Jackie Cox, the Persian princess from RuPaul's Drag Race season 12, is finally hitting the road to meet her beloved fans in the 10-city solo tour JackieVision, inspired by the hit Disney+ series WandaVision. While most queens waste no time in booking a slew of appearances directly after the show airs, this was impossible for Jackie since her season concluded last May in the midst of a global pandemic. Instead of performing on stage, Jackie has been interacting with her fans via social media for the past year, patiently waiting for live events to receive the green light.
For Jackie, who landed a spot in the final four and was the first queen in Drag Race "herstory" to wear a hijab on the runway, her time spent binging TV series while in quarantine was far from a waste of time. In fact, it motivated her to create an entire tour based on a show's ability to bring comfort and joy when it's needed most. In an exclusive interview with Screen Rant, Jackie shared details on JackieVision, which she said will transport audiences through the decades with campy, cabaret-esque musical numbers inspired by WandaVision, Star Trek, The Nanny, The Handmaid's Tale, The Real Housewives and more.
Screen Rant: When your season of Drag Race wrapped up, it was right in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic. How have you been since then?
You know what? It's hard to say because I only have context to be in a global pandemic while at the same time becoming moderately famous. It was certainly a year of excitement but also so many disappointments. I was supposed to be touring all of last year. All of those gigs were canceled and all of those fans all over the country have been like, 'When are you ever gonna come?' Finally finding a way to actually do it, it makes this moment of me going on the road that much more exciting because I've been waiting a year and a half to really get out there and meet all these people who have been so amazing to me online. To actually get to see smiles and faces, I'm so excited about it.
So JackieVision will be your very first shows back?
My team and I had a discussion and decided it really didn't make sense for me to tour until I was fully vaccinated. I didn't do any performances until that happened. My first time performing since early 2020 was in Nashville earlier this year.
A lot of what is typically booked during [a] Drag Race season and after are really fun club appearances all around the country. So this is a new opportunity for me to tour my show, something that I wrote and created. I can't even tell you how excited I am to get to share this part of myself with the world and to do what we can as safely as we can with a crew that's vaccinated. We're still very much in the middle of this pandemic.
Tell me about creating an entire tour inspired by WandaVision and TV as a whole.
When I saw WandaVision, I was like, 'Wait a minute. This is a show about a woman processing her grief through her love of classic TV.' And then I was thinking, 'Wait a minute. That's what I do with my drag.' I process all of the things that I feel about the world through my love of classic TV or campy things. Maybe I couldn't have a witch convince an entire town that they're stuck in a sitcom with her, but I could do a version of this show in my own way in a cabaret.
In some ways, I've been working on this show my entire drag career. There's elements of the show that I've written a few years ago, musical numbers inspired by TV shows I liked or parody songs of TV theme songs. I realized WandaVision is such a great framework to bring all of these different things that I love together into a show. And whatever my next obsession in TV shows becomes, I can always add a number that has to do with that TV show.
Will your Snatch Game character of Lisa Rinna be making an appearance?
I did a couple workshop performances of the tour, and since then, everybody's like, 'Why haven't you put Lisa Rinna in the show?' So she's the latest edition to the JackieVision show and I'm so excited to bring that to life as well.
It's one of those things that I really want everyone that saw the show and sees the show to feel that they can be a super fan, super nerd, of whatever it is that brings them joy and love, whether that's drag, whether that's old Star Trek TV, whether it's their guilty pleasure of Real Housewives. Whatever that thing is, I want people to feel like, let's celebrate that. Especially coming out of the year that we did, where for a lot of us, TV's were our only sense of solace and comfort, and so many of us spent hours stuck at home watching TV. To be able to connect with those stories and really celebrate that moment, as hard as it was, we did kind of have a solace in television, so I want to celebrate that with the show.
Since your season aired during the start of the pandemic, you and your castmates offered solace to many viewers. How did it feel to be that sense of comfort for other people?
It's something people still say to me everywhere I go. People will come up to me and say, 'Thank you for being there with me when I was all alone.' A lot of people weren't able to quarantine with anyone. They were stuck at home all alone. Seeing me and my castmates and our stories come to life on TV, it was something that really brought comfort and joy. It's something that I'm extremely proud of and so honored that I got to share that story with my season 12 castmates.
All of us have such unique personal stories that no matter where you come from, there was something to connect with. I'm just so honored to have been a part of that historic season. As horrible as it was during 2020, I think it's such a gift that we were able to still share who we are with people.
Circling back to JackieVision, tell me about your process of choosing which TV series to include.
All of these things are shows that I really like and wanted to play with. There's definitely references to The Brady Bunch, some Disney references in there. All of these things have all been thrown into this soup of a show. People ask me, 'Do you have to have seen WandaVision to enjoy JackieVision?' Absolutely not. The idea is just a jumping off point to talk about all the TV shows that I love and celebrate them and, again, celebrate that community we can create through the things that we love.
Will you begin with older shows and go chronologically through the decades like on WandaVision?
Yes! We go through the '50s and '60s through to today. There's something great about every era, especially in television--the '80s hair alone.
And it'll be how I do drag in general. I like to mix and match. I use a musical theater song and I sing parody lyrics when I perform my version of The Nanny, of course with the iconic Nanny theme song woven in there. For Star Trek, I actually take a 1950's Frank Sinatra standard and then repurpose it to sing about Star Trek. It's all about mixing and matching different genres. It's one of those shows where I really just decided to throw everything and the kitchen sink in there and then noodle around and see what fits. But we have to end with a big magical medley for Agatha Harkness.
You recently performed "Agatha All Along" in the first-ever Disney+ This Is Me Pride Celebration Spectacular. Can fans expect something similar on tour?
Oh, it'll be that and so much more!
Being reached out to by Disney, a company that I worked for as a teenager in the parks, to be asked, 'Hey, will you be one of the drag queens who are headlining our very first Disney Pride special?' is incredible. And the fact that they asked me to do this very character that I'd already been building an entire tour around was just the icing on the cake. Getting to make a music video with Agatha Harkness was amazing. It's one of those things that wasn't on the bucket list because it all happened so fast. But if it was, I would've crossed it off so quickly.
How did you feel when you learned Disney was making a Pride Celebration Spectacular?
It's hugely important. The fact that we're acknowledging that there are queer fans of Disney, there are stories that queer people especially identify with, including Agatha Harkness, which is someone that queer people have identified as a heroine, it's so amazing that Disney recognized that. The fact that they changed their company ideals to include diversity and inclusion is huge, especially for a company that we associate with our childhood.
I'm honored to have been one of the people that helped lead that change. It's always a journey. I think all of us are learning and growing and trying to be better versions of ourselves, so I support a company that's trying to do that as well.
I saw that the JackieVision tour will hit Disneyland on September 18.
I kick off in San Francisco. A little known fact: I briefly lived in San Francisco for a year and a half and would perform at The Edge. This will be my first time performing back in San Francisco since 2012. And then after, I go down to Anaheim for the Disneyland Gay Days, which at this point is still an unofficial event but that the Disney company supports and puts out special Pride merchandise.
I got hired there at 19 years old and I did the parades there. I was a 19-year-old dancing on concrete, and now all of a sudden I get to headline at one of the biggest venues, House of Blues. Quite a shift. I wasn't in drag then. How cool to be able to come back somewhere that I worked 15 years ago now?
For fans who plan to attend a stop on the tour, what's a typical Jackie Cox performance like?
What's great about RuPaul's Drag Race is there's so many different kinds of queens that come out of the show. There's dancing queens, there's queens who are supermodels, there's queens who are doing standup comedy. I really come from that tradition of New York cabaret. I love connecting with my audience, speaking directly to them and performing songs that have a connection with me and then sharing them with the audience, seeing them laugh and smile, really that old New York feel of cabaret, which works all over the country.
People always say that New York drag is so specific. But when I go anywhere around the country, people still connect to it. People connect to that off-Broadway feeling, that feeling that we're just all in a room together in the same space, sharing stories, laughs and songs. That's really what my shows are all about.
Aside from JackieVision, is there anything else upcoming that fans can look forward to?
One thing that's kind of tied into the tour is I will be appearing on Days of Our Lives: Beyond Salem [premiering September 6 on Peacock] opposite Lisa Rinna.
And this is just the first run of dates for JackieVision. People keep asking me to come to their city. If anyone out there has a theater and a venue that they want me to come to, reach out! We can always add more cities.
Tour dates and ticket information for the RuPaul's Drag Race star can be found at JackieVisionTheTour.com.
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