Ginger Minj is no stranger to the spotlight.
While this especially rings true after the Orlando drag icon’s recent win on the latest season of RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars, her love of performing began right here in Central Florida before she could even walk or talk.
“I grew up on stage from the time I was six months old. My mom volunteered me to play the baby in Fiddler on the Roof at the Bay Street Theater in Eustis because it was free babysitting, and we were poor, and she couldn’t afford any kind of daycare, so she would volunteer me,” says Minj.
She adds, “I created Ginger Minj in Orlando 25 years ago. They’ve seen the evolution of me from a talent-night queen to now the reigning champion of All Stars 10 of RuPaul’s Drag Race. So to be able to share another milestone with the people that I love and respect is really special for me.”
After bringing home the All Stars 10 crown, the local drag legend is heading out on her Hokus Pokus Live tour, a theatrical extravaganza celebrating the world of Bette Midler film Hocus Pocus that Minj fell in love with as a child, and has now become part of her own performance repertoire after her role in 2022 sequel Hocus Pocus 2.
“It’s the biggest and best version of this show that there’s been,” she says. “It’s fully fleshed out, it’s a two-act theatrical piece. Now there are original songs as well as songs people know and love from both of the Hocus Pocus movies, as well as other surprise songs in there. There’s something for everybody.”
Minj — a queen of all trades — wrote, directed and is co-starring in the production. She’s joined onstage by fellow Drag Race legends Jujubee and Sapphira Cristál, as well as The Boulet Brothers Dragula’s Landon Cider.
Minj says she’s most excited for audiences to hear the show’s brand-new opening number, one she promises will knock them off their feet. The idea was first inspired by an interaction on set for Hocus Pocus 2, where Midler herself told Minj — who played a drag version of Midler’s Winnifred Sanderson onscreen — to “take this and do something with it. Run with it.”
The Sanderson sisters aren’t the only witches who have influenced Minj. All Stars 10 viewers thrilled to the show’s Wicked-themed episode, one that included guest judges Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande, as well as Minj’s showstopping lip-sync to the Broadway version of “Defying Gravity.” Minj says that growing up as a Wizard of Oz fan helped shape her as a child, as her love of theater ended up inspiring her love of drag.
“That song just resonates with me so much, because I do feel like I have done consistently well in the world and in Drag Race and everything over the last 10 years, but I do feel like I get counted out or misunderstood or misconstrued a lot of the time. That song is really a testament to how I have felt through all of my Drag Race journey,” she shares. “Maybe misunderstand me, but this is who I am, and this is my heart.”
Minj faced some cruelly unnecessary backlash after the conclusion of All Stars 10, with the internet’s unavoidable armchair quarterbacks chiming in about how the show must be so much easier for Minj than other contestants since she’s already competed four times throughout the show’s history.
“It’s funny to me, because that’s the complete opposite of my experience. I felt like it was the hardest competition I’ve done in the four seasons over 10 years,” Minj says. “I was 340 pounds at 5 feet, 3 inches tall. I was pre-diabetic. My blood pressure was through the roof. I was on all sorts of medications. I got pneumonia and ended up in the hospital because of COVID, and thought I was going to die. I was so sick, and that is what gave me the kick in the ass to get myself together. It’s so fun to watch the season for me. Well, maybe not fun, but it’s cathartic almost. To watch me go from my literal worst to my absolute best by the crowning. I think that it’s that resilience that has really resonated with a lot of people.”
Minj’s tour kicks off in Orlando shortly after the DeSantis administration has taken yet another swing at the city’s LGBTQ+ community in painting over the rainbow crosswalk outside the Pulse memorial. Local officials and members of the community have shown up day after day to protest and make their voices heard.
“We [drag queens] have been at the forefront of every big political movement. We have been the ones fighting,” Minj says. “Now that I have this global platform of being the reigning Drag Race champion, I’m going to use my voice as much as I can to make sure that the rest of us are being heard.”
Minj says that in the face of such a divided world, she wants Hokus Pokus Live to be a way for the audience to escape their troubles for two hours and share some joy and laughs with a group of likeminded people.
“Things that we don’t understand tend to scare us. Instead of learning more about who we are, why we are, what we are, they decide, ‘Oh no. It’s different, it’s scary. I don’t want to be a part of that, and I don’t want anybody I know to be a part of it.’ So that’s why we do what we do. That’s why we’re so loud. That’s why we ring the bells and wear the rainbows, so that people notice us. Doing something like Hokus Pokus Live, bringing it to the community for everybody, hopefully they can sit back and have a good time and realize we’re not so different.”
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This article appears in Sept. 3-9, 2025.