Her majesty IS IN THE BUILDING

Let’s all take a bow to the Queen of Drag, vivacious Manila von Teez, as she shares more on her rise to stardom, drag culture and what it’s like to live her passion

- MELISSA NDLOVU

It's all glitz, glam, diamonds and pearls when it comes to effervescent drag performer Manila von Teez. As it should... She's been strutting her stuff and elegantly voguing her way to the top since 2010.

"I was introduced to the drag community after tagging along with some of my friends. One of my friends was a pageant queen at the time, and I was just along for the ride," she says.

"My friend never wanted to do drag by herself, so I decided to join in. It was all fun and games in the beginning, but later we decided to perform as a trio, and we nailed Nicki Minaj's 'Superbass'. The crowd went wild." There's no need to guess who took the role of Nicki in the performance...

From that moment on, Veon Wentzel (Manila's birth name) took a back seat and Manila von Teez came alive. She took her stilettos to a national stage and entered SA's Got Talent in 2016. Mzansi took notice as she lipsynched for her life and threw in beautifully crafted dance routines that had the judges on the edge of their seats. In the end, she was crowned runner-up.

"What started out as a passion project and side hustle for me now grew into a fully fledged career. The TV show truly catapulted me to stardom and people started seeing who I was, and it now created this sense of activism," Manila says. "I never thought of myself as an activist, but when I look at it in a sense of representing myself and living authentically, it truly is a form of activism. In everything I do, I want to make people feel a certain way... joy, happiness, giving them the ability to laugh.