Another country-themed LA queen? A year after Acacia Forgot? Well, yes and no. This isn’t Darlene Mitchell’s first time at the rodeo. Sure, it’s her first time on “Drag Race,” but she’s been doing drag in Los Angeles for a decade and only recently took on a persona inspired by her Indiana roots.
“So, I became sober, and I really sort of removed myself from nightlife for a bit, and kind of, had to sort of refocus, recenter and find out what was important to me,” Mitchell says. “And I really kind of stopped performing as much around the L.A. scene, but I was still doing drag at home. My now husband was a photographer. So, he and I would still do photo shoots and everything, and then, I um, got the call to come here. Uh, so it’s been a while. It’s been a wild ride.”
Before the pandemic, Mitchell went by the stage name “Trash” and says she “was very that girl.”
“It was pedal to the metal. It was party, party, party,” Mitchell reveals. “And in that moment when I wasn’t quite sure, you know, which way I wanted to go, and I became sober, I just started using my given name. And then after a few years of that, being like, ‘No, I’m ready to hop back in. I’m ready to, you know, come up with a character, come up with ‘Who am I in drag,’ you know? And Darlene Mitchell just jumped right out.”
If you have lived in the greater LA Metro area and frequented popular drag brunches, chances are you saw Mitchelle perform in one of her earlier incarnations. Again, she’s not a newcomer to the SoCal scene.
“When I first started my drag career, it was really in WeHo a lot,” Mitchell says. “I was one of the, like, rotating cast members at The Abbey for their brunch show. So, they’re like once or twice a month. And from there, I was really kind of everywhere. I was downtown a lot, like in that scene, and that’s where, like, a lot of my drag friends primarily perform. There’s a really awesome little show, a little hole in the wall, called Exposure in Highland Park. Highly recommend. That is where Trash found her footing.”
And with her comeback almost complete, what does Mitchell have up her sleeve next? She gives a bright-eyed smile and simply says, “World domination.”
