This filthy drag queen is the video game vixen of your questionable dreams

“Behind the Drag” aims to showcase the off-stage lives of some of America’s most talented drag queens. The intimate series gives us the opportunity to meet the people behind our favorite over-the-top drag queens.

Biqtch Puddin’ is the self-proclaimed Queen of Filth. And by the way, she slinks around a dimly lit rooftop in ripped fishnets and a thong while licking her lips suggestively, you know the video game drag vixen deserves the moniker.

Behind the caked-on makeup and bleached glam rock hair is Steven Glen Diehl, a touring drag queen and pioneer of digital drag on the streaming platform Twitch. On Twitch, Biqtch Puddin’ has 20,000 followers (and counting) who watch her beat down opponents in classic fighting games while in full glam.

“She’s classic American trash,” Glen Diehl says of Biqtch Puddin’. “She is that ‘90s fighting game hot girl in a thong and battle axe that was on your Playstation One that you used to get questioning b**ers over.”

When first creating an alternate identity as Biqch Puddin’, Glen Diehl approached the process like creating a video game character.

“Everyone’s like, ‘I want to be Monica. I want to be Giselle,’” he says. “And I was like. ‘I want to be the girl that got f***ed by the the lacrosse team and then showed up to work.’”

Ever the eccentric type, Glen Diehl first discovered video games as a child, using the medium as an “escape” from bullying. He grew up as a Navy brat who didn’t have the luxury of growing roots (or friends) in one place. Needless to say, Glen Diehl was often a punching bag for teenage torment.

After leaving high school hell, Glen Diehl discovered another type of escape, first finding drag in college. And the liberation the art form provided immediately felt familiar.

“I felt fucking cool,” he says. “I felt like those badass women in those fighting games, so I literally walked out of the house and felt strong.”

Now years later as a professional queen, Glen Diehl describes drag as a “release” for the LGBTQIA+ community. Much like video games, Glen Diehl says drag is about harnessing your power and dismissing negativity.

“You can just shake the sh** out of that and become something completely different for the night,” he says.

But when transformed into the filthiest queen you’ve ever seen, Glen Diehl has an unexpectedly heartening goal. He doesn’t want queer kids to have to carve out an escape in the same way he did. Instead, he works to make those in the community feel welcomed and uplifted.

“I want you to know that I see you,” he says. “You’re not alone. We love you. And if anyone hasn’t told you today that you’re amazing, you’re beautiful and you deserve to be on this planet, I’m here to tell you, ‘Hey, you’re amazing, you’re beautiful and you deserve to be on this planet.’”

If you enjoyed this story, read about a Black, proud and resilient Miami-based queen.

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