Yvie Oddly

Yvie Oddly, the stage name of Jovan Bridges, is an American drag queen, performer, fashion designer and singer from Denver, Colorado. Oddly came to international attention in 2019 when she won the eleventh season of RuPaul's Drag Race. New York magazine named Oddly one of the top 100 Most Powerful RuPaul Drag Race Queens in America.

Born on August 22, 1993, in Denver, CO, Bridges played with her mother's makeup and dressed in her sister's clothes as a child. She participated in gymnastics and other strenuous extracurricular activities until she was diagnosed with Ehlers-Danlos syndrome at age 15. She began musical theatre as an alternative. She attended college at Auraria Campus.

Oddly’s interest in drag began after seeing Sharon Needles on the fourth season of RuPaul’s Drag Race, which aired in 2012. Before that, Oddly didn't embrace all the opportunities being a drag artist offered as she considered herself just a “skinny, black, gay guy.”

Oddly started participating in drag during college in 2012 when Venus D'lite from RuPaul's Drag Race hosted a workshop on her college campus for Valentine's Day. Her first performances were at Denver’s gay bar Tracks. In 2014, she was an extra in the music video for Sharon Needles' "Dressed to Kill."

She was the winner of the Ultimate Queen of Denver pageant in 2015. Later that summer, she became a cast member of Drag Nation, opened for pop star Mya on the Main Stage for PrideFest, and performed in Bohemia's The Prohibition of Lust. She was also in the music video for Adore Delano's "Negative Nancy.”

Oddly competed on the eleventh season of RuPaul's Drag Race. She made it to the season finale as one of the final three drag queens in the competition. Her parents, who hadn't spoken to one another in years, sat together in the audience in support. Oddly was declared the winner of Season 11, and she encouraged the audience to, “Follow your oddities and fly your freak flag!”

She is a part of the 2019 North American leg of the Werq the World tour, a multi-year international drag concert tour hosted by Michelle Visage and featuring RuPaul’s Drag Race queens. Oddly will star in her own reality show series, Yvie Oddly’s Oddities on WOW Presents Plus. She is on a rotating cast of a dozen Drag Race queens in RuPaul's Drag Race Live!, a Las Vegas show residency from January to August 2020 at the Flamingo Las Vegas.

Bridges has type 3 Hypermobile Ehlers–Danlos syndrome (hEDS). With her heightened status, she’s found a community of people living with hEDS and other invisible disabilities, who call themselves zebras, as they have more exotic diseases than doctors would expect. The condition, and the chronic pain of her “bones grinding” can leave her depleted after performing.