Nikita Dragun

Nikita Dragun is a Belgian-born American YouTuber, make-up artist, and model.[1]

Nikita Dragun
Dragun in 2019
Personal information
Born31 January 1996
Belgium
YouTube information
Years active2014–present
GenreBeauty, drama, vlog, makeup
Subscribers3.23M (as of July 2020)
Total views172,009,216 (as of April 2020)
1,000,000 subscribers
Updated April 21, 2020

Early life and education

Nikita Dragun was born in Belgium and attended high school in Virginia. She is of Vietnamese and Mexican descent, and came out as a trans woman when she reached college. In several of Dragun's YouTube videos, she has spoken openly about her transition.[2] When in college, Dragun reported getting a fake ID with the name Nicole, and was recognized as female.

Later, Dragun decided to move to Los Angeles, and got accepted to the Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising, where she obtained her business degree. She said, “I was very Hannah Montana at the time. I would be in class, and we’d talk about influencers and brand deals, and my face would pop up on the screen and they’d start talking about me! They had no idea that I was sitting in the class. I never wanted anyone to know.”[3]

Career

Dragun joined YouTube in February 2013. She stated, “I started to get little brand deals around that time… That was also when I decided to start taking Instagram and YouTube seriously.” In 2015, by which time she was living in Los Angeles, she came out as transgender.[1] As of April 2020, she has over 2.69 million subscribers on YouTube.[4]

In response to comments by L Brands chief marketing officer Ed Razek that trans women should not be included in the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show because "the show is a fantasy", Dragun tweeted a video of herself modeling lingerie. In the tweet, Dragun argues that trans women were indeed able to convey fantasy.[5]

In March 2019, she announced a make-up line, Dragun Beauty.[6] Aside from the mainstream market, the cosmetic line is also targeted towards the transgender community. All products are vegan and cruelty-free, this is cited as a reason why Nikita decided to launch her brand independently.[7] In June 2019, Dragun was interviewed about her make-up brand on the LGBT radio network Channel Q, where she credited her journey as a transgender woman building her brand as the inspiration behind Dragun Beauty and its products.[8]

In September 2019, it was announced Nikita would be starring in her own docuseries on Snapchat, "Nikita Unfiltered". The series follows Dragun as she searches for love, "a different path" in her career, and navigates fame as a trans woman. The series premiered on March 21, 2020.[9][10]

Awards
Year Award Category Result
2019 Streamy Awards Beauty Won[11]
2019 E! People's Choice Awards The Beauty Influencer of 2019 Nominated[12]
2020 The 12th Annual Shorty Awards Best in Beauty Won[13]

Filmography

Web series
Year Title Role Notes Ref.
2018–2019 Escape the Night The Troublemaker Main cast; 14 episodes [14]
2020 Nikita Unfiltered Herself 10 episodes [9]
Instant Influencer with James Charles Herself Episode: "I Have to Apologize for This..."

TV series
Year Title Role Notes Ref.
2019 The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills Herself Episode: "The Show Must Go On" [14]

Music videos
Year Title Performer(s) Ref.
2018 "Heart to Break" Kim Petras [15]
"That Bih" Qveen Herby [16]
2019 "Best Friend's Ass" Dimitri Vegas & Like Mike, Paris Hilton [17]
"Fuck It Up" Iggy Azalea, Kash Doll [18]
2020 "Malibu" (At Home Edition) Kim Petras
gollark: You may like trusting people you interact with a lot. You can continue doing this. But having options to minimize necessary trust gives people more options, which I think is good.
gollark: Wondrous.
gollark: Although HTTP tries its best to alienate you from the people you interact with via the stateless request/response model, at least with unencrypted HTTP I am still aware that I am interacting with another server. TLS and so on seek to undermine this further, by forcing you to treat everyone as a faceless certificate surrounded by attackers trying to eavesdrop at all times. It thus depersonalizes and alienates you from the people you are interacting with even further.
gollark: Whoever designed this should rotate at 2519285 mrad/s!
gollark: And the only protection against it is... that your bank might refund you later?

References
  1. "YouTube Star Nikita Dragun on Authenticity, Inclusivity, and Why the Trolls Don't Scare Her". Elle. 2017-09-30. Retrieved 2019-03-11.
  2. Lamare, Amy (2019-05-17). "Who Is Nikita Dragun? New Details On The YouTube Makeup Artist Who Defended James Charles In The Tati Westbrook scandal". YourTango. Retrieved 2019-05-23.
  3. Ward, Tom (April 17, 2019). "Nikita Dragun Is Transforming The Face Of Beauty". Forbes. Retrieved 2019-05-23.
  4. "Here's What's Going On With All The Drama Between Popular Beauty YouTubers Accusing One Another Of Being Racist". BuzzFeed. Retrieved 2019-04-15.
  5. "In a company first, Victoria's Secret hires openly transgender model". 2020-02-12. Archived from the original on 2020-02-12. Retrieved 2020-03-28.
  6. Tietjen, Alexa; Tietjen, Alexa (2019-03-11). "Exclusive: Nikita Dragun Debuts Cosmetics Brand Dragun Beauty". Women's Wear Daily. Retrieved 2019-03-17.
  7. Sharma, Jeena (2019-04-08). "Nikita Dragun Wants You to Live Your Fantasy". PAPER. Retrieved 2019-05-23.
  8. "Nikita Dragon Exclusive Interview". We Are Channel Q. 2019-06-20. Retrieved 2019-09-27.
  9. "Nikita Dragun's new docuseries is arriving on Snapchat, and she's hoping it provides 'a little bit of fantasy and escape' from the coronavirus". Insider.com.
  10. Boren, Jade (March 21, 2020). "Nikita Dragun Is Ready To Show Fans 'Everything' In New Snapchat Docuseries: 'It's Completely Unfiltered'".
  11. "Winners Announced for the 9th Annual Streamy Awards". December 14, 2019.
  12. Entertainment, E!. "E! People's Choice Awards 2019". pca.eonline.com.
  13. Street, Mikelle (2020-05-05). "LGBTQ+ Stars Swept the Shorty Awards 2020". Out.
  14. "Nikita Dragun". IMDb.com.
  15. "Video". www.youtube.com. Retrieved 2020-06-15.
  16. "Video". www.youtube.com. Retrieved 2020-06-15.
  17. "Video". www.youtube.com. Retrieved 2020-06-15.
  18. "Video". www.youtube.com. Retrieved 2020-06-15.

Nikita Dragun's YouTube channel

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