The first time Jaren Merrell watched “RuPaul’s Drag Race” he fell in love. He binge-watched the first three seasons, spent years refining his drag persona Shea Coulee and applied five times to be America’s next drag superstar.
Fifth time’s the charm.
Last week, Coulee had a shot at working the runway in the show’s most-watched episode to date. Nearly 1 million viewers, including Coulee at a viewing party at Roscoe’s in Boystown, tuned into VH1 for the grand entrance, where viewers heard: “My name is Shea Coulee. And I didn’t come to play. I came to slay.”
On the Monday following the premiere, Merrell, who goes by Coulee in the drag world and during this interview, spills the tea and sips some coffee in Andersonville.
“I’ve always aspired to live the glamorous life,” says Coulee, who grew up in southwest suburban Plainfield. “But I also do have humble beginnings and don’t forget where I came from.”
Coulee says she’s been preparing for this moment her entire life, she just didn’t know it until five years ago. She started performing when she was a kid, and dabbled in dance, musical theater and art. She attended Columbia College Chicago in 2007, where she studied costume design. All of those skills came together to create the character Shea Coulee.
“She is just like a classic black glamazon, Hollywood glamour, you know, equal parts bourgie and banjee, and just like high class but also ‘Lemonade’ budget,” Merrell says about Coulee.
Her inspirations? Naomi Campbell, Grace Jones, Beyonce, Diana Ross, Donna Summer, Iman, Josephine Baker, Michael Jackson, Stevie Wonder, Solange. She loves Alaska from Season 5. And her mom, who’s a Christian minister.
“Everybody at my church home, they watch,” says Coulee. “My mom was just like, ‘What did you say when you said, ‘I’m from Chicago?’ What was that word?’ And I was just like ‘Ugh, Mom, it’s a joke, it’s from the show.’ And she was like ‘Mmm, OK, that mouth, though.”
But Coulee’s mom can’t wait for next week’s episode.
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Coulee’s first drag performance came in a revue from burlesque performer Jeez Loueez. Coulee remembers a hush falling over the crowd, a majority of middle-aged black women from Hyde Park, when the next performer was announced as a drag queen. Coulee performed to Beyonce’s “Suga Mama” and received a standing ovation.
“It just struck a chord ’cause obviously I’d never gotten people to just jump to their feet and hoot and holler like that,” Coulee says. “And I was just like, OK, well, it seems that the children really like Shea Coulee, so I think she’s gonna be around to stay for a little while.”
Before “Drag Race,” Coulee performed all over Chicago, starting with amateur shows at Roscoe’s and then performances at clubs like Berlin, Double Door and Hydrate.
Each time Coulee submitted to be on “Drag Race,” she put together an audition tape modeled after the challenges on the show — interview questions, runway presentations and lip syncs. She was with a friend when she got the call saying she would be one of this season’s contestants.
“I was like, I can’t take this anymore,” Coulee was telling her friend. “I didn’t get it. Whatever.”
Then the call came.
“And I was just like. …”
Coulee gasps.
She prepared more than 40 looks for the competition and had to fit them in five suitcases.
For her first look of the season, she originally planned to do a roaring ’20s, art-deco-style look for the hometown salute.
“Then we were driving from the fabric store and passed by a hot dog place, and I was just like,” Coulee gasps again. “Oh my god, I was like, girl, I should do a hotdog head-piece. Like the pretzels in ‘The Producers.'”
The homage to the great Chicago hotdog, no ketchup, was a real weiner with the judges.
Coulee says people who weren’t from Chicago didn’t get it. They asked why she didn’t do deep dish pizza.
The contestants were also tasked with re-creating one of Lady Gaga’s memorable looks. Coulee went with the Jim Henson Co.-designed origami dress from the Monster Ball tour. The queens had to send multiple options — preventing everyone from showing up in meat dresses.
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“I was so nervous,” says Coulee. “I didn’t make eye contact with anybody on that judges panel. I wanted to really project that confidence. But like, as soon as I turned to look at them I was like, I can’t do it! I can’t do it!”
But she did. And in “Untucked,” the behind-the-scenes episode following the premiere, Gaga told Coulee, “You are not just a man or a woman, you are an art piece.”
“For her to say that I was an art piece and to say that I had beautiful energy …” Coulee makes an ecstatic face.
The only thing to top Mother Monster on the episode was the twist ending, with the introduction of an unnamed additional queen. Coulee would give away nothing more of what’s to come.
Surely we can at least expect some quotable one-liners after Coulee coined the Britney Spears-esque queen Farrah Moan, prone to whining like a 6-year-old, as “Blonde Benet Glamsey.”
And we can expect Coulee to continue to rep her Chicago pride.
“This was Hollywood before Hollywood was Hollywood,” Coulee says about Chicago. She’ll be back at Roscoe’s on April 19, relishing her moment in the “Drag Race” spotlight.
No Chicago queen has ever taken the top prize on Drag Race. Is it Chicago’s time? In the words of RuPaul, and probably most of Chicago’s “Drag Race” fans, “Can I get an amen up in here?”
“RuPaul’s Drag Race” airs 7 p.m. Fridays on VH1.RELATED STORIES:
Mr. T dismisses low ‘Dancing with the Stars’ scores, says he’s in it ‘for the kids’
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