Duc Tran Nguyen, better known as Plastique Tiara Edwards, or simply Plastique Tiara, is a Vietnamese American drag queen, performer, model, dancer, social media influencer, and content creator. She is most recognized for being one of the Season 11 contestants of RuPaul's Drag Race finishing in 8th place. Her participation earned her a massive following of 2.2 million on Instagram and over 11.6 million followers on TikTok.
Also known as the Asian Barbie, her drag mother on RuPaul's Drag Race was Alyssa Edwards. Outside of drag, Nguyen is also known for being a hairdresser. He’s made wigs for many drag queens, including Aquaria, Naomi Smalls, Vanessa Vanjie Mateo, PatrickStarrr, and others. Besides that, he’s tried himself as a music artist, releasing his debut single entitled “Irresistible” in April 2019.
Originally from Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, Tiara took a lot of inspiration from Vietnamese pop stars' styles. Her style is a combination of everything flowy, pretty, and feminine. Tiara is known to mix Asian culture and beauty into her style giving her the youthful energy that fans have come to love. Tiara has claimed to represent the new generation of drag, where "drag is freedom, and you can be whatever you wanna be and do whatever you wanna do."
Tiara's name comes from a "My Little Pony" character named "Diamond Tiara". She was fond of both the name and the character, but since a lot of people have "Diamond" on their names, she chose "Plastique" as hers, as an allusion to plastic, a cheap material used to make luxurious Barbie dolls.
In January 2019, it was announced that Plastique Tiara would be one of the fifteen contestants to compete in the eleventh season of “RuPaul’s Drag Race”, which follows RuPaul in the search for the next American drag superstar. Plastique Tiara became the youngest contestant in the history of the show.
The eleventh season premiered on 28 February 2019. She got his makeup inspiration from watching Vietnamese pop stars, while his drag name came from the character Diamond Tiara in the “My Little Pony” franchise. He only changed ‘Diamond’ to ‘Plastique’, as many of them had already used ‘Diamond’ in their names. Her drag mother was Alyssa Edwards, a member of the House of Edwards, alongside Shangela, Laganja Estranja, Vivienne Pinay, and Gia Gunn.
She was considered to be an early favorite in the competition after proving that she can live up to the Edwards name with her dancing, lip-syncing, and performance skills. She was particularly praised for her polished, glamorous runway looks.
Tiara made her debut in the first episode of the 11th season and immediately received positive critiques. In the third episode, she participated in the show’s first six-way lip-sync challenge with Scarlet Envy, Ra’Jah O’Hara, Shuga Cain, A’keria Davenport, and Honey Davenport.
In the seventh episode, she became the winner of the main challenge but was eliminated from the competition in the ninth episode after losing in the lip-sync tournament to Vanessa Vanjie Mateo, finishing in eighth place.
Prior to her appearance in “RuPaul’s Drag Race”, Tiara caught the attention of many people on Instagram. It led him to set the record for the most Instagram followers among other contestants, before their debut appearance on the show. When he started competing, his Instagram fan base increased enormously, since his photos were shared by Tyra Banks.
Thus, he became the first drag queen to accumulate 1 million followers on his official Instagram account while the season was still on the air. He currently has over 2.2 million followers. He runs his official TikTok account, with over 11.6 million fans and 314.1 likes. Tiara also has a popular YouTube channel that sports over 1.24 million subscribers.
Tiara identifies as part of the new generation of drag that learned its craft through social media. Tiara told The Hollywood Reporter, “Back in the day if you wanted to see a drag queen if you wanted to see a queen do their makeup, you had to go through the system. You had to go to the club, see them perform and somehow manage to get backstage to see where all the magic took place. Now, a lot of magic is right here on social media.”
Tiara is now one of the most popular queens on social media. Nguyen admits that internet popularity has helped his career, but it has also brought him a lot of negativity. Tiara refers to social media as a double-edged sword that can hurt you if you are not careful.
He said: “The good thing about it is that everyone has a platform out of nothing. You can build your audience and reach people out there who aspire to be like you or aspire to learn something from you. Sometimes it can be too much I feel with all the negative comments, but you’ve got to just let the good outweigh the bad.”
Apart from his duties as a drag queen, Nguyen is also known for being a hairdresser. He’s made wigs for many drag queens, including Aquaria, Naomi Smalls, Vanessa Vanjie Mateo, PatrickStarrr, and others. Besides that, he is also s a music artist, releasing his debut single entitled “Irresistible” in April 2019.
Nguyen's net worth is courted to be an estimated $2 million. Most of her earnings come from her social media presence as a content creator, brand collaborations, modeling, hairdressing, Television, Live performances, Music, and merchandise.
Tiara has associated herself with several top brands over her influencing career. We, unfortunately, do not have the figures to justify how much she could earn from these sponsored collaborations, but we can assume that the figures are of a hefty sum.
As a model, Tiara has worked with several other brands as well, but we currently do not know how much she could earn as a model, although we can safely assume that it would be a hefty sum.
As a hairdresser, Duc Tran has had several top clients, making wigs for some of the biggest names in drag such as drag queens, including Aquaria, Naomi Smalls, Vanessa Vanjie Mateo, PatrickStarrr, and numerous others. Apart from wigs, Duc Tran has serviced several celebrities. It is currently unknown how much Tran could make from this venture as he has not revealed, or there haven’t been any reports suggesting it.
Tiara appeared on the TV show RuPaul's Drag Race. She is considered to have earned amongst the top ten highest on the show. Some could have earned up to $100k a season, but this has not been confirmed. When it comes to Live performances, Tiara has performed at a lot of events over the course of her career. Unfortunately, it is unknown how much she could charge for a live performance or how much she could make from ticket sales, depending on the event organizers.
Tiara has also had a successful music career. Her music is available on streaming brands, such as Apple Music, Amazon Music, and Spotify. It is currently unknown how much she could earn from record sales as well as streams. We can safely assume that she makes upwards of the 5-figure mark each year from her music.
Tiara also sells merchandise on her website as well as other third-party websites which are catered to her fans. Her store mostly sells apparel and with prices ranging between $15 to $35, we can speculate that Vertes earns towards the 5-figure mark each year in sales.
Tiara’s dominance on social media is very evident with over 11.6 million TikTok followers, while on Instagram she has over 2.2 million followers, and on YouTube, she has 1.24 million subscribers.
Duc Tran Nguyen was born on April 11th, 1997, In Ho Chi Ming City, Vietnam, and spent his early years in his hometown, before he immigrated with his family to the United States at the age of 11, where they settled in Dallas, Texas. The names of his parents haven’t been revealed to the public, and it’s also unknown whether he has siblings or not. He holds Vietnamese nationality and belongs to an Asian ethnic group.
Nguyen grew up in a conservative household that shielded him from the LGBTQ+ community. Tiara told The Hollywood Reporter that he didn’t know what being gay was until he moved to America. After settling in Dallas, he began to explore drag. His family found it hard to accept his new passion, which was revealed by Tiara during an episode of RuPaul’s Drag Race. Eventually, his parents and extended family became more accepting of him.
He told MTV: “I guess you could say that they are tolerating it, but still not accepting it. Which is fine with me for now. They’ve come such a long way from when I first started drag. They thought I was, like, prostituting myself at the club because they didn’t really understand the concept… I think it’s more tolerable now. I’m like, Oh, okay – they just view it as a job for me.”
While Tiara’s family failed to embrace who he was, fellow drag queens took him in and showered him with love. He is particularly grateful to his drag mother, Alyssa Edwards. Alyssa showed Tiara how to succeed as a drag queen, and she gave him the motivation to participate in RuPaul’s Drag Race.
Nguyen went to a beauty school. He speaks both Vietnamese and English languages fluently. Nguyen currently lives in Texas. Nguyen was in a relationship with professional hairdresser Tim Kim. Tim and Nguyen had a public relationship, but their social media posts together have dried up. Plastique hasn’t confirmed a breakup, but we suspect that the couple is no longer together. His current relationship status is unknown.
A popular fashion video by Nguyen with over 3.2 million views.
Another popular fashion video by Nguyen with over 6.7 million views.
Another popular video by Nguyen with 6 million views.
Another popular TikTok by Nguyen with over 3.9 million views.
One of the most popular fashion videos by Nguyen with over 18 million views.
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