24 August,2026 05:30 PM IST | Mumbai | Rachel Pereira
Rakhi Sawant at the launch of Kitty Su Beauty. Pics via special arrangement
Rakhi Sawant brought her trademark flamboyance to New Delhi as she joined Kitty Su founders Keshav Suri and Cyril Feuillebois for the launch of Kitty Su Beauty. The actor also joined the judging panel for Battle Royale II, Kitty Su's national drag lip-sync competition, as the brand marked 15 years of creating space for queer expression, drag and unapologetic self-expression.
Naturally, Rakhi Sawant found a way to make the beauty launch about more than just makeup. In an exclusive conversation with mid-day, she spoke about Kitty Su Beauty's lipstick and, recalling a previous incident where Mika Singh forcibly kissed her at his birthday party in Mumbai, she said, "I put on Kitty Su Beauty lipstick, and I feel complete; now I'm ready to kiss 100 boys! One kiss created so much controversy; imagine what 100 will do!"
Her presence on the Battle Royale II judging panel was another talking point. For Keshav, Rakhi's ability to command attention makes her an interesting addition to a competition centred on performance and stage presence.
"People will be surprised," he said. "Rakhi understands something that you can't always teach in a classroom, how to own a stage, hold an audience and turn attention into a performance."
Cyril agreed that Rakhi Sawant's larger-than-life personality fits the ethos of Kitty Su. "And if I'm honest, she's also just very Kitty Su in spirit, larger than life, unapologetic, impossible to look away from," he said.
For Keshav, Kitty Su Beauty represents an unexpected continuation of the journey that began when he opened Kitty Su in 2011. "Honestly? Absolutely not," Keshav said when asked if he ever imagined the club would evolve into a drag competition and queer-led beauty brand. "When I opened Kitty Su in 2011, I was simply trying to create a room where my community could walk in, exhale and be themselves. And then the artists made it magic."
The club went on to become a platform for generations of drag performers, making Battle Royale feel like an extension of that history. "So watching Battle Royale happen on that same stage feels less like a new beginning and more like the next chapter," he said.
Cyril described the beauty venture as a concept that had been discussed between the founders for years. "For me it's been years in the making, quite literally," he said. "Keshav and I built this dream conversation by conversation, night by night, first talking about beauty at Kitty Su as something conceptual, and now watching it become a real collection people can hold in their hands."
The founders also see the brand as an extension of drag's relationship with makeup. Cyril pointed to drag artist Hashbrownie's role in developing the collection, saying, "Makeup has always been part of that same act of resistance for drag artists."
For Keshav, that resistance is ultimately about visibility. "When queer artists are given a platform of this scale, visibility stops being symbolic. It becomes possibility," he said. "Someone watching today gets to think - I can do that too."
With Rakhi bringing her unmistakable brand of showmanship to the judging panel and Kitty Su taking its philosophy from nightlife into beauty, the launch was less about fitting into conventional ideas of glamour and more about refusing to be boxed in by them.
