In coincidence with the release of Kylie Minogue’s new album Tension, a 1995 clip of a Dublin drag tribute quartet has resurfaced and gone viral. The Eurotrash feature, released just two years after Ireland decriminalised homosexuality, showcases the Kylie Kreatures, a four-piece group that performed every Saturday night in The Temple of Sound as “uncanny doppelgangers of the Australian songbird”.

In the video, which can only be described as an iconic piece of queer Irish herstory, the queens introduce themselves as Barbie Minogue, Maisie Minogue, Kylie O’Reilly and Emaciated Minogue. Shortly after, the cameras cut to inside the foursome’s Kylie Kavern, which is decorated with memorabilia of their muse “in every format known to man”.

Explaining their love for Minogue, Barbie describes the singer’s rise to stardom as “similar to the way a gay man comes out”.

“She started off as this frightened little thing who wouldn’t say boo to a goose, and as time went on, she got more and more confidence and just did not give a sh*t,” she says.

Meanwhile, Kylie O’Reilly states, “I think Kylie was a gay man in a past life ‘cos she seems to be obsessed by cock…I think it was born into Kylie, this taste for penis”.

At the end of the Eurotrash feature, presenter Jean-Paul Gautier asks Ms Minogue herself what she thinks of the Kylie Kreatures, to which she replies: “Paul (Maisie) and his friends have taken my heart. I think they’re fantastic and I say hello to them and send them lots of love. Well done.”

this is CULTURE https://t.co/eoewrNO1zz

— cmat (@cmatbaby) September 24, 2023

The resurfaced clip has led many viewers to wonder where the queens are now, and thanks to a GCN investigation in 2021, we have the following information to offer:

Kylie O’Reilly
Kylie O’Reilly was the drag alter-ego of Junior Larkin – a fixture of Dublin’s gay scene in the ‘90s.

Among other things, Junior entered the National Song Contest with a track called ‘Delicious Boyz (Lick Me I’m Delicious)’ which he wrote and performed as Kylie at a Pamela Scott Fashion Show alongside two of her group-mates.

Along with promoters John Pickering and Eddie McGuinness, Junior also set up the first all-gay boyband 4Guyz, which he wanted to be bigger than Boyzone. The group was also featured on Eurotrash TV; however, it seemed the timing for such a cohort wasn’t quite right.

Larkin retired from being the centre of attention on Dublin’s gay scene in the late ’90s and thereafter lived a relatively quiet life surrounded by his friends and family.

Sadly, Junior passed away in July 2017.

“Although Junior will not be known to many, to some he will be remembered as Kylie O’ Reilly, Dublin’s most prominent drag queen of the early ‘90s, a potty-mouthed Dubliner who entertained us all before Alternative Miss Ireland ushered in a drag renaissance and the likes of Veda, Shirley Temple Bar, and of course, Panti became the queens of the day,” wrote Brian Finnegan, who worked alongside Larkin in GCN.

Maisie Minogue
One of Dublin’s, if not Ireland’s, most iconic queens, Maisie Minogue is better known as Phyllis Lautner. Before Covid, she was on the decks every Friday night in Pantibar, and has since played events such as the Delicious Dublin Pride party in 2022.

If you aren’t familiar with Dublin’s gay scene and it’s iconic characters, then unfortunately you won’t understand why this pic of the Taoiseach with the *legendary* Phyllis Lautner in Pantibar tonight is…
E V E R Y T H I N G.
I hope he knows what an honor it was.

For *him* pic.twitter.com/vyafmM27gX

— Dr Panti Bliss-Cabrera (@PantiBliss) September 9, 2018

Barbie Minogue
Barbie Minogue, better known as Deanna Alexandria, now releases music under the name Mz Red Dear.

The singer/songwriter was seen responding to the resurfaced Eurotrash clip, saying: “That’s my giving Lip-sync realness ala Kylie . I don’t know why I decided that fixing the hem of my silver skirt/ top on camera was a good move though?”

In another comment, Deanna wrote: “I remember it well . Kylie is such a darling . why was I wearing shades in the Playground nightclub, I’ll never know”.

Emaciated Minogue
It seems that Emaciated Minogue may have stepped out of the celebrity spotlight since her time in the Kylie Kreatures in the ’90s. So, wherever this delicious drag queen is now, we wish her well!