This week on The It Girl Podcast, Britney Shields is joined by the luminous Gia Giselle for a powerful, wide-ranging conversation about visibility, survival, and stepping fully into your era. Gia opens up about traveling across America on the Taylor Swift Eras Drag Brunch Tour as a trans woman of color — what it meant to take up space in unfamiliar cities, the joy of performing for new audiences, and the realities of safety on the road.

We talk about Gia’s transformative year, including accessing gender-affirming care that has profoundly increased her sense of safety and confidence in public spaces. She shares how she found her political voice, built an online platform, and learned to speak with clarity and conviction in a moment when visibility truly matters.

Gia also reflects on her path before drag — earning her master’s degree, becoming a teacher, dabbling in marketing and digital media, and eventually finding drag as the place where all her skills, passions, and purpose finally aligned.

Then we get into the It Girls of the week:

· Heated Rivalry reaching a new temperature with its “All the Things She Said” needle drop — an instant gay canon moment — and Jordan Firstman calling out the show’s authenticity, creating the perfect storm of controversy that only makes an It Girl stronger

· The state of the U.S. economy and the very real struggle so many people are facing just to get by

· Tyra Banks’ off-the-rails Sydney club appearance, sending the gays into a collective spiral

· The endless entertainment of Smize & Dream Ice Cream and Tyra’s lasting cultural contribution, from business ventures to Life-Size

· The tragic loss of Rob Reiner and his wife Michele, and the disturbing response from the president that has even longtime allies recoiling

· Tinashe and her pursuit to break ground and create opportunities in the music industry that seems intent on shutting her out

· Taylor Swift, and the important distinction between calling her a MAGA Barbie versus a capitalist queen

· Zohran Mamdani’s epic year, and the hope he represents for progressives and democratic socialists

Finally, we close with something special: the announcement of the It Girl nominations for the LA drag community. Gia joins Britney to reveal the nominees for:

✨ It Girl Categories (Cultural):

· It Girl of the Year

· Niche Girl of the Year

· It Girl Who Got Away

· Cancelled Queen

✨ Niche Girl Categories (Local Awards):

· Drag Queen of the Year

· Drag King of the Year

· Drag Parent of the Year

· Pioneer of the Year

· Rising Star of the Year

· Ingenue of the Year

It’s a conversation about movement — across cities, identities, careers, and culture — and what it means to claim your space unapologetically.

This week on The It Girl Podcast, Britney Shields is joined by her drag sister, her confidante, and one of the hardest-working, kindest queens in the Los Angeles scene — the one and only Icon Lewis.

We get into the audacity, delusion, and manifestation required to name yourself Icon, and how she more than lives up to it. Icon opens up about her beginnings as a songwriter and singer, and her early days gogo dancing at Precinct, before she became a drag queen that would live up to her name.

We talk drag, destiny, and doing the work…

And then—

🚨 SPOILER ALERT: The rest of this description discusses topics from the episode that are even more chaotic and delightful when discovered in real time. Proceed with caution! 🚨

From here, we dive into the It Girls of the moment:

· Sarah Paulson in All’s Fair and her beautiful tribute to her late friend Diane Keaton

· Spotify Wrapped, and why everyone still needs to switch to Apple Music until Spotify stops running ICE ads

· Britney’s top artist of the year: Rose Gray, and Icon’s top: Lady Gaga, returning triumphantly to form

· The cast announcement of RuPaul’s Drag Race Season 18, including the sole LA queen Darlene Mitchell, who once gifted Icon some of her old wigs

· Miss Maamshe’s Mall Drag at Precinct — and why recession-era Mall Drag is the culture reset we needed

· The viral thirst traps infiltrating our feeds at alarming (and appreciated) rates

· The impossibly steamy Actors on Actors interview between Jonathan Bailey and David Corenswet, brimming with homoerotic tension

· The continued rise of Heated Rivalry, whose backlash is only solidifying its status as an It Girl

· A call to resurrect lost pop icon Natalia Kills (Teddi Sinclair)

· A lamentation over Survivor losing the ruthless competitive edge that once made it legendary

It’s an episode full of sisterhood, storytelling, industry tea, cultural obsession, and the kind of laughter that only happens when you sit down with the girls who know you best.

This week on The It Girl Podcast, Britney Shields sits down with the ever-evolving, ever-elevating Suadé, a queen who refuses to stay in one lane. From her early days as a performer to becoming a sought-after host and now a full-fledged producer, Suadé is crafting the future of LA drag one show at a time. Whether it’s Spotlight Competition, her Drag Race viewing parties, the beloved Hot Chocolate revue, or her upcoming Hairspray Drag Show at Precinct on 12/13, Suadé is a one-woman innovation engine.

We talk about her experience in Project Drag, and how she learned to pivot after that loss — a skill she honed long before drag, when her pre-pandemic esthetician training became unusable overnight and she had to reinvent herself. Suadé opens up about drawing inspiration from her mother, and how her drag is grounded in her roots: beauty, dance, and the vibrant musical scene of New York.

We reminisce on the post-pandemic West Hollywood era — Stache, the nights that defined a community, and how Kisoand Precinct continue to hold it down for DTLA culture.

Then it’s time for the IT GIRLS of the week:

· The Madame Morrible Wicked Witch memes, celebrating Michelle Yeoh’s Oscar-winning commitment to the bit

· Megan Thee Stallion spending Thanksgiving with new man Klay Thompson, all while securing her win against that foolish blogger

· Rehashing Cardi B’s court case from earlier this year

· The tragic, spiraling descent of Nicki Minaj into MAGA-land and away from reality

We also dive into the niche girls:

· HBO & Crave’s new series Heated Rivalry — the gay sports drama that has queer men and women downright feral

· Brownwyn Newport (RHOSLC) and Stacey Rusch (RHOP) thriving in their sophomore seasons now that they fully understand the game

· Shaiie Food (@shaiie_food), whose chaotic food reviews have us screaming

· Elton John attempting to trick Donald Trump into funding AIDS research — and Trump refusing to even acknowledge World AIDS Day for the first time in 40 years

· We honor those lost to the AIDS epidemic and stress the importance of being loud, organized, and unrelenting in the fight to protect queer life

· Robert Irwin following in his sister’s footsteps and winning Dancing with the Stars

· Legally Blonde, Hairspray, Dream Girls and all the musicals that we can’t get out of our heads

· And finally — a plea for our listeners to run for office. If we want a future, we have to help build one.

It’s reinvention and real talk — Suadé brings all of it.