Melbourne drag queen records emotional song for his wedding in new ABC series

Melbourne drag queen Esther Rix will appear in next week’s episode of the new ABC series The Recording Studio, recording a song for his forthcoming wedding.

Rix is the stage alter ego of Kristian Zorino, who sings live when performing and uses drag as a means to empower himself to sing in front of an audience.

 The Recording Studio is a new ABC show which allows people to professionally record a song that has special meaning to them.

In the third episode airing next week, Kristian works with Charles Fisher to record a cover of Shania Twain’s iconic 1997 power balled “From This Moment On” for his partner Russell.

Zorino took out the title of Miss Gay Australia 2018 at last year’s Midsumma Festival, as part of the yearly Miss Gay & Miss Transsexual Australia International pageant.

Zorino calls Russell his “muse”, and says Rix is “pretty much Russell’s Barbie doll”.

“I’m his life-size Barbie doll, so he dresses me up, he tells me what to wear, what colours to wear, what songs to sing,” Zorino says.

“I’ve been waiting for this moment  so long,” Russell says. “To finally get married … with the plebiscite and everything that we’ve had, I feel as if me and Kristian are in a part of our lives where this is the next step.”

Kristian says recording the song is a “love letter” he’ll be able to play at their ceremony, which he says will be”pretty traditional, other than the fact that it’s two men.”

“Which is okay. It’s all good! Australia voted Yes!” he jokes.

Also featured in the episode is Guy Sebastian, recording a song for a mother, Shirley, whose teenage son Nadav wrote beautiful, forward-thinking songs but died suddenly before she could hear them performed.

The episode culminates in two gorgeous performances, making the episode a real tear-jerker.

Watch Kristian and Russell’s episode of The Recording Studio on Tuesday April 30 at 8pm on the ABC, or catch up on ABC iView.

View the trailer for The Recording Studio below: