- Hello my lovelies,
it's Michelle Visage.
Welcome back to another episode of Watcha Packin'.
(upbeat pop music)
And joining us today all the way from Marseille,
it is Nicky Doll!
It's Marseille isn't it?
- Yes, it is, yes.
- Hi!
Comment ça va?
- Ça va, et toi Michelle?
- I'm good!
Pas mal!
- You look amazing.
- Thank you, so do you.
It's my first time seeing you out of drag.
It's very different to you in drag.
- Thanks!
- I love that, you know I love a transformation.
That's what it's all about.
- [Nicky] Me too.
So when I get to see you kids out of drag
for the first time, it's like there you are, I see you.
- Yeah.
- [Michelle] And it's so much fun for me.
You're our first French queen, from France.
You live where now?
- [Nicky] Now I live in New York, I'm based in New York.
- [Michelle] New York City.
- [Nicky] I moved to the US three years ago.
- And how did that happen?
How did you come to move to The States?
- So I met this guy,
- Aha!
- [Nicky] In Paris,
- As the story goes!
- Exactly, and we kinda like,
hang out and dated for a while,
and then he moved to France for me,
and then after a while he asked me
if I wanted to move with him because of his work,
and so we decided to relocate in San Francisco
for a year and a half, and then my work led us to New York.
- So you're still together?
- Still together, seven years married!
- How wonderful, oh yay!
Wow, so now you're really official, an American.
- Hm, well, the green card,
- [Michelle] Yeah, listen,
- Legal immigrant
- Yes, do you wanna become a citizen?
- I don't know yet, I'm kinda like, we'll see.
- It's hard.
- I'm sure.
- Very difficile.
- Mhm difficile.
- From what I've heard, guys, that means difficult.
I know my French is really good.
So you're in the United States, you live in New York City.
Do you perform there?
And where do you perform?
- So I do perform, I do host also a lot of events.
- Really!
- Yeah, so I work with Ladyfag, Susanne Bartsch,
depends on like, the parties.
I'm not the type of queen that has
like regular bar nights, but I love to be
like a guest for the different events.
- How long have you been doing drag?
- I've been doing drag, well which one do you want,
do you want the Halloween drag
nine years ago that no one wants to see,
or do you want official I worked.
- You know what baby, you start, everybody starts somewhere,
- [Nicky] Yeah.
- So you obviously dabbled in the Halloween drag.
- Totally.
- And that's how you learned "Oh I like this".
- Did you start in Paris?
- I started in Paris, so after living in Morocco,
and really struggling as a quier kid,
and not being able to fully embrace who I was,
when I moved to Paris, everybody was taking
gay pride or Halloween as a way to,
you know like when girls like to be slutty
and to show your best assets,
and I just wanted to embrace fully
what I've been targeted for, which was being feminine.
And so, Nicky Doll was born, I just wanted to be
full on glamor and that's when it started.
- What was it like for you to be able to perform
and meet Nicki Minaj?
- When I created Nicky Doll, I wanted to have this
Miami prostitute name from around the corner,
you know, and "Doll" because I have so many different faces.
I like to be fashion, I like to be the vixen,
I like to be, anime,
so I have different faces for Nicky Doll.
And so seeing Nicki Minaj, because I named myself after her
was really full circle really.
- [Michelle] Yeah!
What was your favorite part of doing Drag Race?
Your favorite challenge, here, put it that way.
- [Nicky] Where do I start?
- My favorite challenge was definitely
the first episode which was the runway,
because when I came to this competition
I knew that I would be struggling with the language,
and I would lose the eloquence
that I have in my own language.
- [Michelle] Of course.
- Or like the wits that I have in my own language,
I would lose some of it, and so fashion was the language
that was my way to communicate without any struggle,
and that why I wanted to showcase that
the best way possible, and it was showing personality
through my take on the themes, and so
the spring and fall fashion runway
was definitely my favorite part.
- Let's talk about your looks.
- Mm hmm.
- So, fashion is obviously a big part of who Nicky Doll is,
- Totally.
- And you absolutely delivered that,
- Thank you.
- And beautifully so.
Let's talk about this French Revolution meets America gown.
- So I basically wanted to showcase how
day after day I'm embracing both culture.
So this is my type of Lady of Liberty meets both cultures,
which is the American flag with the fifty states,
and then if you look at the length
and the train it's more like a French flag.
So I wanted to embrace my culture fully with this gown.
- [Michelle] Because for the kids who don't know,
the Statue of Liberty was a gift from the French.
That is beautiful!
- That's why I came here, I was reclaiming
for you guys to pay for it.
I was like only $100,000 would be enough!
- I don't know if that would be enough.
- No.
- And this little Versace number in the middle?
- All right, so that's the epitome of who Nicky Doll is.
I wanted to showcase really my signature the drag,
and so it's very black and gold,
has a lot of metal and a 90's vibe to it.
_ [Michelle] One of my favorite era's of fashion
- [Nicky] Same.
- [Michelle] Was kind of that period in time.
But black and gold is so special,
like it's one of my favorite combinations,
and I think that's also why that whole
Versace moment in the 90's was so epic,
because everything was black and gold.
- [Nicky] It looks so royal, so opulent.
- And it'll always hold up, always.
- Yep.
- And this beautiful gown behind me,
- Yes.
- She is gorgeous, is black a thing of yours?
It's definitely a thing of mine.
- I'm always wearing black.
It was a big struggle getting ready for this show
because I was looking at my look and I was like
"I can't wear just black, they're gonna kill me".
- [Michelle] Yes.
- [Nicky] She's gonna kill me!
- [Michelle] I will kill you.
- [Nicky] But I love black, and I think black is so classy,
and yet you can have so many
different personalities wearing black.
So, I wanted to go halfway between Mugler and Tim Burton,
so she's a spooky widow, but she is still very high fashion.
And so yeah, we built this look
with my friend Julian from Paris,
and it's just tool and crinoline,
and a corset, and a lot of glamor.
- Who makes all your stuff?
Do you sew?
- I mean, I can customize stuff,
but I'm not a great seamstress.
- That's a no.
(laughter)
- I would never perform in something I would sew myself.
- [Michelle] Right, 'cause it would fall apart.
- Exactly.
- Got it, well that's absolutely stunning.
Did you make some good friends here, Nicky Doll?
- I made some great friends on the show.
- [Michelle] Who did you get close with?
- I got really close with Gigi,
'cause I think that we have this passion for fashion
that really brought us together.
But really everyone, I loved Heidi,
I think that her story touched me so much.
- She's so lovely.
- That's why it was so nerve wracking for me
to lip sync against her because deep down
the human was like "She needs to stay, and she has to fight"
and the performer was like, that bitch "I need to stay".
I was really struggling, but yeah overall a great cast.
- I say that all the time, Nicky,
about all stars and I talk to those girls like,
if that were me, the competitor
would definitely send home the strongest competitor.
- Yeah.
- But then there's a lot of people who think
"Well, I wanna compete against the best"
- [Nicky] Yeah.
- That I wanna send home the competition
so I can win, so it's tough, I understand your brain
goes through two different things.
I think it was such a joy for you to be on our main stage
and to be part of the season 12 cast.
It's such a great group of girls.
- Amazing.
- And you did such a wonderful job, I wish it was longer,
but it's the way it is, people are gonna get to see you.
You're part of the Drag Race family now,
you're gonna go out there, you're gonna be
performing all over the world,
speaking your French and your English, your "Fringlish".
- My "Fringlish".
- You're gonna be doing it all over the place.
How do we find you on social medias?
- It's @thenickydoll on all social media.
- And in English that's The Nicky Doll.
(laughter)
N-I-C-K-I?
- N-I-C-K-Y
- See, that's why I asked, Nicky Doll. Great!
- Yeah!
Thank you so much my love.
- [Nicky] Thank you so much.
- You were a joy and we'll see you out there on the road.
- All right!
- Thank you guys for joining me
for another episode of Watcha Packin'.
I'll see you next time.
Bye!
(upbeat pop music)