Honey Davenport

Early life

quote=Philly is such a musical place. I remember growing there. I went to the schools where I took classes from people like Floetry. When I first started writing, I used to go to First Fridays in Old City and do spoken word at the Painted Bride when I was in high school. That helped me develop as a songwriter, too, because poetry transfers into my songwriting. Philly, I was made there, so it has a lot to do with everything that is great about me. salign= right — –Heath-Clark, in an interview with Philadelphia Gay News on August 13, 1985, He was raised primarily by his mother, who taught him to express his feelings by rapping. Of his early years, he said, "I grew up... in the projects, and I lost countless family members and friends to gun violence. I have been held at gunpoint more than once. It's the world I grew up in, [guns] were so easily accessible to my friends and to my enemies."

Affected by those experiences and by racism he encountered, Heath-Clark began writing poetry about social justice when he was 10 years old. Also interested in music, he was a member of his church choir and started writing songs at 13. He practiced boxing as a childhood hobby and took up spoken word poetry as a teenager. In high school, he was in the Junior Reserve Officers' Training Corps (JROTC), where he achieved the rank of squadron commander and served as captain of his rifle team. While attending the Pennsylvania Governor's School for the Arts when he was 15, Heath-Clark and a female friend went to a "come as you are not" party costumed as one another; he cites this as his first time dressing in drag. At 17, he moved to New York City to study musical theatre at the American Musical and Dramatic Academy. For a time, he lived in Harlem, on the same block as Drag Race season 6 contestant Vivacious, season 2 contestant Sahara Davenport and season 9 runner-up Peppermint.

Path to drag

After college, Heath-Clark was in the cast of the Broadway national tour of Hairspray. He also danced in music videos for Sherry Vine. In anticipation of a month-long tour of Europe with Peppermint in 2008, Heath-Clark decided to earn spending money for his travels by putting on dance shows with a friend; the two called their act The Hunties. Shortly before the group disbanded, he met RuPaul at a book signing, where the latter misheard the name of The Hunties and made out an autograph to "Honey". and was therefore his drag aunt, He cites Kevin Aviance, Phylicia Rashad and Beyoncé as artistic inspirations. Early in his career, when his aesthetic was more androgynous, Heath-Clark went by the name Sir Honey Davenport. He dropped the "Sir" as his look became more feminine.

Career

Nightlife and pageantry

Davenport has hosted regular drag shows in New York City, in New Jersey, on Fire Island and in Key West. She also works as a DJ. For her contributions to queer New York City nightlife, she has received six Glam Awards—prizes à la the Oscars issued to members of that community in an annual ceremony. The categories she has won include Club Party of the Year (2017), Best Hostess (2019) and Best Video (2020).

Prior to appearing on Drag Race, Davenport was a frequent competitor in drag pageants, where she amassed a total of 18 titles by 2018. The first pageant she ever competed in was Miss Stonewall, which she attempted four times before winning in 2015. Concurrent with that reign, she held seven other titles. In February 2018, Davenport won the Miss Paradise pageant in Asbury Park, New Jersey. She had been performing at Paradise, the nightclub that hosts that pageant, since Sahara Davenport first brought her there years earlier. Shortly after the album's completion, the band created and starred in The Electric Highway, a live, interactive rock opera featuring a soundtrack of their songs. Set in 2092 New York, The Electric Highways narrative focuses on Davenport (playing herself) as she embarks on a quest to become a legend. The production explores themes related to gender and sexuality in a dystopian future. All three members of Electrohoney—Davenport, SteveX and Jesse Gray—as well as Deja Davenport, Sherry Vine and Jeremy Xtravaganza, played major roles. The play was well received both by critics and by the audience. She portrayed Diva, a veteran prostitute who takes another character under her wing. The show was directed by Paul E. Alexander of The Ones, also starred Kevin Aviance, and ran at the Gene Frankel Theatre. Gay City News called the play "an ultimately euphoric but often sobering musical that shines a well-lit, long-overdue spotlight on drag and transsexual prostitutes during an era of uneasy cultural visibility". The invitation to compete came at a difficult time for her: she was homeless and having troubles in her marriage, and one of her mentors was in a coma. For the season's first main challenge, a photo shoot, she was paired with her mentor Manila Luzon, who placed as runner-up on the third season of Drag Race and competed on the first and fourth seasons of RuPaul's Drag Race All Stars. Davenport was eliminated in the series' first-ever six-way Lip Sync for Your Life, exiting in season 11's third episode as the 13th-place finisher.

One of Davenport's drag daughters, Monét X Change, competed on the 10th season of RuPaul's Drag Race and won the fourth season of RuPaul's Drag Race All Stars. Fellow season 11 contestants Ra'Jah O'Hara and A'keria C. Davenport are also members of the Davenport drag family.

Raw and Unfiltered

Davenport's 2019 visual EP, Raw and Unfiltered, treats the subject of being a queer person of color in America. It was produced by Chew Fu. The fifth track on Raw and Unfiltered, "Cocoa Butter", was co-produced by Davenport; Vegas; Will Sheridan; Nedra Belle (of The Voice season 13); and Kareem McJagger, another longtime collaborator who is also Davenport's drag daughter. The video for "Cocoa Butter" won a Glam Award. In July 2019, Davenport performed a theatrical concert adaptation of Raw and Unfiltered at the Laurie Beechman Theatre, an off-off-Broadway venue in Manhattan. The show had a three-date run.

2019: Post-Drag Race endeavors

In spring 2019, Davenport released the first season of her weekly YouTube series and podcast, Da Fuq. She had an out-of-drag cameo role in Eureka O'Hara's August 2019 music video "Pretty Hot and Tasty". The first week in September, Davenport was featured on the cover of Get Out! Magazine. The issue included a piece she wrote about the life changes she underwent after Drag Race. Around the same time, she appeared in the music video for Lovari and Adam Barta's song "No Day Like Today".

Davenport traveled to Australia in October 2019 to partake in Pride events and raise awareness for queer people of color on that continent. In an interview with DNA magazine, she said, "It is really important to me that my people are represented all over the world. People of colour are a part of every community not just in America and the people here are just as important to me as the ones back home." During the visit, she appeared at the first-ever Black Pride Awards in Cairns, becoming the first RuPaul's Drag Race alumna to perform in that city. After the activism leg of her trip, she joined six other Drag Race season 11 contestants and season 2 runner-up Raven for The Sickening Ball tour, a Halloween-themed drag production with stops in Australia and New Zealand.

In November 2019, Trustpilot, a consumer review website, unveiled an ad campaign featuring Davenport on billboards and in a commercial. In the campaign, a female monarch resembling Queen Elizabeth II purchases jewelry online, guided by Davenport's product review. The series takes the form of a round-table discussion that "gives celebrities, influencers and VH1 stars an opportunity to have their say on issues that define lack women's beauty". On Christmas Eve 2019, she released a single called "Present (Tie You Down)".

2020–2021: Music and online content during the COVID-19 pandemic

In February 2020, Davenport and Aja released "Draw the Blood", a collaborative single whose music video marked Davenport's first directorial credit. Aja and Davenport each penned portions of the track, and Kareem McJagger wrote the hook.

The second season of Da Fuq premiered in April 2020. The same month, Jayse Vegas featured Davenport in a remix of his song "Energy", and Mo Heart featured her in the music video "Hot Sauce and High Heels (Kinky Boots Remix)". In May 2020, Billboard called Davenport's performance at RuPaul's Digital DragCon one of the seven best moments of the event. In June, she was featured in Socia(Lites)'s music video "Bitch Got Hips". The track features Oddly, Vegas, Widow Von'Du and Cazwell.

In August 2020, Davenport appeared in "Nerves of Steel", a music video by the English synth-pop duo Erasure. The video is a mashup of clips of prominent drag queens and other queer performers lip-syncing the song's lyrics. The video accompanying the song's initial release had been shorter due to budgetary restrictions. The same month, Davenport appeared in Divas for Democracy: United We Slay, a digital variety show featuring Broadway names like Chita Rivera and Harvey Fierstein as well as Drag Race stars including Bianca Del Rio, Jinkx Monsoon and Jujubee. The show encouraged Americans to vote in the 2020 United States presidential election. Shortly before Halloween, Davenport and Loris (of The Boulet Brothers' Dragula) released a collaborative single and music video called "Freaky Planet". The third season of Da Fuq premiered in May of that year.

2022–present: Love Is God, God Save the Queens and other projects

In November 2021, Davenport and Manila Luzon released a collaborative single and music video called "Love Is God", the first song off of Davenport's five-track EP of the same name, which debuted in January 2022. Love Is God spans genres including pop, disco, house and reggaeton, and it features collaborations with Kevin Aviance, LaLa Ri, Jackie Cox and Tammie Brown. The music video for "Thrive", the track with Aviance, was released together with the EP. A short musical film titled Love Is God: The Visual Album, consisting of "a story woven together by all the songs on the EP", was scheduled to come out later in 2022. Davenport directed the film.

In June 2023, Davenport debuted a single called "Mighty Legendary".

In May 2026, Davenport won the International Mr. Leather competition in Chicago, Illinois.

Activism

quote=What I wish I had more opportunity to do was show the world that my drag is not just about being beautiful or ferocious. It's really social commentary. I create things that speak to the world I wanna see. salign= right — –Davenport, in an interview with the Houston Chronicle The final runway look she wore on Drag Race was an homage to an outfit Lady Gaga wore while performing "Angel Down", a tribute to Trayvon Martin. In fall 2019, Davenport and other former Miss'd America titleholders spoke out against the pageant's decision to introduce a rule banning trans women from competing. Davenport told Instinct magazine:

On the subject of Drag Race s lack of trans contestants, Davenport said, "t is all of our responsibility to deal with that. I don't think that it's wise for us to point the finger. It's Drag Race s opportunity to accept trans people, but it's all of our social obligation to create this platforms ."

At the start of the 2020 George Floyd protests, Davenport teamed up with two fellow New York City drag queens, Dèvo Monique and Marti Gould Cummings, to ask every queer venue in the city to pledge to hire more black staff and entertainment. In a June 2020 interview, she described an incident in which she was subjected to police brutality in Harlem. She said that roughly ten years earlier ( 2010), she had been on her way to the supermarket when she was apprehended by police officers, thrown to the ground, and handcuffed. One officer placed a knee on her neck while another searched her. When they did not find anything on her person, they told her they had stopped her because her profile matched a description they had received. Davenport asked the officers if they would apologize for what they had done to her, and they replied, "You should be happy you're not going to jail today." The event served as one of the inspirations for "Draw the Blood", which features a reenactment of Davenport's encounter with the police in its music video.

On Easter Sunday in 2023, Davenport and Drag Race season 14 contestant Kerri Colby performed at Drag March Los Angeles, a demonstration organized by the Los Angeles LGBT Center against anti-LGBT legislation.

Monster Bar controversy

In September and October 2018, Davenport was at the center of a controversy over racist practices at The Monster, a popular gay bar in New York City's West Village, where she had hosted a weekly show called "Manster" for six years. The incident began in late September 2018, when bar manager Italo Lopez sent text messages to Davenport's manager, DJ Mitch Ferrino, indicating that a flyer for "Manster" appeared to be promoting a "black night" and that this was bad for business. Lopez also said that the two black dancers on the flyer needed to be replaced by someone "beautiful" and that the image of Davenport herself needed to be smaller. After Ferrino showed Davenport the messages, she reached out to bar owner Charles Rice with concerns about the overtones of Lopez's words, but Rice did not respond.

Shortly thereafter, a number of other drag queens canceled their regular shows at The Monster. He further stated that he believed Ferrino should not have shown Lopez's messages to Davenport, chalking up their content to a miscommunication stemming from Lopez's non-native English. Rice arranged for staff at The Monster to undergo racial sensitivity training, but he declined Davenport's invitation to have a moderated public discussion about the matter. Heath-Clark came out to his mother at age 19, when he called her to talk after breaking up with his first boyfriend. Her response was supportive. Though she embraced him as a gay man, she was initially unhappy with his decision to pursue drag, but she changed her mind after seeing him perform. Heath-Clark's father learned he was a drag queen years later, in 2013, when he visited New York to see Heath-Clark act in The Orion Experience.

Heath-Clark identifies as non-binary and pansexual. He and his husband, John, wed on December 31, 2012, at the Hartley House in Hell's Kitchen. The two have a pet cat. Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, he continued to work in both cities, traveling regularly between them.

As of May 2020, Heath-Clark keeps a vegan diet. He stopped drinking alcohol a few months after filming Drag Race but later resumed its consumption.

Discography

Studio albums

Title Details Electrohoney Released: 2013 (by Electrohoney) Label: self-released Formats: digital download

EPs Title Details Raw and Unfiltered Released: 2019 Label: Chew Fu Formats: digital download

Singles

As lead artist

Title Year Album Notes "Indestructible" 2013 Electrohoney Credited to Electrohoney "Made Like You" "Worship Me" Co-credited with Orion Simprini "Present (Tie You Down)" "Digital Rainbow"(feat. Yvie Oddly, Widow Von'Du, Cazwell & Jayse Vegas) "Freaky Planet" Co-credited with Loris "Throw Money" 2024

As featured artist

Title Year Album "Body (Remix)"(Jayse Vegas feat. Honey Davenport) 2017 "Energy (Remix)"(Jayse Vegas feat. Will Sheridan, Honey Davenport, King Paputi, Kelvin Love, Christopher Ambrose, Goldilocks & Robert Garcia) 2020

Filmography

Film

Year Title Role 2023 God Save the Queens Herself

Television Year Title Role 2015 Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen Guest (Whitney Houston impersonator) 2019 RuPaul's Drag Race (season 11) Contestant (13th place) 2019 Whatcha Packin''' Guest VH1

Bootleg Fashion Photo RuView| Guest Yuhua Hamasaki

Cosmo Queens| Guest star

I've Never Had a...|Guest

Take a Look Back| Guest AJ Mattioli

Puff Puff Sessions| Guest World of Wonder

Bootleg Opinions| Guest Yuhua Hamasaki

Lash Out| Host BeeZee Productions

Black Girl Beauty| Guest panelist VH1

Hey Qween!| Guest Jonny McGovern

Tub Talk| Host Self-produced

Cosmo Queens UK| Guest star

Trade with Honey and Dakota| Co-host (with Dakota Payne) BeeZee Productions

Hot T: Celebrity Gossip & Hollywood Shade| Guest panelist Jonny McGovern

The Browns| Guest star OUTtv

Binge Queens| Co-host World of Wonder

Open to It| Wigonometry Jonathan James and Sabrina Cooper

Tongue Thai'd'' Self World of Wonder

Music videos

As lead artist or director

+ Year Title Credited as Notes Lead artist Director 2013"Indestructible"(Electrohoney) Credited as a member of Electrohoney 2015"T.R.O.U.B.L.E"(feat. Orion) Credited as Sir Honey Davenport 2019"The Hive" (short) "Made Like You" (short) "Cocoa Butter" "Stan for You"(feat. Yvie Oddly) "Worship Me" Co-credited with Orion Simprini "Present (Tie You Down)" (short) "Raw and Unfiltered" (censored) "Draw the Blood"(feat. Electropoint) Co-credited as lead artist with Aja "Digital Rainbow"(feat. Yvie Oddly, Widow Von'Du, Jayse Vegas & Cazwell) "Sweet Love"(Shuga Cain) Credited as assistant director; artist credit to Shuga Cain "Warrior (Quarantine Edition)" New full-length video accompanied by re-release of song "Present (Quarantine Edition)" New full-length video 2021"Red Neon Light"(Vegas Valentine) Credited as co-director; artist credit to Vegas Valentine "An Other Realm"(Maxi Glamour feat. Tense Era) Credited as director; artist credit to Maxi Glamour "Love Is God"(feat. Electropoint) Co-credited as lead artist with Manila Luzon

Featured and cameo roles

+YearTitleArtistRole 2017 "Body (Remix)" Jayse Vegas feat. Honey Davenport Feature 2019 "Pretty Hot and Tasty" Eureka O'Hara Cameo "Shooting Star – A Revealing New Musicals COVID-19 Relief Fundraising Medley" The cast of Shooting Star – A Revealing New Musical Cameo "S.A.D." Dakota Payne Cameo

Theatre

+ Year Production Role Venue Notes 2013 The Electric Highway Herself XL Nightclub Credited as Sir Honey Davenport The Orion Experience The Queen of White Lies XL Nightclub Credited as Sir Honey Davenport 2017–2018 Trinkets Diva Gene Frankel Theatre Club Cumming Closing night