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Victoria "Porkchop" Parker

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Victoria "Porkchop" Parker
Victoria "Porkchop" Parker in 2017
Born
Victor Ray Bowling

(1970-01-16) January 16, 1970 (age 54)
Anderson, South Carolina, U.S.
Occupations
Known for

Victoria "Porkchop" Parker is the stage name of Victor Ray Bowling (born 16 January 1970),[1][2][3] an American drag performer and actor who came to international attention on the first season of RuPaul's Drag Race. He is notable in part for being the first contestant ever eliminated in the history of the franchise. Parker has also appeared elsewhere on television in and out of drag, and he has also served as a backup dancer for Miley Cyrus.[4]

Parker has been deemed one of the show's most successful and recognizable drag queens.[5][6] Although finishing last on his season of Drag Race, Parker has won over 100 pageants in his career as a drag queen and has toured internationally. He has frequently appeared as a guest on later seasons of Drag Race as Parker, with RuPaul often explicitly paying him homage due to his position as the first eliminated queen in the show's history.

Early life

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Bowling was born in Anderson, South Carolina, and raised in Fayetteville, North Carolina.[1] He attended E.E. Smith High School.[7] During his childhood, he attended youth theater at Cape Fear Regional Theater, and also partook in show choir.[7][3] He was kicked out of his parents' home for being gay.[8]

Career

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Pageants

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Parker began performing in drag for the first time on January 16, 1987, her seventeenth birthday. She accompanied her friend to a predominantly African American local gay bar, both of them dressed in an attempt at drag, and watched a drag pageant that was occurring at the bar that night. The next month, she performed in a talent show at the bar while dressed in clothes that she had secretly borrowed from her mother and wore no wig, only showing her natural hair, which was styled "like Jessica Fletcher" (from Murder, She Wrote). Despite receiving boos, she was informed that she had potential as an entertainer. In June 1988, she became the first Caucasian person to win the club's pageant title.[3] She started seriously competing in drag pageants in 1990, with her first being the Miss Gay USofA at Large 1990.[citation needed] Her original drag name, Victoria Renee Parker, emerged as a combination of "Victoria", a feminized version of her birth name, Victor, "Renee", a name that she simply found "very pretty" (and shared the same first initial of his birth middle name, Ray), and "Parker", a homage to 1985 Miss North Carolina Joni Bennett Parker, who was a Fayetteville native.[3] She almost selected her name to be "Victoria Renee Bennett", still as an homage to Joni, but didn't want a situation to arise where, after a show, her co-performers would say "Oh, she’s Bennett".[a][3] She was known by the aforementioned name until around 1995–96, where her nickname was given to her by her drag mother, Carmella Marcella Garcia, after Parker's ability to cook the entrée of the same name.[7] Garcia "adopted" Parker as her drag daughter after watching her compete for the title of Miss Gay North Carolina America.[3] Parker initially reacted with disdain the first time that Garcia introduced her as "Porkchop Parker", although it eventually grew on her, and she has described it as "more memorable" than her previous drag name, and "a great gimmick".[3] He has won over 100 pageants,[9] including Miss Continental Plus 2003 and Miss'd America 2013.[10][11][3] At the time of her Miss Continental Plus win, she had been working at The Connection, a gay bar in Louisville, Kentucky, and had previously placed as first runner-up at the 1996 edition of Miss Continental Plus.[3]

Film and television

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Parker was in the documentary Trantasia, which documented the undergoing of The World's Most Beautiful Transsexual Contest, and was filmed in Las Vegas. Parker was scouted for the competition and competed, despite the fact that she did not identify as transsexual.[3] The documentary debuted in 2006. In 2008, he appeared in the documentary film Pageant with Alyssa Edwards and other queens detailing their experience on Miss Gay America.[12]

In 2015, Parker made a minor appearance along with Chad Michaels in an episode of 2 Broke Girls.[13] He was a backup dancer with 30 other drag queens for Miley Cyrus's 2015 VMA Awards performance.[9]

Parker was on the E! show Botched (Season 3, episode 4) to fix the silicone problems with his nose, including a point where the skin was starting to decay.[14]

RuPaul's Drag Race

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Performing in 2017

Parker was announced as one of the nine contestants for the inaugural season of RuPaul's Drag Race on February 2, 2009. Prior to his casting, he had been hosting shows at Legends Nightclub in Raleigh, had just won Miss Gay DC, and had competed in the 2008 edition of Miss Gay America.[3] He has been described as the season's only older and plus-sized queen.[15] Parker was eliminated during the first episode, becoming the very first contestant ever eliminated in the history of the show. He was sent home by Akashia.[16] Because of this, RuPaul always addresses him with "Hey Porkchop" during all of the Drag Race live reunions, starting with season 4.[17]

Parker has been brought back on the show by RuPaul several times, in homage to being the first contestant ever eliminated.[18] He appeared during the recap episode of RuPaul's Drag Race: All Stars 2 and was featured in winning queen Alaska's rap.[19][20] Parker was also brought back for the first episode of season 10 of RuPaul's Drag Race to help judge the mini-challenge.[21] In 2019 she appeared as a guest for the first challenge in the premiere of season eleven of Drag Race posing with Soju.[22]

In the first episode of RuPaul's Drag Race: All Stars 3, Vanessa Hudgens lip synced against "Porkchop", an actual pork chop, which RuPaul said was Parker.[23][24]

In March 2018, Variety said that Parker was one of the 10 most successful queens in their careers after the show.[6] He has toured internationally.[6]

As of 2018, Parker was still publicly vying for a spot on RuPaul's Drag Race: All Stars.[25] Daniel Welsh of Huffington Post wrote "we're surprised contestants like Jessica Wild, Ongina and even Victoria "Porkchop" Parker are still sitting on the shelf, waiting to be plucked up for All Stars."[26] Since then, both Ongina and Jessica Wild have been featured on the fifth and eighth seasons of All Stars, respectively, although Parker is yet to appear back on the show.

Personal life

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Bowling was attacked at a gay bar which resulted in a gunshot wound and acid damage on his face, requiring surgery. He had silicone injections done by an unlicensed nurse in 1999, resulting in granuloma.[27] After her appearance on Drag Race, she moved to Lumberton, North Carolina, and then to Los Angeles, California.[3]

His father died in 1993 of cancer.[7]

Filmography

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Film

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Year Title Role Notes
2021 The Bitch Who Stole Christmas[28] Bertram

Television

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Date Title Character Work Ref.
2006 Trantasia Self Documentary
2008 Pageant Self Documentary
2009–2021 RuPaul's Drag Race Self Reality television [29]
2015 2 Broke Girls Protester Sitcom
2015 2015 MTV Video Music Awards Dancer for Miley Cyrus Awards show
2016 Botched Self Reality television
2017 Hey Qween! Self Talk show
2020 AJ and the Queen Porkchop Netflix original [30]

Music videos

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Year Title Artist Ref.
2020 "Pink Pony Club" Chappell Roan [31]

Web series

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Year Title Role Notes Ref.
2013 RuPaul Drives Herself Guest [32]
Ring My Bell Guest [33]
WOW Shopping Network Recurring guest [34]
2016 The Pit Stop Guest [35]

Awards and nominations

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Year Award-giving body Category Work Results Ref.
2022 The Queerties Future All-Star Herself Nominated [36]

References

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  1. ^ ”Bennett” is pronounced the same as “been it”, an expression that describes someone similar to a "has-been".
  1. ^ a b Ferber, Lawrence (December 25, 2008). "The Other White Meat". The Advocate. Retrieved February 23, 2019.
  2. ^ "Victor Ray Bowling". Ancestry Institute. Ancestry. Retrieved November 12, 2022.
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l "Victoria Porkchop Parker: Exposed (The Full Audio Interview)". YouTube. January 10, 2023. Retrieved July 13, 2023.
  4. ^ Daw, Stephen (August 18, 2018). "Porkchop Reveals 'Drag Race' Post-Elimination Drama & Hopes for an 'All Stars' Return". Billboard. Retrieved July 18, 2019.
  5. ^ Ferber, Lawrence (December 25, 2008). "The Other White Meat". Advocate. Retrieved February 28, 2022.
  6. ^ a b c Turchiano, Danielle (March 16, 2018). "'RuPaul's Drag Race' at 10: Launching the Next Wave of Drag Superstars". Variety. Retrieved March 24, 2018.
  7. ^ a b c d Hutson, Beth (June 23, 2018). "Victoria "Porkchop" Parker: From Fayetteville to "Drag Race" stardom". The Fayetteville Observer. Retrieved February 23, 2019.
  8. ^ "'Drag Race' Legend Porkchop Shares Her Words of Wisdom". HuffPost. June 6, 2017. Retrieved March 7, 2018.
  9. ^ a b "Meet All 30 of Miley's Day-Glo Dancers from Her Insane VMA Performance". MTV News. Archived from the original on August 31, 2015. Retrieved March 24, 2018.
  10. ^ Landau, Joel (September 22, 2013). "Miss Victoria 'Porkchop' Parker is Miss'd America". The Press of Atlantic City. Retrieved February 22, 2019.
  11. ^ Key, Michael (September 26, 2013). "Miss'd America". Washington Blade. Retrieved February 22, 2019.
  12. ^ "Victoria PorkChop Parker and Nina Bonina Brown Spill the T on HEY QWEEN". The WOW Report. June 5, 2017. Retrieved March 7, 2018.
  13. ^ "Chad Michaels and Victoria "PorkChop" Parker Do Primetime TV on "2 Broke Girls"". LOGO News. Retrieved March 7, 2018.
  14. ^ "The Botched Doctors Help a Patient With a Pork Chop Nose, Remove Star Implants on a Patient's Ribs & More OMG Show Moments! on Botched". E! Online. Retrieved March 7, 2018.
  15. ^ Daems, Jim (October 13, 2014). The Makeup of RuPaul's Drag Race: Essays on the Queen of Reality Shows. McFarland. ISBN 9781476618869.
  16. ^ Megarry, Dainel (February 2, 2017). "Remember the first ever RuPaul's Drag Race lip sync for your life?". Gay Times. Archived from the original on February 24, 2019. Retrieved February 23, 2019.
  17. ^ "'RuPaul's Drag Race: Reunited': A preview chat with RuPaul". Entertainment Weekly. Retrieved March 7, 2018.
  18. ^ Sava, Oliver. "A middling Drag Race All Stars is elevated by the return of a fan-favorite". The A.V. Club. Retrieved March 24, 2018.
  19. ^ Bourgoin, Jean-Maxime. "RuPaul et 25 de ses drag queens pour son anniversaire". Le Journal de Montréal (in Canadian French). Retrieved March 24, 2018.
  20. ^ "13 "RuPaul's Drag Race" All-Stars Who Aren't in This Season". Seventeen. January 26, 2018. Retrieved March 24, 2018.
  21. ^ "RuPaul Brings Back Katya, Porkchop, Kim Chi, Jujubee, Detox, and More to Help Judge the First Mini-Challenge of Season 10". VH1. Archived from the original on May 15, 2023. Retrieved March 24, 2018.
  22. ^ "'RuPaul's Drag Race' 11 episode 1 recap: Which queen was sent packing on 'Whatcha Unpackin'? [UPDATING LIVE BLOG]". Goldderby. February 28, 2019. Retrieved March 1, 2019.
  23. ^ "The Most Gag-Worthy Moments From the Premiere of 'RuPaul's Drag Race All Stars 3'". Flare. January 26, 2018. Archived from the original on March 8, 2018. Retrieved March 7, 2018.
  24. ^ "'RuPaul's Drag Race All Stars 3' Recap: They're Back!". Instinct. January 26, 2018. Archived from the original on March 24, 2018. Retrieved March 24, 2018.
  25. ^ Daw, Stephen (August 16, 2018). "Porkchop Reveals 'Drag Race' Post-Elimination Drama & Hopes for an 'All Stars' Return". Billboard. Retrieved February 23, 2019.
  26. ^ Welsh, Daniel (September 11, 2018). "'RuPaul's Drag Race All Stars 4' Line-Up: 6 Things To Note". HuffPost. Retrieved February 23, 2019.
  27. ^ Cohen, Jess (May 31, 2016). "The Botched Doctors Help a Patient With a Pork Chop Nose, Remove Star Implants on a Patient's Ribs & More OMG Show Moments!". E! News. Archived from the original on April 19, 2019. Retrieved April 19, 2019.
  28. ^ Joey Nolfi (October 29, 2021). "RuPaul's new Christmas movie unites the largest Drag Race cast in history". Entertainment Weekly. Archived from the original on October 29, 2021. Retrieved October 29, 2021.
  29. ^ Damshenas, Sam (March 22, 2018). "Watch Drag Race fan favourites return for the season 10 premiere". Gay Times. Retrieved June 5, 2021.
  30. ^ Nolfi, Joey (December 3, 2019). "RuPaul brings 22 Drag Race queens to costar on AJ and the Queen". Entertainment Weekly. Archived from the original on May 16, 2021. Retrieved December 3, 2019.
  31. ^ Chappell Roan (April 3, 2020), Chappell Roan – Pink Pony Club [Official Music Video], retrieved April 6, 2020
  32. ^ Asea, Adam (October 7, 2013). "RuPaul Drives… Victoria PorkChop Parker". Worldofwonder.net.
  33. ^ Asea, Adam (August 8, 2013). "Victoria Porkchop Parker on Ring My Bell". worldofwonder.net. Retrieved April 4, 2020.
  34. ^ Asea, Adam (November 1, 2013). "Victoria PorkChop Parker on WOW Shopping Network". worldofwonder.net. Retrieved April 4, 2020.
  35. ^ Avery, Dan (May 3, 2020). ""RuPaul's Drag Race" Recap, season 8, episode 10: "The Realness"". NewNowNext.com. Retrieved April 4, 2020.
  36. ^ "'The 2022 Queerties". Cheat Sheet. February 24, 2022. Archived from the original on February 12, 2022. Retrieved March 31, 2022.
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