor drag queens budget,

like that just wasn't possible.

So when I told myself like if I ever built a makeup company,

I want to create makeup from someone who works like

a nine to five corporate job to like, clowns can wear.

I want to be all inclusive.

With drag becoming like so popular nowadays,

like normalization of like makeup being unisex,

you know like makeup doesn't have gender

and anyone can wear makeup.

I think like that allows for like more kids to

be able to like be themselves nowadays,

you know, compared to like how we were.

But I don't think that's just like makeup alone,

but that goes for like a lot of other things.

When I was in middle school,

I brought like Korean food to school for lunch

and all the kids were like,

Ew, that's disgusting, like what is that smell?

We call it like the lunchbox trauma.

And ever since then, like I had never brought

Korean food to school like till the day I graduated.

But nowadays kids are bringing Korean food to school

and the other kids are like, Oh I know what that is.

Like Can I, you know, can I have some?

And when I hear stories like that like,

it's like the world is changing for the better,

little by little. [laughs]

And same goes for makeup, you know.

I feel like back in the like the 90s and even early 2000s,

if you were a guy that wore like makeup day to day,

you were either seen as just like really gay

or you know, like out there.

But nowadays if you see men with makeup,

like you don't even think much of it.

Next! [upbeat music]

Get that cheese pool.

Wait, what is that? [dramatic music]

[Kim] Hardboiled egg. Oh, okay.

So obviously I've known Trixie for a long time

and I know her eating habits very well.

I know eating habits of all of my friends really well.

And I knew Trixie wouldn't like most of the food

I ordered for her, but you know,

I still wanted her to try it.

You know, whether you like it or not,

you gotta try everything at least once

to know that you don't like it for sure.

Because her reaction is like so genuine

when she like doesn't like something,

it's extra hilarious because it's so like apparent

that she genuinely from the bottom of her heart

will never eat this again. [laughs]

And maybe I secretly enjoy torturing Trixie a little.

I feel like more people have seen this video

than me on 'Drag Race'.

Like I get so many random people like coming up to me

and saying, Oh, I saw your video with Trixie

and they're always referring to this particular video.

I think because Trixie was on 'Drag Race' first,

a lot of fans are like,

You're just like a Trixie like copycat.

But it's like not true at all.

I just wanna make it clear here

that we were both doing the white under-eye liner thing.

And I think just working with each other we just like,

you know, like amplified each other.

Trixie and I talk about to this day,

like doing drag back in that day

was some of the most fun we've ever had in drag.

The audience just like, loved whatever you're doing.

And there was like no preconceived notion of like,

drag performing has to be like this or this or that.

We did crazy things like Celine Dion shows and

or a pizza themed show where every number is about pizza.

[Kim laughs]

Even though drag has like evolved so much,

I feel like because like a lot of people's like exposure

to drag is through 'Drag Race',

I think a lot of people have a hard time seeing like

drag outside of like that format.

You'll see like a lot of people like,

Oh I need my drag performers, you know,

to be able to like dance or like do these tricks.

Or some people are like,

Oh I want my drag queens to be like extremely funny.

To me what makes a great show is a variety

of like different talents, like coming together.

So if I go to a drag show, I wanna see like, you know,

one queen who's like an amazing dancer

that turns and did tricks.

I wanna see like a look queen come out in like

a really cool look that I would've like

never thought of on my own.

And maybe, you know, lip sync toss down

to like a beautiful ballad.

And then I wanna see like a funny queen come out

and you know, just make me laugh.

I wanna see like a messy queen come out

and just give me like dirty grungy drag.

Like I want to see a little bit of everything.

I don't want to see just one thing like the entire time.

And I feel like that makes for a very boring show.

Moving on. [upbeat music]

Welcome to another episode of 'One for the Table'.

Jon, I met during Motor City Pride in 2016.

It was actually one of like the first gigs I did

after I was on 'Drag Race'.

And I was just like chilling in the dressing room

and Jon Kung just like stumbled in drunk with his friend

and I'm like, Who is this Asian guy and why is he in here?

I'm like, Are you gay and single?

And he's like, No.

So now I was like, Oh, okay, well get out of here.

[Kim laughs]

And then the tour organizer was like,

Do you want me to take you out for dinner tonight

or do you want me to get like a private chef

to cook you a dinner?

And I'm like, Private chef to cook me a dinner!

I'm like, Yes, that sounds amazing.

And turns out that chef was Jon.

And then his friend drove his drunk ass to Whole Foods

and he just bought like a lot of random ingredients

and then just like started cooking.

And I came over later that night. [laughs]

And ate all the food that he made and it was amazing.

And then we became friends since that day.

And then whenever we get together,

we were always talking about food

and then we realized like a lot of people just like

love to listen to us talk about food.

So I was like, Well why don't we do a podcast,

put our talks on a global level? [laughs]

And yeah, that's how our podcast happened.

Just like how we travel,

we don't like planning things like too crazy.

It's more like two friends, you know, sitting at a table,

you know, catching up on our lives, discussing food.

I've always been a... I hate the term Foodie, but...

[laughs] I've always been like a foodie my entire life

because I'm very passionate about food.

And then during pandemic I was like,

Well I'm not getting into drag every day,

why don't I just make like random food content?

So it just kind of like started as a hobby.

And I'm not trying to like take it too seriously

because I don't want it to turn into work.

[upbeat music]

I wanna be so rich to a point where

I don't know how to use ATM.

Or if someone asks me like,

How much does like a bag of potato chips cost?

I have no idea.

Like I wanna be out of touch rich.

But a realistic answer is

I wanna have like a nice two bedroom home, maybe a pool

and a big yard for my dog, puppy to run around.

It's the small things in life, you know?

But even that is like not possible in LA right now

because of the housing prices and the interest rates, woof!

Thank you, Them, I had so much fun with you.

This has been 'Becoming Kim Chi'.

[groovy music]