Peppermint (entertainer)

Peppermint, or Miss Peppermint (born 1979), is an American actress, singer, songwriter, television personality, drag queen, and activist.

She started recording music in 2005 for Jonny McGovern's mixtape ''Jonny McGovern Presents: This is NYC, Bitch!

The East Village Mixtape''.

She contributed the song "Servin' It Up", which was produced by Adam Joseph.

The song was later released as Peppermint's debut single in 2006.

As a recording artist, she has released two studio albums, Hardcore Glamour, released in 2009, and Black Pepper, released in 2017, as well as five EPs, including A Girl Like Me: Letters to My Lovers, which was released in 2020.

In December 2023, she was announced as a part of the cast of the second season of The Traitors.

Peppermint was raised in Hershey, Pennsylvania, and Wilmington, Delaware.

She felt her gender non-conformity was policed, so she tried to fit in with others' expectations.

Peppermint's debut studio album Hardcore Glamour was self-released in 2009 and preceded by the singles "Servin' It Up" and "Thought Ya Knew".

Peppermint was featured in the web series Queens of Drag: NYC by gay.com in 2010.

The series featured fellow New York drag queens Bianca Del Rio, Dallas DuBois, Hedda Lettuce, Lady Bunny, Mimi Imfurst, and Sherry Vine.

She also appeared as a drag-version of Tyra Banks on America's Next Top Model Cycle 14, Episode 5: "Smile and Pose" introducing a drag-theme runway challenge at Lucky Chengs in New York City.

In 2011, Sherry Vine and Peppermint released a parody of the Lady Gaga and Beyoncé song "Telephone" titled "Make Me Moan".

Following the viral success of the music video, Peppermint later released other parody songs, including a parody of Azealia Banks' song "212", titled "21/12".

Her song "If I Steal Your Boyfriend" was used in the 2011 film Eating Out 5: The Open Weekend.

She transitioned after moving to New York City and came out in 2012, before she appeared on RuPaul's Drag Race.

While a contestant on Drag Race, Peppermint revealed that when she had been a high-school cheerleader, she had been beaten up by a male member of her high school's basketball team.

Peppermint started performing as a child in youth theatre, playing roles at Opera Delaware, Delaware Children's Theatre, and The Brandywiners Community Theatre.

She continued performing at Wilmington High School where she was also on the cheerleading team.

For a time, she also worked as a makeup artist for MAC Cosmetics.

Peppermint moved to New York City to study musical theatre at AMDA.

While in college she got a job at the nightclub Tunnel's Kurfew parties, ultimately becoming a fixture in New York City nightlife.

Though other transgender women have competed on RuPaul's Drag Race, she was the first to have come out prior to the show airing, having come out in 2012.

She won the Roast Challenge in episode 8.

She placed in the bottom two in two challenges, lip-synching to Madonna's "Music" and the Village People's "Macho Man", winning both.

Her performances earned her the favorable nickname "Lip Sync Assassin".

Ultimately, she finished in second place after winner Sasha Velour, after they both lip-synced to Whitney Houston's "It's Not Right but It's Okay (Thunderpuss Remix)".

Peppermint talked about being trans publicly for the first time on an episode of The Daily Show called "The Trans Panic Epidemic" in April 2016.

She is best known from the nightlife scene and, in 2017, as the runner-up on the ninth season of RuPaul's Drag Race.

On February 2, 2017, Peppermint was announced as one of the fourteen contestants on the ninth season of RuPaul's Drag Race.

On April 3, 2017, Peppermint released a six-track EP of remixes of various songs she had released up to that point, including the single "Dolla in My Titty".

Her second studio album Black Pepper was released in June of the same year.

In 2018, Peppermint made her debut in The Go-Go's-inspired musical Head Over Heels as Pythio, becoming Broadway's first out trans woman to originate a lead role.

A three-song EP with producer Cazwell called Blend was released in 2018.

In 2019, Peppermint appeared on fellow Drag Race alum Trinity the Tuck's single "I Call Shade", which charted at number 13 on the Billboard Comedy Digital Tracks chart.

On February 11, 2020, it was announced that Peppermint was working on a new album, and the lead single "What You're Looking For" was released on February 14, 2020.

In an interview with Entertainment Tonight on August 28, 2020, Peppermint stated that the album would in fact be a trilogy of EPs, and that a full studio album was previously planned for a May 2020 release but was delayed due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

The first of these EPs, A Girl Like Me: Letters to My Lovers, will be released on October 16, 2020, with the lead single "Best Sex" being released on October 2.

Of the project, she said "it really does focus on my life -- who I am as a trans woman -- and everything that's happening right now [with] Black Lives Matter, Black Trans Lives Matter and a lot of the issues that we are dealing with socially."