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| Thomas Fonua said the women in his family had championed him all his life.() |
He could either play for the New Zealand men's under-19 rugby team, the first step towards becoming an All Black — or he could join Black Grace, New Zealand's premier contemporary dance company.
He had learned ballet from the age of seven, but his father advised taking the rugby path.
"I think most people know from the Pacific ... there's a lot of shame when it comes to anything outside of what we're comfortable with," Fonua told Stories from the Pacific.
"And so I think my dad was really concerned that people were going to make fun of me or laugh at me. That's what he said. He was like, 'People are going to laugh at you'.
"And I was like, 'Good. Let them laugh'."
Needless to say, Fonua didn't become a professional rugby player.
Instead, he would spend years touring the world as a professional dancer before becoming one of Australia's most celebrated drag queens and appearing on the smash-hit TV show RuPaul's Drag Race Down Under.
But before reaching the heights of fame as RuPaul's first Pasifika queen, Fonua worked for years with Black Grace, starting at the bottom with an apprenticeship.
It was a difficult experience for the 16-year-old from South Auckland, moving away from family and onto the road where the next youngest member of the group was 24 and the oldest was 42.
"A 16-year-old walking into that, even though I looked like I was 35 and had five kids because I was built like a brick house... I think, mentally and emotionally and spiritually, I wasn't necessarily as mature as any of those other performers in the company," he said.
"I think the biggest struggle that I had initially was just fitting in, you know, like the experiences that these people had."
The furthest afield the young Fonua had travelled was to Samoa and Tonga, neither of which felt like glamorous trips — once off the plane, he said, it was bare feet, doing chores and helping out.
It wasn't a vacation and there were no resorts. It's a humbling experience, Fonua said. A "grounding".
But this trip was going to be very different. Months of performing in Germany, far from everything he had ever known.
It was a difficult realisation.
"I remember not really processing that I was going away from my mum until she was driving me to the airport, and I remember having this massive meltdown in the car, just freaking out because I knew that I was going away from her," Fonua said.
"And I remember every night, I think for the first two years ... I was on the phone every night to my mum, crying, wanting to come home because it was hard.
"So, you know, I think it was it was definitely like an adjustment for me. I think it was definitely what I wanted to do, but it was just a lot of just fake it 'till you make it."
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| Kween Kong took her name from Fonua's rugby days.() |
After years on the road, Fonua was headhunted by the Australian Dance Theatre where he worked as a principal dancer for around seven years.
Living in Adelaide, he and one of his friends decided to enrol in a Halloween-themed drag show, one of a couple that was around at the time.
On his first night in drag, Fonua said he thought he looked like Beyonce — but instead "looked more like Beyonce's dad, who has been hit by a truck and has been decomposing for about five years".
"Needless to say, no one's going to ever find photos of that night ever again because they've been burned to a crisp."
But he'd caught the itch.
Kween Kong — so-called after Fonua's rugby nickname — was born, first as a side hustle, and then as the main hustle as she became more popular.
Fonua started Haus of Kong, a collective based in Adelaide that offers employment and community to people kicked out of their families due to their sexuality, and in 2019, Kween Kong won the Miss Drag Nation Australia title.
Then came RuPaul.
When Drag Race called and asked if she would be interested in joining the second season, she jumped at the opportunity.
"I had to ... take the opportunity to really represent not only my culture but to speak for the communities that are really overlooked within our queer community.
"It's the minorities within the minority group that don't get the same opportunities, that aren't paid the same, that aren't even really seen as equal yet in Australia.
"So that was the biggest reason why I wanted to go on."
Although Kween Kong was a runner-up on the show, Fonua wasn't concerned.
"I didn't really give a damn about the crown because my name is Kween, and so naturally it comes with the name."
Rather, his proudest achievement was simply letting go of any lingering guilt and shame around who he was.
"I think that within the community, there's a lot of us that ... worry about things that we have no control over, and feel unworthy because we feel like what we are is wrong," he said.
"I think my proudest moment recently has been not feeling any of that within my being at all, walking down the road in drag, being here in LA and ... just seeing people recognise me for what I am, but more than my drag, recognising me for the work that I've done and the vulnerability that I showed on the show.
"Those are things that I was really proud of. Money comes and goes, and accolades come and go. But I think all of it is about unpacking and trying to find the best way to be the best version of myself.
"And I feel like I'm getting there, so I'm pretty proud of that."
First published at ABC PACIFIC May 31, 2023
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