Vivienne Pinay | |
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| Born | Michael Donehoo |
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| Television | |
Vivienne Pinay is the stage name of Michael Donehoo, [1] [2] an American retired drag performer known for competing on the fifth season of the American television series RuPaul's Drag Race . She has also appeared on the ninth season of Face Off and Skin Wars .
Donehoo was born and raised in Atlanta [3] and is of Filipino descent. [1] He became interested in drag at a young age after seeing RuPaul on VH1. [4]
Donehoo sells wigs. [1] As of 2020, he was also a personal assistant to Drag Race contestant Alyssa Edwards. [2]
Donehoo also appeared in the ninth season of the television series Face Off in 2015. [5] [6]
Donehoo has been a drag performer; he has said of his female persona Vivienne Pinay: "Vivienne is named after my Southern Grandmother. And Pinay means Filipino girl." [4] Vivienne Pinay has been a member of the Haus of Edwards, which has also included Drag Race contestants Alyssa Edwards, Cheryl Hole, [7] Gia Gunn, Laganja Estranja, Plastique Tiara, and Shangela. [8] [9]
Vivienne Pinay competed on the fifth season of RuPaul's Drag Race , which aired in 2013. She entered the Werk Room wearing a polka dot dress and red heels; Hyphen magazine said she resembled Bettie Page. [10] On the fourth episode ("Black Swan: Why It Gotta Be Black?"), she and Honey Mahogany placed in the bottom two of a challenge that tasked contestants with performing in a ballet based on the life of RuPaul. Neither contestant impressed RuPaul enough during a lip-sync contest to "Oops!... I Did It Again" (2000) by Britney Spears, [11] and both were eliminated from the competition in the show's first-ever double elimination. [1] [12] [13]
Thrillist's Brian Moylan ranked Vivienne Pinay number 75 out of the show's 113 contestants in 2017. [14] Stephen Daw of Billboard included the double elimination in a 2018 list of the show's "most shocking" moments. [15] In 2019, Bernardo Sim of Screen Rant called the lip-sync between Honey Mahogany and Vivienne Pinay "so bad, so boring, and so low-energy", and wrote: "It is fair to say that Ru made the right call to send them both contestants home that week, and fans have certainly enjoyed forgetting about that lip sync." [16] Sim also included the double elimination in the website's 2020 list of the show's ten "most shocking" eliminations. [17] Similarly, Mariana Fernandes included the double elimination in the website's 2020 overview of the ten "most shocking" eliminations on the show and RuPaul's Drag Race All Stars. [18] She also included the performance in a 2020 list of the ten worst lip-syncs on Drag Race. [19]
Since Drag Race, Vivienne Pinay "decided to keep a low profile and abandoned this drag persona", according to Out magazine. [20] [21] In 2015, she was among Drag Race contestants to appear on stage at the MTV Video Music Awards during Miley Cyrus and Wayne Coyne's performance of "Dooo It!" (2015). [22] She also appeared on the series Skin Wars . [23]
In 2013, Donehoo had a boyfriend and two dogs. [4] He was based in New York City, as of 2015. [24]
