Nashom Benjamin Wooden (October 9, 1969 – March 23, 2020) was an American performing artist. Wooden was a member of the electronic dance music group the Ones and performed as a drag queen under the stage name Mona Foot.
Biography
Wooden was born in October 1969 and raised in Brooklyn, New York, and entered the New York nightlife scene as a Club Kid in the mid-1980s.[2] By 1989, he worked in Manhattan running the men's clothing department at Patricia Field's boutique while developing the drag queen persona Mona Foot with his friend and former roommate Lady Bunny.[3][4] Wooden credits RuPaul as an early mentor; RuPaul taught Wooden how to apply makeup, and both appeared in an off-Broadway play titled My Pet Homo.[2] As Mona Foot, Wooden hosted the weekly drag competition "Mona Foot's Star Search" at the New York gay bar Barracuda, cited by The New York Times as a likely inspiration for the television series RuPaul's Drag Race.[3]
In 1997, Wooden began to work as a bartender and DJ at The Cock, a gay bar.[2][5] In 1999, he appeared in drag in the comedy-drama film Flawless. Along with JoJo Americo and Paul Alexander as the music group the Ones, Wooden co-wrote and performed the 2001 song "Flawless", which peaked at No. 4 on the BillboardDance Club Songs chart, No. 7 in the United Kingdom, and No. 2 in Belgium.[3][6] Later in his life, Wooden began to perform less frequently as Mona Foot, stating that "it just kind of fizzled out. I stopped taking gigs."[2] Wooden gave his final performance as Mona Foot in 2018, where he revived the character for that year's Wigstock to perform as Wonder Woman.[7]
