The queendom of drag is vast and diverse: There are comedy queens and look queens and insult queens and pageant queens, goth queens and dancing queens and lip synch assassin queens. And then there is Norwood Park’s Alexis Hex, who has carved out a singular genre as a knitting/crocheting/macrame-ing witch drag queen whose magic often involves transforming yarn into one-of-a-kind creations ranging from wall-hangings to fitted dresses to tiny toy birds.
At 36, Hex, nee Brent Perrotti, has no time for disrespect. “I’ve had guys come up to me and be all ‘Are you seriously knitting in a bar?’ And I’ll be like, ‘Are you seriously bothering me while I’m sitting here minding my own business knitting in a bar?’ I knit everywhere. Alone in a bar, wherever. It doesn’t need defending,” Perrotti said.
“I had always thought drag would be so much fun, but I was already the weird guy who knit at bars. Why would I do any other thing that would make me even weirder? But then I realized, I’m already the weirdo, what does it matter if I add something else?”
It was an approach to drag Hex embraced, even if it meant getting harsh critiques outside of her home bar.
Perrotti was raised Roman Catholic, but eventually found “that didn’t really resonate for me.”
