Bold & Beautiful: Jenna Tea

Drag queens are undisputedly, shockingly and cosmically beautiful. With perfectly placed hair and twinkling eyelids, it’s easy to appreciate. But the art form’s essence runs far deeper than glam. Jenna Tea, one of Salt Lake’s most up-and-coming queens, knows exactly what’s at stake when she gets on stage.

Starting at 18 years old, Tea began practicing her makeup and posting videos in drag while locked away in her bedroom during the COVID-19 pandemic. “And then, I just blossomed. I got good at it, so why not keep doing that?” she muses.

Tea began posting looks to Instagram and TikTok, and eventually decided to use social media to come out to her community as a trans woman in December of 2023. “I was like, you know what? I’m going to sit down and make a video out of drag, and basically update everybody,” Tea says.

Tea posted a video coming out as trans to her grandmother, an 89-year-old icon, who tells her, “You have to do what makes you happy.” She told Tea that while it is an adjustment some will have to make, “they’re not living your life, you are. It’s kind of their problem to readjust.”

“From then on, I always wanted to make a difference in people’s lives. That’s what I want everyone to take away from me,” she says. 

She was able to move forward being her authentic self, in and out of drag, with the help of her loving and supportive community, who accepted her fully. But one cataclysmic event made it even more necessary for Tea to stand tall, heels and all.

Performing at family-friendly shows, Tea helps to normalize the art of drag and her own gender identity to Utahns old and young, cultivating sweet exchanges that left her feeling a greater sense of purpose.

“Just showing that they can be seen too is really important to me, and showing them that this is a thing,” Tea says. “I love kids coming up [to me], and they’re just so sweet and accepting. It’s like their parents taught them really well and it just makes my soul happy.”

But Tea’s perspective was forcefully displaced after her life was threatened at a performance in Provo.

“There were guns, and it was really scary. The Proud Boys showed up,” she recalls. “That was a major shift in how I view drag, because it was always just, ‘I’m pretty’ and stuff.”

Tea said that while protestors screamed at her and fellow performers on stage, fans cheered so loudly it drowned out the hate. That’s when she realized the importance of what she was doing.

“From then [on], I always want[ed] to make a difference in people’s lives. That’s what I want everyone to take away from me,” she says. 

While Jenna Tea dresses feminine outside of drag, she loves to focus on female impersonation, breaking boundaries with additional padding and snatched makeup to appear hyper-feminine. But she is much more than a pretty face.

“I love kids coming up [to me], and they’re just so sweet and accepting. It’s like their parents taught them really well and it just makes my soul happy.”

“I like to flip it. One number I’ll do funny, and then the other, I’m serving,” Tea explains.

Her biggest fear is a silent audience and her main goal is to bring joy to her crowds that feed off each other’s energy.

“I just want people to think I’m pretty and I want to make people laugh. That’s the most rewarding thing,” she says.

One of her favorite performances was an outdoor show at Tea Zaanti, where Tea drove away from her audience in her car while lip syncing the lyrics, “You’ll never see me again.”

Her performances are beautiful, bold and above all, unexpected.

Jenna Tea is now able to start performing at 21+ venues like MILK+, The Cabin and Gracie’s, and she’s ready to show new audiences what she’s made of. Always sourcing local artists for her hair and outfits, you won’t want to miss what this colossal star is doing next.

Check her out on Instagram at @thejennatea or TikTok at @theejennatea.

Read more LGBTQ+ coverage:
The Resurrection Project: QTBIPOC Artist Revive SLC’s Creative Pulse 
The Art of Being Monstrous with Lewis Figun Westbrook