How Destiny’s Child Unlocked Yvie Oddly’s Inner Superhero

Drag superstar Yvie Oddly has a face for television and — as anyone who heard her booming, cartoon-villain cackle as she conquered RuPaul’s Drag Race in 2019 — a voice for radio, too. “I’ve always wanted to be in a podcast space because I like to run my mouth and I like talking to people. I’m that bitch who actually talks to her Uber drivers,” she says.

So when writer-producer Ben O’Keefe and cultural critic Ryan Mitchell approached Oddly about joining what would become Highkey!, a new pop culture and politics podcast from iHeart offering “brains, banter, and a bit of drama,” she didn’t just jump at the chance — you might say she back-flipped into a death-drop for it. “I somehow ended up being the Michelle Williams to their Destiny’s Child, you know? People can play like I’m only in here to sing the bridge, but I also bring Jesus,” she jokes. “It’s three queers sitting down talking like you would at a bar or party, kiki-ing and arguing and, hopefully at the end of every episode, finding a way to still spread a little love.”

Oddly, 31, does not invoke Destiny’s Child lightly (even if she admits she’s more of a Kelly Rowland gal). As she explains below, the trio’s unapologetic brand of female empowerment showed her early on that strength and femininity aren’t mutually exclusive — and that what sets you apart from the other girls is often just as powerful as what you have in common.

I grew up in the time of TRL, which meant I grew up in the time of other boys being like “Britney Spears? Ick!” I was being trained to dislike femininity, but I had found other channels through it. My mom would play Sade around the house all the time. It’s funny to think of Sade as my first diva, because she is anything but one — she was just some smooth jazz singer who wanted to make music and keep her privacy. But she wore her heart on her sleeve. If you walk down the street saying the sorts of things that Sade sang in her songs, people would stare at you all like, “Are you OK? Did you miss some pills?” Her emotional vulnerability opened me up to being able to relate to all the divas who came afterward.

I was never a Britney gay, I was never a Christina Aguilera gay, but I was a Destiny’s Child gay. They were the first CDs I bought, the first real standom I had. And I think it’s because they didn’t feel like real women — they felt like superhero women. I was an X-Men kid, and the second you say that to anybody as a child, they’re like, “Oh, you like Wolverine?” But I always hated the popular male characters. Wolverine?! You mean the hairy, loud, rude, drunk asshole who just reminds me of everybody’s abusive stepfather? Ew! Why would I want that?

I wanted Jean Grey and Phoenix. I wanted the women who’d dress up in these insane outfits, get kicked through a wall, and still come out looking like the baddest bitches on the block. Destiny’s Child felt like that to me. If you watch the “Survivor” video, they’re out here wearing animal furs. You can say that it’s campy and gay, but in my mind, they killed those tigers. Tina Knowles skinned them herself!

The group got a lot of flak for being man-haters and writing all of these songs about how you don’t need a man to pay your bills, bills, bills; how we’re going out and leaving your fella at home because the club is jumpin’, jumpin’ and we deserve this. It was that “I’m here and I’m going to get what I want” tone that I think was really unfamiliar for a lot of music at the time. As a kid I was walking around my house like, “I’m a survivor! I’m bootylicious!” — not that I was any of those things, but I was drawn to the way they were owning what they were. They had agency. They were taking the power back.

Destiny’s Child was so important to me, because they allowed space for divas of all sorts. Little itty-bitty gay boys like me want to see themselves represented not just in a singular strong woman but in someone who is part of a group. Are you the quiet girl who’s going to come in and sing the bridge? Are you the child prodigy superstar who’s clearly leading the band? Are you just that really chill bestie who is going to hold it down in your pixie cut? I wasn’t a Beyoncé girl; I was a Kelly girl, because she had short hair and wasn’t taking all the big parts of every song — you really had to sit and pay attention and be like, “OK, this one’s Kelly.” But I loved her so much more in the context of having sisterhood with these other girls whom you’re not like.

“Little itty-bitty gay boys like me want to see themselves represented not just in a singular strong woman but in someone who is part of a group.”

I came into the world of drag thinking it was all about having nice, pretty wigs and nice, pretty makeup and giving an overall female illusion. And after you feel like you can master that, you realize how boring it is to just do that same thing. So while I was a crunchy-ass baby queen who definitely did not master that illusion, I knew that coming into this space, I was so bored of Britney, Janet, Christina, Gaga, Rihanna, Beyoncé. I knew that every drag show I ever went to would have some space for that, so I started leaning into these other expressions of femininity. What if this beautiful feminine creature was half a jellyfish? Or an alien from Mars? My formative divas really showed up in my performance, in my art, by inspiring me not to be Britney, just because she’s already taken — there is always going to be one.

One last piece of advice: Everyone, choose your diva wisely — it will start a fight with some gay at a party one day, and you better be ready to scrap up.