Hey Gurl! with Jordan Jayro: Shontelle Sparkles Talks Pageantry, Fragrances, And Drag Icks

August 14, 2023
JORDAN JAYRO

Hey gurl! There’s a brand new episode of my podcast Hey Gurl! With Jordan Jayro! This week is a fun one! I sat down for a lovely chat with the legendary Shontelle Sparkles! She and I have followed each other online for a while now! We’ve never met in person, but I have been watching and living for her drag journey forever! Shontelle is an insanely talented queen from Kentucky, and has even won the title of Entertainer of the Year in 2022! In the drag world, that’s a huge pageant title to have! I am so fascinated by pageantry and drag, so I knew I needed to talk to her about it all!

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We chatted a bit about our earliest memories in drag. Shontelle started when she was with an ex-boyfriend who introduced her to drag. Both of us recalled the very bumpy road to becoming presentable in drag. She talked about meeting her partner Ethan seven years ago. I talked about meeting my boyfriend around the same time. Then we just bonded over having fierce drag husbands. It’s not that we expect them to do things for us, but they understand the ins and outs of drag and showbiz. And also carry bags sometimes.

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Shontelle talked about not really being a “pageant queen” but, back in 2015, her drag mother Trinity Taylor was the current reigning EOY. As the current reigning, your job is to get people to compete. So you can guess what happened next! Shontelle entered the pageant and made it to the top three! That’s very difficult for your first pageant. Afterward, she took a long break from pageantry and decided to compete again in 2022. And that was the year she won! On her second try! That’s iconic!

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I always like to ask queens about their drag icks. These are things that other queens do that gross you out. We talked about dirty tights! Which is a really big one for me. Shontelle talked about the struggle of being a traveling girl and how tough it can be to wash your undergarments while you’re living in a suitcase. I’ve definitely had to wash my tights by hand in a bathroom sink before. It’s not fun. We also talked about oral hygiene. Some of these girls are out here not brushing for days and smoking cigarettes before the gig. It’s inexcusable and I need to know what Joe Biden intends to do to fix this.