Whether you know her from Atlanta’s legendary drag scene or her unforgettable runs on RuPaul’s Drag Race season 2 and All Stars season 10, Nicole Paige Brooks has always been more than just a queen, she’s a story. And now, she’s telling her stories her own, inimitable way in Scroll Patrol, a brand-new docuseries streaming exclusively on WOW Presents Plus.
Armed with nothing but her camera roll and a lifetime of tea, Nicole flips through three decades’ worth of drag, drama, and divine moments. From backstage chaos to personal milestones and iconic television memories, Scroll Patrol gives viewers an unfiltered glimpse into the life of a queen who’s lived it all in stilettos and a smile.
We caught up with Nicole to talk about the stories behind the snapshots, her Georgia roots, and the secret to surviving and thriving across generations of drag.
Could you give me a little bit of inspiration as to how the series came about?
I have no idea. It’s not my series, it’s WOW Present Plus’s series. I landed in LA and posted that I was in LA and they reached out to me and said, “Do you have time to come by and scroll through your phone?” and I was like, oh, you want to go through the pictures in my phone? I was like, okay, yeah, we can do that. But you know, I’m pretty PG in my phone, so I wasn’t that scared…but I do have a bad habit of not deleting bad photos. So that part I was like, oh God, you know, that should have been [deleted] but, yeah.
Was there a moment or a photo that made you realize that some of these stories needed to be told?
I don’t think a lot of people realize that my actual drag career started in Oklahoma City. I think some of that may have come out, but, you know, my phone is pretty much full of my drag family because that’s where I spend the majority of my time and I’m happy to show the world the House of Brooks because we are very close and I think we all have individual talents that make our family very unique as a whole.
How did it feel to revisit some of those photos and memories over your career? Did you have any surprising emotions arise while you were looking through them?
Well, my audition video I hadn’t really seen in a long time, so that was kind of crazy because I still have some of those things from that. I still have that hair and I still wear that outfit. You know? I’m like, oh my gosh. So, that was kind of crazy that I have something from 16 years ago that I didn’t realize I’m still wearing today, but maybe I should get rid of it. I’m a Cancer, so I’m pretty…what’s the word I’m looking for? Sentimental. I latch onto those memories and visit them daily.
Now you’ve been performing for three decades. What’s the secret to staying relevant and true to yourself?
Staying relevant, I think, is part of being true to yourself. I think if you are true to yourself, then you’ll stay relevant. I think it’s the ones that are trying to say the right thing constantly and trying to answer it the way that they think the audience wants it answered, I think that’s how you lose your audience, to be honest.
But I mean as far as staying relevant, I keep a lot of young people around me and my YouTube channel, The NPB Review, is really driven by my drag daughter Mo’Dest [Volgare] who is in her twenties and most of the ideas that you see on there are coming from her and her saying, “Mama, we need to do this this week, or we need to do that.” I kind of have a rule with her – I have to say yes because as soon as I start to say no, then that means I’m being too bougie or too prudish or something or I’m above it – and I don’t ever want to be that. I think my drag career is really based on me just saying yes to things that I was asked to do, so I perpetuate that with keeping young people around me and them asking me to do, you know their talent show nights or coming in and judging small things in the city.
I go and I make sure I’m involved with the younger community here in Atlanta, and I think that’s what really keeps me relevant. They see me in their audience so they come to see me in my show. You know what I mean? Maybe that’s it. Maybe I just figured it out right there, you know, that I keep myself in the Atlanta scene, even if I’m not performing, I’m going to go to the newest show in town and support it or I’m going to go to the new talent show and look at all the young queens and support it and go into the dressing room and say hi and things like that. I think that’s what keeps me relevant in Atlanta is that I stay involved.
Speaking of Atlanta, how do you feel like the drag scene here has changed since when you first started performing?
When I first started, it was at Backstreet in Atlanta, and it was a 24-hour club and it was just like a whole different beast. There weren’t that many cameras around and the lucky thing about me is that my bad drag wasn’t really documented. So, in my younger years, there’s like two or three photos that I like that I’ve kept and held on to.
But now you can see everything online, and so getting an In-person audience takes a little bit more effort now than it used to. It used to be that everybody was out because that’s how you met everybody. You didn’t meet everybody online. It’s like if you wanted to meet somebody or see another fag, see another queen, or go see a trans person, you had to go out. You couldn’t just download them on your phone.
I think that is the major difference and it’s also another reason that whenever I get ready online, I don’t get completely ready online because I feel like my finished look is for the person who bought the ticket. Some of these girls stream their whole performance while it’s going on and then they wonder why nobody’s in the bar. I’m like, it’s because you just gave it away. It’s five dollars to get in [a club], but you just streamed it for free to 30 people. You might not have even come in if you weren’t on your live [stream].
I think that’s really the difference is like there’s so many more cameras in my face and there’s less people actually watching the show in person. The in-person interaction is something I’m loving about traveling because the fans of Drag Race are coming out to see the Drag Race girls, so it’s so nice to meet all these people in all these different places. But as far as local bars and local things like that, I mean, they’re closing left and right because they can’t get people in the bar. You know, so that’s the thing that’s changed.
It’s like they’ve all downsized to little bars instead of big, huge clubs where we had the space and the stages and the lights and all that kind of stuff. Now you’re performing, in some of them you’re in the middle of a room and the spaces aren’t as rah rah as they used to be. They’re not as nice and as big and that’s kind of sad. I think there’s so much online that you can see that you don’t really have to go to the club anymore. You can see almost a whole pageant the day after it happened online and sometimes you can see the pageant before it’s even online. I think that’s what changed the most.
How has your approach to performing changed since your early days?
It hasn’t. [Laughs] I wear the same things I’ve always worn, I do the same shit I’ve always done. And I mean, they’ve been coming to it for 30 years. Why am I finna change it? I mean, I update my music with popular music and things like that but beyond that, my aesthetic is still the same. I’ve always liked the way I looked. Why change it? I like to host the show, so they’re really coming there to hear me talk and hear the ridiculous things I’m about to say.
I mean, that probably has changed a little bit, you know? The things I say might not be as crass now. Going back and watching my audition video, I was like, ooh, some of these things…and I was trying to find some old videos and some of the things I said are just like, oh. Can’t say that no more.
I was never really truly that offensive, but I think you just have to be more PC now, which it takes a little bit of the fun out of it, but when you’re kiki-ing with an audience, not really trying to read somebody, but there’s somebody way in the back nowadays that has an opinion about you saying fag or faggot or sissy or words that I used. Those have been my pronouns my whole life. Fag or sissy. That was the only thing I was ever called – and I take them as my own. They’re not malicious to me like they are to everybody else but I understand that some people are offended now. And yet that’s what you really have to take into account is how easily people are offended and how easily they will go online and try to cancel you because you said a word that they don’t agree with. I mean, that’s part of going out into the world is hearing shit that you don’t agree with and having the capacity to just keep going on in life and not being bothered. Everybody’s so bothered and upset about everything and that’s another part of my brand.
Yeah, so I mean, I think that’s something is that you’re more aware about what you say and even the songs that you do, you want to make sure that they don’t [offend]. You’ve got to edit out everything, but some of the things they play on the radio or that you could see on TV and all that kind of stuff are so much more offensive. I guess that’s the biggest thing that’s changed is that I’m more self-aware of the things that come out of my mouth on a mic then I used to be, but as far as the way I look and the way I dress and the numbers, I do all that’s the same because I’ve maintained my appearance.
Why mess with perfection, right?
Yeah. That’s what they come to the show for. They come to see the things I’ve been doing for 30 years and it’s still looking the same. I mean, of course I update my look and now we get to go shopping a little bit better. I used to make everything, and that’s another thing about watching the old videos and seeing the old stuff is like, oh, I made all that stuff. Everything in my audition video, I made every single one of those outfits – the headdresses, the wigs, everything but also I had time to do that. I would start an outfit and over a month I’d complete it. It’s like when you go on the show and they’re like, okay, you’ve got 12 hours to make an outfit. I’m like, wait, I need 12 weeks.
I start two or three things at a time, you know, that’s probably ADHD. But yeah, I like to leave it, walk away, come back a week later and be like, oh, you know what, let’s do this instead, so I was really proud about that. When I looked back at all the footage of all the stuff, it’s like almost every single thing I was wearing was something that I personally made myself, where now it’s a lot more shopping being done. I don’t mind because I still am keeping everything from Atlanta, Georgia. I’m still using the people that have been around me for the whole time I’ve been here, for the whole 20 years. I still use same hair people. They know my aesthetic so well and I also am not letting them design something. I tell them what I want. I still perpetuate my aesthetic and that’s something that I’m glad I still see in my drag is my original aesthetic.
A lot of people, you go and look at their first photos and then you look at them now and it’s like from their nose to their toes, they look completely different. They’ve changed their hair, they’ve changed everything.
Well, you’ve had a full circle moment, how did your experience on season two compare to All Stars 10?
Well, season two, we didn’t do the press tour. The winner got a Pride Tour with Absolut Vodka. She did the Pride tour, but we didn’t do a tour. Now the whole season goes on tour. There was no press week, there was none of that kind of stuff. We were told we had to sign up for Twitter and Instagram and Facebook and make sure that we had all those platforms because they were just starting back then and now people get on because of those platforms. I was glad to have the whole press week and really have a moment to reintroduce myself.
After season two, I came home and became a dad and went back to my five days a week here in Atlanta. I came back to my regular life, but after all Stars 10 I was traveling and doing all kinds of craziness, which was like a whole new beast, you know? I was on the show with somebody who was a TikTok child, Lydia, you know, basically she was brand new. I’ve been doing drag her entire life. That’s outrageous to me.
Check out Scroll Patrol exclusively on WOW Presents Plus. Follow Nicole Paige Brooks on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook and YouTube.