The fourth season of the Emmy, Peabody, and GLAAD award-winning unscripted series We’re Here—which is currently airing Fridays at 9pm ET/PT on HBO and streaming on Max—sees the show’s drag family expand with the introduction of four new hosts: Sasha Velour, Latrice Royale, Priyanka, and Jaida Essence Hall. We’re Here has also taken on a new format, allowing the storytelling to go even deeper than before, with the first half of the six-episode season devoted to stories in Tennessee and the second half set in Oklahoma.
RuPaul’s Drag Race season 12 winner Jaida Essence Hall, who appears in the Tennessee episodes of We’re Here, speaks exclusively with The Queer Review’s editor James Kleinmann about the power of drag and her experience as a drag mom on the series.
James Kleinmann, The Queer Review: what has drag meant to you in your own life?
Jaida Essence Hall: “Oh my God, I feel like drag has meant so much. Obviously, it’s completely changed my life in a million ways that I did not ever expect. I didn’t even necessarily want to do drag, but somebody said to me, ‘You would be great at that’. I was like, ‘I don’t know, it’s not really my thing. I’m not really interested in it’. But somehow everything that I’ve ever been interested in my life—fashion, makeup, hair, design, so many things that I’ve always loved—are all in drag. So maybe it’s always been my little nugget!”
“I was a very shy person at school—I know it’s probably hard to believe because the doll won’t shut up—but I didn’t come out of my shell a lot. I was the type of girl who didn’t go out to clubs until I was 21. I was giving very proper girl! Even when I finally did start going out into the queer community I would still be very quiet and shy. When I started to see drag I was like, ‘Oh, these people are really fierce!’ The first time that I did drag myself, so many people from the community were like, ‘Oh my God, you look so good!’ Almost as if they were expecting this from me and I was like, well, maybe this feels comfortable. Now, myself as Jared, I feel so much more confident and I’m learning to wear the things that I want to wear outside of drag because Jaida is beautiful and confident. I know the power of drag and I get to do it on We’re Here for other people’s lives. It’s fierce.”
What was it like getting to share this experience with Sasha and Priyanka?
“For all of us, because we were all new hosts, we were probably a little nervous knowing that people would be expecting a lot. Aside from us having really fun kiki moments together at the shows, there were a lot of times when we were scared, especially at the city council meeting in Murfreesboro. It was good to know that I had my sisters there and that we had each other’s backs. If we felt any type of afraid then we had each other, so it was really good.”
On the whole this is a hopeful and uplifting series, but some of this season is quite tense to watch, like the Murfreesboro city council meeting that you mention. During that meeting we hear a teenage girl stand up and talk about the LGBTQ community being a “religious cult” and then you came face to face with afterwards along with her father.
“That is one of the most ridiculous things that I’ve ever heard in my life! If you are not a religion, you are still a religious cult?! I don’t want to insult anybody, but if somebody is saying that then it’s probably very important to listen to the other things that they say too. I felt really bad because the daughter is so young and I don’t think that she’s had the opportunity to explore a lot of the world and make decisions on her own about the people that she’s meeting and seeing in the world. But I do feel, like you said, that at the end of the day the show is hopeful and I pray that one day she will have the opportunity to spend time around people who will open her eyes.”
“In that moment, it was a very dark experience. That was one of the toughest things about doing this entire show. We wanted to have a conversation with the father and daughter and they said that they wanted to have a conversation with us, but then it felt like it was turning into a space to insult queer people instead of a space of understanding. So I was like, I’m going to step away from this because in my life I’ve already been a punching bag a lot for people. As much as the conversation is important to have, if people treat you poorly or insult you or make you feel bad under the guise of conversation, then it’s okay for you to protect yourself.”
Let’s go on to you being a wonderful drag mom in the series. I loved the connection that we see build between you and Maleeka. What was it like having her as your drag kid?
“What I loved most about Maleeka, from the moment that I met her, is that her laugh and her smile and her energy is so big. Right away, I could tell that she was a leader in this community and I could tell that there were layers to her. I could tell that her heart was so big. Everybody in her life was like, ‘You’re a savior to me. You always pull up when we need you. You’re always there for everyone around you, no matter what you’re going through.’ It kind of broke my heart because I was like, ‘But, what about you? You’re important too.'”
“She made me feel so comfortable and able to open up to her. I was like, ‘Who is the one that was brought to Murfreesboro? I’m supposed to be here to help you and you’re changing my life!’ Knowing how much further she can go and how much impact she will make in her community makes me very emotional because she is going to be like a Marsha P Johnson, a leader, and so fierce for the people down there in Tennessee who need her, especially right now.”
What about putting on the drag show with Maleeka?
“When we first talked to Maleeka, she was like, ‘I want everything flashy: rhinestones, diamonds, sparkling glitter, covered in face!’ And I was like, ‘I feel like you’re excited for the drag, and because you are you want all of the drag at one time!’ I was like, ‘There will be time for you to do this again.'”
“Getting to know her, especially about her life and her backstory, was important but getting to know the playful part of her and what music she listens to felt so important too. Her story is different than mine. We grew up in a different space. I’m not trans, she is. But when we’d kiki about music, that was the base of how we’re connected and how we’re the same. When people watch the show it’s so important for them see that because when you see Maleeka a lot of people are going say, ‘That’s not me. I don’t know how I connect with her. We’re not the same.’ Then when you see her heart, you go, ‘Oh my gosh, she reminds me of myself, she reminds me of my little sister, or my aunt’. All these important people in your life. It’s important for people to see that queer people are just like you. We’re all the same people just trying to survive and live and be happy.”
What about being Bradford’s drag mom? His song was one of the moments that really hit me and made me cry this season.
“I was so emotional when we were doing the rehearsal. We’d kikied and played around, but that was the first time that I got the chance to hear him sing. Hearing a Christian ally sing a song about having the backs of his children, having my back, having your back, and the people in our community’s backs just out of love felt so major. The lyrics felt so real and they felt so connected.”
“We were meeting so many people who were like, ‘I’m a Christian and you’re going to hell’ and I was like ‘Okay, I’m just meeting you now and you don’t even know me and you’re using religion to make people feel small, to degrade them’. Whereas somebody like Bradford is using the love that he’s learning from his religion, even though he might receive backlash from some of his fans for it, and he’s using his love and his light to make people feel better and we all can do that.”
By James Kleinmann
The first two episodes of We’re Here season 4 are now steaming on Max. New episodes debut Fridays at 9pm ET/PT on HBO and stream on Max.
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