Meet 2025 Out100's three generations of drag kings: King Molasses, Murray Hill, and El Daa
The 2025 Out100 features three generations of drag kings who have made queer history over the course of six decades. From El Daa to Murray Hill to King Molasses, these performers, actors, entertainers, and bona fide kings are the queer royals we love to honor and celebrate.El DaaBorn in 1944, El Daa holds the Guinness World Record for the oldest performing drag king in the world. I bring fantasy to the stage, he says. When I perform a Tom Jones or Julio Iglesias number I inhabit their essence through a devoted study of performance and theater.El Daa has performed drag for 60 years and sees his work as a bridge across different eras. When he started in the 1960s, it was not called drag but pantomime. And I was known not as a drag king but as a male impersonator.Read the full Out100 profile: El Daa.Murray HillMr. Showbiz, Murray Hill, says his job is simple: I make people laugh, I make em feel seen, and I make sure everybodys got a seat at the showbiz table, even if I have to pull up a folding chair myself. With Hill writing his memoir, hosting Revrys King of Drag, and winning a Critics Choice Award for HBOs Somebody Somewhere, that table has added many more seats.As conservatives attack trans people, Hill has faced them head-on by remembering the beauty and power of our community and by meeting their hate with joy, kindness, and unshakable pride. They may be louder, but we are loud and we are many.Read the full Out100 profile: Murray Hill.King MolassesKing Molasses is a vocation, and drag is my practice, says the first winner of Revrys drag king reality competition series, King of Drag. The Nigerian American drag icon is honored and humbled to have won the show but often still struggles with the mental work it takes to be in my humanity and spirit while being treated like a token.I am King Molasses because I have made the choice that I have no choice other than to be myself. Molasses says. And the drag stars message as an Out100 honoree? If youre called to love, prepare to be tired.Read the full Out100 profile: King Molasses.