RHEA LITRÉ
AT FIRST, the Haus of Litré welcomed only sons, no queens in the making. (A drag queen can be a mother to anyone in the LGBTQ community, not just other queens.)
“I didn’t want any girls,” Rhea confesses. “I didn’t want anyone who could borrow my hair and take my tricks.”
The West Hollywood queen has relented on this of late, finding there’s no need to see competition where there could be compassion. But such initial hesitation indicates what’s at the core of her own mothering: a protectiveness in tandem with a desire for success. For herself but also for her kids.
By her own admission ( just listen to her recent track “H.O.L.E.”), the Haus of Litré is made up of movers and shakers. Of social butterflies who can key into a party vibe on a dime. Yet what brought them all to Rhea (the drag daughter of icons Mayhem Miller and Raja) was the vulnerability she first saw in them.
It’s why Rhea prides herself on being a very hands-on mom. She’s on the phone with her kids every day. She schedules family house meetings and plans trips. She keeps tabs on their projects and makes sure to smooth over any sibling disputes (not uncommon, she admits, but proof they truly care about one another like brothers and sisters).
“We’re actually a family,” she beams. “A family fueled by emotion and passion for what we do and what we do for each other. I love my [biological] family, but I really understood what family was when I met my children because it was somewhere that I wanted to be, not somewhere I had to be.”