Ilona Verley is a Canadian-American

drag queen A drag queen is a person, usually male, who uses Drag (entertainment), drag clothing and makeup to imitate and often exaggerate Femininity, female gender signifiers and gender roles for entertainment purposes. Historically, drag queens have ...

, best known for competing on the first season of ''

Canada's Drag Race ''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 t ...

''.

Early life

Verley was born to Sandi Verley and raised in

Lytton, British Columbia Lytton is a village of about 250 residents in southern British Columbia, Canada, on the east side of the Fraser River and primarily the south side of the Thompson River, where it flows southwesterly into the Fraser. The community includes the ...

and

Surrey, British Columbia Surrey is a city in British Columbia, Canada. It is located south of the Fraser River on the Canada–United States border. It is a member municipality of the Metro Vancouver regional district and metropolitan area. Mainly a suburban city, Surr ...

. They attended the Blanche MacDonald Centre in Vancouver for

make-up artist A make-up artist, also called a makeup artist, and often shortened to MUA, is an artist whose medium is the human body, applying makeup and Prosthetic makeup, prosthetics on others for theatre, television, film, fashion, magazines and other simil ...

ry.

Career

Verley appeared in pop singer Mathew V's 2018 video for his single "Broken", after Mathew V attended a drag show at which Verley had performed to Mathew V's 2017 single "Tell Me Smooth". Verley competed on the first season of ''

'', a

reality competition Reality television is a genre of television programming that documents purportedly unscripted real-life situations, often starring ordinary people rather than professional actors. Reality television emerged as a distinct genre in the early 1990s ...

television series based on the American series ''

RuPaul's Drag Race ''RuPaul's Drag Race'' is an American reality competition television series, the first in the Drag Race (franchise), ''Drag Race'' franchise, produced by World of Wonder (company), World of Wonder for Logo TV (season 1–8), WOW Presents Plus, ...

'' and the Canadian edition of the ''Drag Race'' franchise. Prior to their appearance on the show, they had auditioned in Los Angeles for the

eleventh In music theory, an eleventh is a compound interval consisting of an octave plus a fourth. A perfect eleventh spans 17 and the augmented eleventh 18 semitones, or 10 steps in a diatonic scale. Since there are only seven degrees in a diaton ...

and twelfth seasons of American version. They became the "first Indigenous, two-spirit, and openly non-binary queen" to compete. On ''Canada's Drag Race'', Verley placed in the bottom two on three occasions and was eliminated in the seventh episode. They also attracted positive attention for their look in the season finale, which blended a First Nations jingle dress in their signature pastel colours with red handprints, a symbol of the

Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women are instances of violence against Indigenous women in Canada and the United States, notably those in the First Nations in Canada and Native American communities, but also amongst other Indigenous peoples s ...

movement. They have also worked at a NYX Professional Makeup store. In October 2020, Verley was announced as one of the performers at the opening gala of the 2020

imagineNATIVE Film and Media Arts Festival The imagineNATIVE Film + Media Arts Festival is the world's largest Indigenous film and media arts festival, held annually in Toronto. The festival focuses on the film, video, radio, and new media work of Indigenous, Aboriginal and First Peoples ...

. In November 2020, Verley was named to ''

Out Out or OUT may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Films *Out (1957 film), ''Out'' (1957 film), a documentary short about the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 *Out (1982 film), ''Out'' (1982 film), an American film directed by Eli Hollander *O ...

'' magazine's annual Out100 list of influential LGBTQ personalities.

Personal life

Verley is

Nlaka'pamux The Nlakaʼpamux or Nlakapamuk ( ; ), also previously known as the ''Thompson'', '' Thompson River Salish'', ''Thompson Salish'', ''Thompson River Indians'' or ''Thompson River people'', and historically as the ''Klackarpun'', ''Haukamaugh'', ''K ...

and

two-spirit ''Two-spirit'' (also known as ''two spirit'' or occasionally ''twospirited'', or abbreviated as ''2S'' or ''2E'', especially in Canada) is a umbrella term used by some Indigenous North Americans to describe Native people who fulfill a trad ...

, and has said they identify as a "proud, Indigenous trans woman". They have described their gender identity as

fluid In physics, a fluid is a liquid, gas, or other material that may continuously motion, move and Deformation (physics), deform (''flow'') under an applied shear stress, or external force. They have zero shear modulus, or, in simpler terms, are M ...

and in flux. In November 2020 they stated: "I don't want to put my foot down too much with any label. Because who knows, in a few months from now, when I'm in a better mind-set or a better situation, how I'm going to feel". On the ''

LGBTQ&A ''LGBTQ&A'' is a podcast hosted by Jeffrey Masters and produced by ''The Advocate'' magazine in partnership with GLAAD. It features interviews with notable LGBTQ figures such as Pete Buttigieg, Laverne Cox, Janelle Monáe, Brandi Carlile, and Ro ...

'' podcast in the same month, Verley said "I think for me right now, the best way to describe who I am right now in this moment is nonbinary and gender fluid." They live in

Vancouver Vancouver is a major city in Western Canada, located in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. As the List of cities in British Columbia, most populous city in the province, the 2021 Canadian census recorded 662,248 people in the cit ...

as of October 2020, having returned to Canada after living in Los Angeles. In 2020, they accused NYX Professional Makeup of cultural insensitivity.

Filmography

Television

* ''

'' (

season 1 Season One may refer to: Albums * ''Season One'' (Suburban Legends album), 2004 * ''Season One'' (All Sons & Daughters album), 2012 * ''Season One'' (Saukrates album), 2012 See also * * * Season 2 (disambiguation) Season 2 may refer to: ...

)

Web series

* ''

Bring Back My Girls ''Bring Back My Girls'' is a reality television series hosted by American television personality Ts Madison. The first season premiered October 18, 2022 on WOW Presents Plus. The series is formatted as a reunion special, where in every epis ...

'' (2022)

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Verley, Ilona 1990s births Year of birth uncertain Living people 21st-century Canadian artists Artists from Vancouver Ilona Verley Canadian drag queens Canadian make-up artists Canadian transgender artists Canadian non-binary artists Nlaka'pamux people Non-binary drag performers People from Surrey, British Columbia Transgender drag performers Transgender non-binary people Two-spirit people 21st-century First Nations artists 21st-century Canadian LGBTQ people Drag performers from Vancouver Indigenous drag performers of the Americas Canadian transgender women Genderfluid drag performers