Brooke Lynn Hytes is the stage name of Brock Edward Hayhoe (born March 10, 1986),[1] a Canadian-American drag queen, ballet dancer, and television personality. After working as a dancer with Cape Town City Ballet and Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo, Brooke Lynn Hytes achieved international recognition for competing on the eleventh season of RuPaul's Drag Race; Brooke Lynn Hytes placed second, only to winner Yvie Oddly. Brooke Lynn Hytes is the first Canadian to compete in the series.[2][3] Since 2020, Brooke Lynn Hytes has been a main judge on the spin-off series Canada's Drag Race, and is the first Drag Race contestant to become a full-time judge in the franchise.
In 2006, at 20 years old, Hayhoe moved to South Africa and joined the corps de ballet of the Cape Town City Ballet.[7][8] In 2007, he was promoted to the rank of soloist.[9] While in Cape Town, he danced several of the major classical principal male roles, including the Nutcracker Prince in The Nutcracker, Solor in La Bayadère, and Albrecht in Giselle.[6]
Hayhoe was more interested in dancing en pointe than in the traditional male roles. He moved to New York City in 2008 in order to join the drag ballet troupe Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo. He toured internationally with the Trocks for four years under the names 'Andrei Verikose', as a male dancer, and 'Vanya Verikosa', his ballerina alter ego.[10][11][12][13]
As a drag queen, Hayhoe initially tried out the names Jackie D, Carmen and Bianca. After moving back to Toronto to pursue drag full-time, he was adopted by local queen Farra N. Hyte, who named her new drag daughter Brooke Lynn Hytes. Shortly after returning to Toronto, Brooke Lynn Hytes won a local drag pageant called Queen of Halloween, and quickly began to attract attention in the Toronto drag scene.[14] Brooke Lynn Hytes began to regularly compete on the drag pageant circuit. In 2013, she won Miss Gay Toronto, Derby City Entertainer of the Year, and Miss Michigan Continental, and placed as first alternate in the National Entertainer of the Year and Miss Continental pageants on first entry. In 2014, Brooke Lynn Hytes won the prestigious Miss Continental title.[15] In 2015, Brooke Lynn Hytes accepted a residency as a performer in PLAY Dance Bar in Nashville, Tennessee.[16] She auditioned for the ninth and tenth seasons of RuPaul's Drag Race, but was unable to join either season as she did not yet have a green card.[17]
Brooke Lynn Hytes was announced to be one of fifteen contestants competing on season eleven of Drag Race on January 24, 2019.[18] She won the main challenges in episode one, five and eleven, placing in the top of a challenge a record-breaking nine times throughout the season. This is the most top 3 positions achieved by any contestant in a single season in RuPaul's Drag Race history.[19][20][21] She was in a "double-shantay" alongside Yvie Oddly in the Snatch Game episode after bombing her Celine Dion impersonation; the duo's lip sync to Demi Lovato's "Sorry Not Sorry" was lauded over by critics, and declared by many to be one of the best lip syncs in the history of the series.[22][23]
Throughout the season, Brooke Lynn Hytes developed an on-show romance with Vanessa Vanjie Mateo, dubbed "Branjie".[24][25][26] The two placed in the bottom two of episode twelve, with Brooke Lynn Hytes emerging victorious in a lip sync battle to Aretha Franklin's "A Deeper Love", making Vanessa Vanjie Mateo the last queen to be eliminated prior to the finale.[27][28][29] Brooke Lynn Hytes finished as a runner-up, ultimately losing to Yvie Oddly in the final lip sync for the crown.[30] In June 2019, Brooke Lynn Hytes was one of 37 queens to be featured on the cover of New York magazine.[31] On November 11, she won a People's Choice Award for "Most Hypeworthy Canadian".[32]
Brooke Lynn Hytes performing at the Toronto Drag Ball on June 22, 2019, during Pride weekend in Toronto
On September 26, 2019, Brooke Lynn Hytes was announced as a full-time judge for Canada's Drag Race, the Canadian spin-off of RuPaul's Drag Race.[33] She was the first contestant from any series in the Drag Race franchise to become a full-time judge. As of 2024, Brooke Lynn Hytes is the only judge to have appeared on all four seasons of Canada's Drag Race, as well as its spin-off, Canada's Drag Race: Canada vs The World. She and her fellow judges have won three Canadian Screen Awards for Best Host or Presenter in a Factual or Reality/Competition Series, in 2021, 2022, and 2023 respectively.[34]
On March 25, 2021, Brooke Lynn Hytes released a single featuring Priyanka, the winner of Canada's Drag Raceseason one, titled "Queen of the North".[35] She has since expressed her dislike of the single, and her reluctance to release any more music.[36] In May 2021, Brooke Lynn Hytes launched a podcast with Priyanka, Famous This Week, and was announced as the host of 1 Queen 5 Queers, a reboot of 1 Girl 5 Gays, for Crave.[37] The second season of 1 Queen 5 Queers premiered in 2022.[38]
In June 2021, Brooke Lynn Hytes appeared as a 'lip-sync assassin' on the sixth season of RuPaul's Drag Race All Stars, and lipsynced to the song 'Miss You Much' against contestant Rajah O'Hara, one of her former Drag Race competitors. The result of the lip-sync was declared a draw. In May 2022, Brooke Lynn Hytes appeared alongside Vanessa Vanjie Mateo in Bluebella's Pride Month lingerie campaign.[39]
Brooke Lynn Hytes continues to make international club appearances, and regularly tours alongside other Drag Race alumni. In 2019 she joined the Voss Events RuPaul's Drag Race Season Eleven tour, which visited seventeen cities across North America.[40] In 2020 she hosted a tour for the Canada's Drag Race season one queens, which played exclusively in drive-in venues due to the COVID-19 pandemic.[41] In 2022 she hosted the Canada's Drag Race Tour again, headlined by the season two queens.[42] In 2024, she is scheduled to co-host the Canada's Drag Race Tour alongside Jaida Essence Hall, headlined by the season three and four queens.[43] In 2020, 2021, 2022, and 2023, Brooke Lynn Hytes joined the annual Murray & Peter tour A Drag Queen Christmas, branded as the longest-running drag queen tour in America.[44]
Personal life
Hayhoe came out as gay when he was 18.[45] After his stint on RuPaul's Drag Race, Hayhoe moved first to Los Angeles, where he took over Bianca Del Rio's old apartment, and then to Chicago.[46][47] On May 22, 2023, via his Instagram page, Hayhoe posted a photograph showing both a Canadian and an American passport, thus confirming he had become a naturalized U.S. citizen.[48]
The eleventh season of RuPaul's Drag Race aired on VH1 from February 28, 2019, to May 30, 2019. The cast featured fourteen new queens and one returning queen, making it the largest cast of the series at the time; the contestants were announced in a live stream hosted by season 10 winner Aquaria and Adam Rippon on January 24, 2019.
Vanessa Vanjie Mateo, sometimes known as Miss Vanjie or simply Vanjie, is the stage name of José Luis Cancel, an American drag performer known for competing on the tenth season of RuPaul's Drag Race and placing fifth on the eleventh season of the show. In addition to competing on Drag Race, she has also appeared in many of its spin-offs, including RuPaul's Secret Celebrity Drag Race, RuPaul's Drag Race: Vegas Revue, Canada's Drag Race and RuPaul's Drag Race All Stars.
Benni Miller, better known by the stage name Ra'Jah O'Hara, is an American drag queen best known for competing on the eleventh season of RuPaul's Drag Race in 2019 and the sixth season of RuPaul's Drag Race All Stars in 2021. In 2022, she was crowned the winner of the first season the international All Stars spin-off series, Canada's Drag Race: Canada vs. the World.
Silky Nutmeg Ganache is an American drag performer from Chicago, Illinois, who came to international attention in 2019 when she competed on the eleventh season of RuPaul's Drag Race finishing in third place, and later competed on the sixth season of RuPaul's Drag Race All Stars in 2021. She has also been involved in numerous Drag Race spin-offs, including RuPaul's Drag Race: Vegas Revue (2020) and RuPaul's Secret Celebrity Drag Race (2022). She also competed in the first Canadian-based international All Stars spin-off series, Canada's Drag Race: Canada vs. the World in 2022, finishing as a runner-up.
Jovan Jordan Bridges, known by the stage name Yvie Oddly, is an American drag queen, performer, fashion designer, rapper, and recording artist from Denver, Colorado who came to international attention in 2019 when she won the eleventh season of RuPaul's Drag Race. She later returned to compete on the seventh season of RuPaul's Drag Race All Stars, an all-winners season, in 2022. Oddly has been on the worldwide Werq the World drag concert tour since 2019. In addition to music videos and performances, she explores what she sees as a transformative power of drag by making thrift store finds into wearable art in Yvie Oddly's Oddities series on WOW Presents Plus. She released her debut album, Drag Trap, in 2020.
A'Keria Chanel Davenport is the stage name of Gregory D'Wayne, an American drag queen best known for competing on the eleventh season of RuPaul's Drag Race (2019) and the sixth season of RuPaul's Drag Race All Stars (2021). As a professional entertainer, she has won several national titles in drag pageantry systems, including Miss Black Universe in 2017. Davenport was recognized by Dallas Voice as a Texan of the Year in 2019.
"Whatcha Unpackin?" is the second episode of the eleventh season of RuPaul's Drag Race. It originally aired on March 7, 2019. Bobby Moynihan and Sydelle Noel are guest judges.
"Diva Worship" is the third episode of the eleventh season of RuPaul's Drag Race. It originally aired on March 14, 2019. Guillermo Díaz and Troye Sivan are guest judges.
"Trump: The Rusical" is the fourth episode of the eleventh season of the American reality competition television series RuPaul's Drag Race, which aired on VH1 on March 21, 2019. The episode has contestants deliver Rachel Maddow impressions for the mini challenge, and perform a musical parody of Grease about Donald Trump and the women in his life and cabinet for the main challenge. The musical features choreography by Yanis Marshall, and sees Donald Trump portrayed by former contestant Ginger Minj. Maddow appears as a special guest; Joel McHale and Tiffany Pollard serve as guest judges, alongside regular panelists RuPaul, Michelle Visage, and Ross Mathews.
"The Draglympics" is the sixth episode of the eleventh season of the American reality competition television series RuPaul's Drag Race. It originally aired on April 4, 2019. Mirai Nagasu, Adam Rippon, and Travis Wall are guest judges, and Love Connie also makes a guest appearance for the mini-challenge.
"L.A.D.P.!" is the ninth episode of the eleventh season of the American reality competition television series RuPaul's Drag Race. It originally aired on April 25, 2019. Fortune Feimster, Cheyenne Jackson, and Natasha Lyonne are guest judges.
"Dragracadabra" is the tenth episode of the eleventh season of the American reality competition television series RuPaul's Drag Race. It originally aired on May 2, 2019. Katherine Langford and Gina Rodriguez are guest judges.
"Bring Back My Queens!" is the eleventh episode of the eleventh season of the American reality competition television series RuPaul's Drag Race. It originally aired on May 9, 2019. Wanda Sykes and Lena Waithe are guest judges.
"Queens Everywhere" is the twelfth episode of the eleventh season of the American reality competition television series RuPaul's Drag Race. It originally aired on May 16, 2019. Todrick Hall is a guest judge.
Canada's Drag Race is a Canadian reality competition television series based on the American series RuPaul's Drag Race and is the Canadian edition of the Drag Race franchise, produced by Blue Ant Studios. In a similar format to the American version, the show features a crop of Canadian drag queens as they compete for a grand prize of $100,000 and the title of "Canada's Next Drag Superstar". The series airs on Crave in Canada, the United Kingdom's BBC Three, and worldwide on WOW Presents Plus.
The first season of Canada's Drag Race premiered on July 2, 2020. The cast was announced on May 14, 2020. The winner of the first season of Canada’s Drag Race was Priyanka, with Rita Baga and Scarlett BoBo as runners-up.
The second season of RuPaul's Secret Celebrity Drag Race premiered August 12, 2022 on VH1. This season featured a major retool of the spin-off, with nine celebrity contestants — concealed by drag personas — competing in a season-length lip sync tournament. RuPaul, Michelle Visage, Carson Kressley and Ross Mathews returned as judges.
The third season of Canada's Drag Race premiered on July 14 and concluded on September 8, 2022. The season airs on Crave in Canada, BBC Three in the United Kingdom and WOW Presents Plus internationally.
The fourth season of Canada's Drag Race premiered on November 16, 2023 and concluded on January 11, 2024. The season aired on Crave in Canada, BBC Three in the United Kingdom, and on WOW Presents Plus internationally.
"Whatcha Unpackin?" is the first episode of the eleventh season of RuPaul's Drag Race. It originally aired on February 28, 2019. Miley Cyrus is a guest judge. Silky Nutmeg Ganache wins the episode's mini-challenge, and Brooke Lynn Hytes wins the main challenge. Soju is eliminated from the competition after placing in the bottom two and losing a lip-sync against Kahanna Montrese to Cyrus' "The Best of Both Worlds".
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