Bold & Beautiful: Lexis Monroig

Lexis Monroig describes drag as the door that allowed her to be herself. Growing up in Puerto Rico, Monroig says the community accepted being gay but was reluctant to accept men or boys dressing in “women’s clothing.” 

Monroig first saw drag when her fashion teacher took her to a club. She describes it as an “aha moment,” saying, “It was so amazing to see this human on stage being themselves, living their best life.” She says that the opportunities to perform as a drag queen in Puerto Rico were limited to either during Halloween or through being in a pageant. Because of the costs associated with pageants, Monroig opted to first dress in drag for Halloween.

“It was so amazing to see this human on stage being themselves, living their best life.”

Monroig already studied fashion and modeling and knew how to do hair and makeup. From there, Monroig’s pursuit and interest in drag grew “like a little snowball you throw down a hill—it kept growing, growing and growing.” Soon she performed in clubs every Saturday, sometimes taking the 5 a.m. bus home. She says she was determined to go to a drag club, see other drag queens and be in the drag world and seen in the drag community. 

Moving to Salt Lake City was “one of the biggest adventures of my life,” Monroig says. She first moved here almost 10 years ago with her mother, who seems to have a penchant for adventure and travel, and picked Salt Lake on a map. She now calls it home after falling in love with the community and the outdoors. She first attended the Salt Lake City Pride Festival as a volunteer for the University of Utah booth. She dressed in drag, representing her “gay self” and took over 100 photos with young people who stopped by. “Years went by, and some of those kids grew up to be drag queens,” Moinroig says, adding that today she wants to be accessible to the younger generation “because if you’re not 21+ you cannot go to a club, so I always go to the festival in drag, so they can see me.” This year, you may have seen Lexis Monroig as the bewitching Ursula on the back of Why Kiki’s Pride parade float. 

“Because if you’re not 21+ you cannot go to a club, so I always go to the festival in drag, so they can see me.”

Today, you can see Monroig at Why Kiki performing in their Almost Famous show as Cher, Mariah Carey, Adele or a new iconic persona. Describing her drag persona, she says Lexis Monroig is a chameleon, always evolving and never the same. “I love the illusion of turning … [myself] into that gorgeous woman,” she says. Drag is a process, she explains. It’s not just the stage performance or the community—it’s about sewing the outfits, learning about makeup and styling wigs. She describes drag queens as “witches of the tribe,” essential pillars in the community who entertain and pass down knowledge to new generations.

When Monroig got married in 2020 in Little Cottonwood Canyon (a symbol of building their relationship on stone rather than on sand), she wore a traditional Puerto Rican linen suit called a guayabera. The water flowing through the canyon, Monroig says, represented how many things can happen, but things can go away too, so never hang onto anything but what means the most to you, and build that on stone. Monroig describes her husband as a partner in crime and biggest supporter. It can be difficult to find love as a drag queen, she says, but she feels accepted and loved “in every form.” Having the support of a husband and his mother-in-law “fills Lexis’ cup.”

“I love the illusion of turning … [myself] into that gorgeous woman,”

Monroig believes that if you’re meant to do something you will wake up in the morning and think about it immediately. You’ll think about it all day, every day. For her, that’s drag. “It has opened my eyes to so many things,” she says. Monroig says there are so many hard things in this world, but nothing is as hard as drag, and being able to do it makes her feel invincible both in and out of drag. “I pull those powers out of drag and into my boy world,” she says. “There’s nothing you can’t do.”

Keep up with Lexis Monroig on Instagram at @lexismonroig.

Read more on the local drag scene:
Bold & Beautiful: Starlett Mars-Magazine
Bold & Beautiful: Hoe Shi Minh