‘The Bald and the Beautiful with Trixie Mattel and Katya Zamo’ is asking what it means to be truly beautiful in their special brand of chaotic hilarity
What’s better than two drag queens exploring modern beauty throughout time and space with beautiful guests who inhabit all corners of the beauty industry? Well, maybe if it were hosted by drag queens Trixie Mattel and Katya Zamolodchikova… wait a minute. “The Bald and the Beautiful with Trixie Mattel and Katya Zamo” is exactly that, mixing the duo’s chaotic sense of humor with their love and knowledge of makeup artistry, fashion, and beautiful people.
“The Bald and the Beautiful with Trixie Mattel and Katya Zamo” began in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, a lovely surprise for all of their fans, and has continued to push episodes out on a weekly basis. With over 70, hour-long episodes, their podcast has quickly risen through the podcast charts.
From the chaos sprouts beauty
In what could be called a long-form podcast version of their YouTube show, UNHhhh (after 170 episodes of the show, yes, they now regret naming it that), “The Bald and the Beautiful” is where these two sit in a booth for an hour and flex their comedy skills and extensive knowledge of the beauty industry. There could be an argument that their podcast is more focused than UNHhhh: with this longer form, we actually get to hear full stories from Katya’s childhood, teenhood, and adulthood. But are those stories necessarily focused? No, not really.
As drag queens who previously competed on RuPaul’s Drag Race, the two have found themselves deeply embedded in the beauty industry, with Trixie now owning her own makeup line Trixie Cosmetics and her YouTube channel of makeup tutorials and cooking in Easy Bake Ovens racking up one million subscribers. With “The Bald and the Beautiful,” the two are really able to hone in on their love of all things beautiful and gorgeous, interviewing successful, beautiful people about their niches. They’ve chatted with adult performers, models, influencers, drag queens, fellow RuPaul’s Drag Race alum, actors, and more about what beauty means to them and how they’ve gotten to be just so darn gorgeous.
Don’t worry if you can’t understand any of their references; their fanbase can barely understand them either. In fact, the two have made their chaotic, off-brand sense of humor, well, their brand. Trixie’s quick comedic sensibilities perfectly match Katya’s even quicker wit (and B-movie references).
On their podcast, they’ve discussed everything from porn (with some of their pornstar friends) to the sexuality of vampires to beauty tips to sex dolls to Hollywood. They make important distinctions that most people probably haven’t ever thought about (like how Dolly Parton is literally doing drag at all times, look at her wigs!), and go beyond people’s God-given looks to chat about true beauty. We’ve mentioned this in another article, but their episode with Brittany Broski (aka Kombucha Girl), still stands firm as one of our favorite episodes of this podcast.
RuPaul’s Drag Race
If you’re looking for any sort of background on these two, Trixie and Katya (whose real names are both Brian, oddly enough) met each other on the seventh season of RuPaul’s Drag Race, Trixie coming in sixth and Katya in fifth. Not winning the show’s $100,000 prize didn’t slow them down, though. Shortly after, they made a single video parodying the RuPaul’s Drag Race recap show, Fashion Photo Ruview, on World of Wonder’s YouTube channel. Fans quickly saw potential in their chemistry, and World of Wonder gave them their own show, which they lovingly (and now very regretfully) named UNHhhh.
Well, UNHhhh became the top performing show on the channel, featuring Trixie and Katya talking about anything from roommates to magic to their jobs before Drag Race to marriage. The show’s tagline is literally, “The show where we talk about whatever we want, because it’s our show, and not yours.” You’re catching their vibe, right?
Anyway, UNHhhh easily racks up a million views per episode, and Trixie’s and Katya’s careers have only skyrocketed from there. They’ve hosted (and won) the Youtube Streamy Awards, and they tour together. Trixie’s YouTube channel is thriving (Trixie is definitely the go-getter in this duo, Katya the chain-smoking multi-linguist that every good pairing needs for success), and this podcast tops the comedy charts weekly.
While these two thrive on their special brand of a fast-paced, semi-chaotic battle of wits, it’s also easy to see just how intelligent the two are – not only from their wild success, but within their humor. While Katya’s deepcut movie references seem out of left field, and Trixie’s new obsession with running seems completely unhinged, you know that only two people this intelligent could banter so quickly. On top of that, the two are incredible interviewers who do fabulous jobs of not accidentally ostracizing guests, as duo-hosted interview podcasts can sometimes do, and truly get to show off their knowledge about many, many facets of society.
If you’re looking for a weekly dose of genuinely laugh-out-loud-funny content along with compelling and interesting observations on the beauty industry, then, believe it or not, “The Bald and the Beautiful with Trixie Mattel and Katya Zamo” is absolutely your jam.
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