‘RuPaul’s Drag Race’: Who is Victoria 'Porkchop' Parker, why does show 'always have a place' for her?
Victoria Parker, also known as Victoria "Porkchop" Parker, is the stage name of Victor Bowling, a female illusionist from Raleigh, North Carolina. She competed on Season 1 of RuPaul's Drag Race and was eliminated in the first episode, placing ninth and becoming the first queen ever eliminated.
Parker is a very successful pageant queen, having attended over 200 pageants and winning over 100 of them. She has also won four national titles including Miss Continental Plus in 2000. According to the first episode of Drag Race, Porkchop started doing drag on January 16, 1987, her 18th birthday. She started as "Victoria René Parker" since a pageant girl had to have three names in the '80s and '90s.
She got the name "Porkchop" from making good fried pork chops and her drag mother Carmella Marcella Garcia said Victoria loved her fried pork chops. In her introduction video for Drag Race, she described herself as "Diva, Charismatic, and Talented", as the queens were required to describe three words about themselves.
Porkchop has appeared in the audience of almost every Grand Finale of RuPaul's Drag Race, usually greeted by RuPaul with a "Hey Porkchop" and an "I always have a seat for you." She has become somewhat of a legend within the Drag Race franchise and has been referenced many times. Porkchop boasts over 30K Twitter followers, often tweeting about politics (Porkchop is proudly blocked by Donald Trump) and promoting appearances at DragCon in LA.
The queen says that Drag Race changed her life for the better, even if she wasn’t on the show for long. “There's endless opportunity that I have been given because I was kicked off the show first,” she insists. “I was on the show for one full episode, and I have milked that 15 minutes of fame for the entire 10 years since then.”
During Season 8 when the queens were trying to figure out who RuPaul was going to give a wild card entry, Bob the Drag Queen said it should be Porkchop as she deserves another chance.
Porkchop appeared in the audience of All Stars 2's comedy show where she gave a disgusted and bored reaction to the routines, which resulted in a viral meme. She was also referenced in Alaska's Read U Wrote U verse with "Who's that bitch that's on the top? Oh wait that's me, hey Porkchop!" Porkchop has, as aresult f all this fame from the show, attended red carpet events for the show, got photographed by some of the best photographers in the country, traveled around the world to perform and even danced on stage with Miley Cyrus at the 2015 VMAs.
She appeared in a gag during the Grand Finale of Season 9 where Mimi Imfurst picked up India Ferrah from her seat in the theatre in order for Porkchop to have a spot.
On Episode 1 of All Stars 3, guest judge Vanessa Hudgens lip-synced against "Porkchop". It was an actual pork chop, but RuPaul jokingly called it Parker.
Porkchop made a cameo in Episode 1 of Season 10 along with other Drag Race alumni. She also appeared in the finale, lip-syncing alongside Vanessa Vanjie Mateo and Monét X Change.
Porkchop appeared in the first mini-challenge of Season 11, posing in a photo-shoot with Soju.
The first episode of Season 13 is called "The Pork Chop", in reference to the drag queen. In the episode, all 13 queens were made to lip-sync against each other in pairs and while 6 of them was given the ‘shantey’ by mother Ru, the remaining seven were given the porkchop where they were made to sit in a room full of pictures of all the queens who were the first ones to go home. The episode ended with Ru asking her ‘pork chopped’ queens to decide amongst themselves who should be the one to go home.
Catch RuPaul's Drag Race' Season 13 on VH1. For more information, check your local listings.