Victoria "Porkchop" Parker | |
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_(cropped).jpg) Victoria "Porkchop" Parker in 2017 | |
| Born | Victor Ray Bowling (1970-01-16)January 16, 1970 (age 55) Anderson, South Carolina, U.S. |
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Victor Ray Bowling (born 16 January 1970), known by his stage personaVictoria "Porkchop"Parker,[1][2][3] is an Americandrag queen and actor who came to international attention on thefirst season ofRuPaul's Drag Race. He is notable in part for being the first contestant ever eliminated in the history of the franchise. Bowling has also appeared elsewhere on television in and out of drag, and he has also served as a backup dancer forMiley Cyrus.[4]
Bowling has been deemed one of the show's most successful and recognizable drag queens.[5][6] Although finishing last on his season ofDrag Race, Bowling has won over 100 pageants in his career as a drag queen and has toured internationally. He has frequently appeared as a guest on later seasons ofDrag Race, with RuPaul often explicitly paying him homage due to his position as the first eliminated contestant in the show's history.
Bowling was born inAnderson, South Carolina, and raised inFayetteville, North Carolina.[1] He attendedE.E. Smith High School.[7] During his childhood, he attended youth theater atCape Fear Regional Theater, and also partook inshow choir.[7][3] He was kicked out of his parents' home for being gay.[8]
Bowling began performing in drag for the first time on January 16, 1987, his seventeenth birthday. He accompanied his friend to a predominantly African American localgay bar, both of them dressed in an attempt at drag, and watched a drag pageant that was occurring at the bar that night. The next month, he performed in a talent show at the bar while dressed in clothes that he had secretly borrowed from his mother and wore no wig, only showing his natural hair, which was styled "likeJessica Fletcher" (fromMurder, She Wrote). Despite receiving boos, he was informed that he had potential as an entertainer. In June 1988, he became the first Caucasian person to win the club's pageant title.[3] He started seriously competing in drag pageants in 1990, with his first being the Miss Gay USofA at Large 1990.[citation needed] His original drag name, Victoria Renee Parker, emerged as a combination of "Victoria", a feminized version of his birth name, Victor, "Renee", a name that he simply found "very pretty" (and shared the same first initial of his birth middle name, Ray), and "Parker", a homage to 1985Miss North Carolina Joni Bennett Parker, who was a Fayetteville native.[3] He almost selected his name to be "Victoria Renee Bennett", still as an homage to Joni, but didn't want a situation to arise where, after a show, his co-performers would say "Oh, she’s Bennett".[a][3] He was known by the aforementioned name until around 1995–96, where his nickname was given to him by hisdrag mother, Carmella Marcella Garcia, after Bowling's ability to cookpork chops.[7] Garcia "adopted" Bowling as her drag daughter after watching him compete for the title of Miss Gay North Carolina America.[3] Bowling initially reacted with disdain the first time that Garcia introduced him as "Porkchop Parker", although it eventually grew on him, and he has described it as "more memorable" than his previous drag name, and "a great gimmick".[3] He has won over 100 pageants,[9] includingMiss Continental Plus 2003 andMiss'd America 2013.[10][11][3] At the time of his Miss Continental Plus win, he had been working at The Connection, a gay bar inLouisville, Kentucky, and had previously placed as first runner-up at the 1996 edition of Miss Continental Plus.[3]
Bowling was in the documentaryTrantasia, which documented the undergoing of The World's Most Beautiful Transsexual Contest, and was filmed inLas Vegas. Bowling was scouted for the competition and competed, despite the fact that he did not identify astranssexual.[3] The documentary debuted in 2006. In 2008, he appeared in the documentary filmPageant withAlyssa Edwards and other queens detailing their experience onMiss Gay America.[12]
In 2015, Bowling made a minor appearance along withChad Michaels in an episode of2 Broke Girls.[13] He was a backup dancer with 30 other drag queens forMiley Cyrus's 2015VMA Awards performance.[9]
Bowling was on theE! showBotched (Season 3, episode 4) to fix the silicone problems with his nose, including a point where the skin was starting to decay.[14]
In 2020, Bowling made an appearance inChappell Roan’s music video forPink Pony Club.
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Bowling was announced as one of the nine contestants for theinaugural season ofRuPaul's Drag Race on February 2, 2009. Prior to his casting, he had been hosting shows at Legends Nightclub inRaleigh, had just won Miss GayDC, and had competed in the 2008 edition ofMiss Gay America.[3] He has been described as the season's only older and plus-sized queen.[15] Bowling was eliminated during the first episode, becoming the very first contestant ever eliminated in the history of the show. He was sent home by Akashia.[16] Because of this,RuPaul always addresses him with "Hey Porkchop" during all of theDrag Race live reunions, starting withseason 4.[17]
Bowling has been brought back on the show by RuPaul several times, in homage to being the first contestant ever eliminated.[18] He appeared during the recap episode ofRuPaul's Drag Race: All Stars 2 and was featured inwinning queen Alaska's rap.[19][20] Bowling was also brought back for the first episode of season 10 ofRuPaul's Drag Race to help judge the mini-challenge.[21] In 2019, he appeared as a guest for the first challenge in the premiere ofseason eleven of Drag Race posing withSoju.[22]
In the first episode ofRuPaul's Drag Race: All Stars 3,Vanessa Hudgenslip synced against "Porkchop", an actualpork chop, which RuPaul said was Bowling.[23][24]
In March 2018,Variety said that Bowling was one of the 10 most successful drag queens in their careers after the show.[6] He has toured internationally.[6]
As of 2018, Bowling was still publicly vying for a spot onRuPaul's Drag Race: All Stars.[25] Daniel Welsh ofHuffington Post wrote "we're surprised contestants likeJessica Wild,Ongina and even Victoria "Porkchop" Parker are still sitting on the shelf, waiting to be plucked up forAll Stars."[26] Since then, both Ongina and Jessica Wild have been featured on thefifth andeighth seasons ofAll Stars, respectively, although Bowling is yet to appear back on the show.
Bowling was attacked at a gay bar which resulted in a gunshot wound and acid damage on his face, requiring surgery. He hadsilicone injections done by an unlicensed nurse in 1999, resulting ingranuloma.[27] After his appearance onDrag Race, he moved toLumberton, North Carolina, and then toLos Angeles, California.[3]
His father died in 1993 ofcancer.[7]
| Year | Title | Role | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2021 | The Bitch Who Stole Christmas[28] | Bertram |
| Date | Title | Character | Work | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2006 | Trantasia | Himself | Documentary | |
| 2008 | Pageant | Himself | Documentary | |
| 2009–2025 | RuPaul's Drag Race | Himself | Reality television | [29] |
| 2015 | 2 Broke Girls | Protester | Sitcom | |
| 2015 | 2015 MTV Video Music Awards | Dancer forMiley Cyrus | Awards show | |
| 2016 | Botched | Himself | Reality television | |
| 2017 | Hey Qween! | Himself | Talk show | |
| 2020 | AJ and the Queen | Porkchop | Netflix original | [30] |
| Year | Title | Artist | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | "Pink Pony Club" | Chappell Roan | [31] |
| Year | Title | Role | Notes | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2013 | RuPaul Drives | Himself | Guest | [32] |
| Ring My Bell | Guest | [33] | ||
| WOW Shopping Network | Recurring guest | [34] | ||
| 2016 | The Pit Stop | Guest | [35] |
| Year | Award-giving body | Category | Work | Results | Ref. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2022 | The Queerties | Future All-Star | Himself | Nominated | [36] |
