Meet RuPaul’s Drag Race Down Under Queen – Karen From Finance
As we inch closer still to the hotly anticipated release of RuPaul’s Drag Race Down Under, the next qween to be put under the microscope is Melbourne’s very own Karen From Finance.
Karen – real name Richard Chadwick, is a regular fixture on club stages in Melbourne and around Australia. She was out one day with her friends shopping for clothes for a costume party, when she was told her chosen dress looked like something “Karen from Finance” would wear – and thus Australia’s premiere ‘corporate’ queen was born.
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Some people are cat people, others prefer dogs, but Karen is more a bird person and lives alone with her budgie ‘Dantè’. In Karen’s spare time, she enjoys doing other people’s tax returns, office-based bonding activities, and invoice archiving.
Having appeared at RuPaul’s Drag Con in LA in 2017, 2018 and 2019, Karen presented headlining performances on the main stage and has also been booked on panels alongside RuPaul’s Drag Race Season 1 Winner Bebe Zahara Benet and the hosts of Drag Race Thailand, Art Arya and Pangina Heals.
2017 also saw Karen From Finance headlining the Austin International Drag Festival in Texas alongside the likes of Milk, Latrice Royale and the UK’s Cheddar Gorgeous.
No stranger to the RuPaul family, Karen regularly hosts past contestants at special events by Inthedark Entertainment throughout Australia and New Zealand, as well as their exclusive DRAG FEST tours which have included past season winners including Trixie Mattel, Sasha Velour, Raja, Sharon Needles, Bob The Drag Queen and Zahara Benet.
Karen From Finance is also one of the original cast members of Melbourne based cult queer cabaret ‘YUMMY’, a show which has garnered international acclaim for its subversive glamour and gone on to tour across Australia and the world.
In 2019 Karen debuted her first ever full length one-woman-show ‘Out Of Office’ in which toured sold-out shows throughout Australia & New Zealand and returned once more to Melbourne in 2021, as part of Melbourne International Comedy Festival.
Check out our profiles of other RuPaul Race Down Under Queens
