Nikita Dragun, 30, is a Los Angeles beauty YouTuber, makeup artist, and founder of the independent cosmetics line Dragun Beauty. She built her name over more than a decade of vlogging and glam tutorials, but her bigger cultural footprint comes from being one of the most visible trans women in influencer and beauty media, a status she has leaned into publicly rather than downplayed.
Born Nikita Nguyen on January 31, 1996, she spent the 2010s turning a YouTube channel into a full beauty business, then a reality-TV presence, and eventually a recognizable name well beyond the makeup-tutorial world she started in. Her path has not been free of turbulence: a 2022 arrest in Miami and a well-documented history of public disputes within the early beauty influencer community both became part of her story, alongside her role as a founder and advocate.
As of mid-2026, Dragun Beauty has been on hiatus since 2022, and Dragun has shifted much of her public output toward direct-to-fan platforms and occasional acting and reality work. She remains a reference point in conversations about trans representation in beauty, even during a stretch where her business ventures are quieter than they once were.
Background and Early Life
Nguyen was born in Belgium and raised in Springfield, Virginia, and is of Vietnamese and Mexican descent. She has said she began her gender transition in college and picked the name Nikita after the 1990s action franchise of the same name, a detail she has repeated in interviews as the origin of her professional identity.
She relocated to Los Angeles as a young adult to pursue content creation full time and came out publicly as transgender in 2015, a period that coincided with her earliest traction on YouTube and Instagram. That decision to be public early, well before “trans creator” was an established lane in beauty media, is part of what set her apart from peers who came up in the same YouTube beauty scene during the mid-2010s.
How Her Platform Started and Grew
Dragun joined YouTube in February 2013 and has said brand deals started trickling in not long after, which pushed her to treat Instagram and YouTube as an actual career rather than a hobby. Her subscriber base grew alongside the broader “beauty guru” boom of the mid-2010s, a cohort that included James Charles, Jeffree Star, Manny MUA, and Laura Lee, several of whom she was closely associated with socially during that period.
That closeness had a public downside. In 2018, a falling-out within that same friend group, an episode the beauty press dubbed “Dramageddon,” led to old, offensive tweets from several members resurfacing, including some from Dragun and from Laura Lee. Both women saw subscriber and brand fallout from the episode, which remains one of the most cited controversies in early YouTube beauty history.
Her profile expanded past beauty content specifically when she joined the cast of Escape the Night as “The Troublemaker” for its 2018 to 2019 seasons, and again with Nikita Unfiltered, a Snapchat docuseries that premiered in March 2020 and followed her navigating fame, dating, and life as a trans woman in the public eye. She won a Streamy Award for Beauty in 2019 and a Shorty Award in 2020.
Dragun Beauty and Her Business Ventures
Dragun launched her own cosmetics line, Dragun Beauty, in March 2019. The brand was vegan and cruelty-free and explicitly marketed toward the transgender community as well as the mainstream beauty market, a positioning she has said was central to why she built the label independently rather than signing with an existing house.
In 2020, she partnered with Morphe on a 35-shade eyeshadow palette, a seven-piece brush set, and additional lip and face products, sold through Morphe, Ulta, Sephora Canada, and several international retailers. That collaboration remains her best-documented mainstream brand partnership to date.
On the specific matter of a Fenty Beauty collaboration in 2026: research across multiple entertainment, beauty-trade, and wire sources turned up no evidence that this partnership exists. Dragun has spoken favorably in past interviews about Fenty’s approach to shade-range inclusivity, but no announced product line, campaign, or official partnership between her and Fenty Beauty could be verified. That claim is flagged here as unconfirmed rather than reported as fact.
Dragun Beauty itself has been on hiatus since 2022, with no products currently sold through its site or retail partners. In 2023, she launched a subscription account on OnlyFans, a pivot several beauty-trade outlets covered as a shift in her income model following the brand’s pause. She has hinted online at reviving Dragun Beauty, though as of this writing no relaunch has been officially confirmed.
Visibility and Advocacy
Dragun’s clearest advocacy moment came in 2018, after then-Victoria’s Secret chief marketing officer Ed Razek said the brand’s fashion show should not include trans models because “the show is a fantasy.” Dragun responded with her own self-produced Fantasy Bra-style video, captioned to directly rebut his comment, and the clip drew tens of millions of views. Razek later apologized and left the company; Dragun has said she was later threatened with legal action over the video, though she was not ultimately sued.
A different, more difficult moment came in November 2022, when Dragun was arrested at a Miami Beach hotel and charged with felony battery on a police officer along with misdemeanor charges. She said publicly that she was held in a men’s unit at a Miami-Dade jail before her release, an account jail officials disputed. Dragun was released on her own recognizance shortly after her initial court hearing, meaning she did not have to post bail. She was later involuntarily committed to a psychiatric facility for eight days that same month following what she described as a manic episode, and she has since disclosed a bipolar disorder diagnosis. Advocacy and civil-rights outlets covered the jail-placement dispute specifically as a trans-rights issue rather than as tabloid drama, and that framing is the fair way to describe it here: not a scandal, but a documented example of the practical stakes trans women can face in custody.
Where She Stands Now
Dragun’s most recent visible project is Escape the Night: The Lost Tapes, a three-part Tubi miniseries from original Escape the Night creator Joey Graceffa that premiered in late November 2025 as a fan-funded send-off to the franchise. Dragun returned as “The Glam Rocker” alongside original cast members, giving her a notable, recent on-screen credit outside beauty content.
Her online following remains sizable: well over ten million combined followers across TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube, per current platform figures. Her estimated net worth has been placed at roughly $3 million to $4.5 million by outlets that track influencer earnings, though these figures are industry estimates rather than confirmed financial disclosures and should be read as directional. With Dragun Beauty still paused, her income now comes mostly from content deals, acting work, and subscription platforms rather than a single flagship brand.
The honest read on Nikita Dragun in 2026 is a creator in a rebuilding phase: her business is dormant, her cultural relevance as an early, outspoken trans figure in mainstream beauty media is intact, and her next real test is whether Dragun Beauty, or something like it, actually comes back. She’s one of 14 creators covered in OpenThreadNews’ full list of LA’s biggest fashion, beauty, and lifestyle creators.
Frequently Asked Questions
How old is Nikita Dragun in 2026?
Nikita Dragun was born on January 31, 1996, making her 30 years old as of mid-2026. She was born in Belgium and raised in Springfield, Virginia.
Is Dragun Beauty still active?
No. Dragun Beauty, the cosmetics line she launched in March 2019, has been on hiatus since 2022 with no products currently sold through its website or retail partners. She has alluded to a possible relaunch on social media, but nothing has been officially confirmed as of this writing.
Did Nikita Dragun collaborate with Fenty Beauty in 2026?
No verified partnership between Nikita Dragun and Fenty Beauty could be confirmed across entertainment, beauty-trade, or wire reporting. Her confirmed mainstream cosmetics partnership is a 2020 collaboration with Morphe. Any claim of a 2026 Fenty Beauty deal should be treated as unconfirmed.
What happened with Nikita Dragun’s 2022 arrest?
Dragun was arrested in November 2022 at a Miami Beach hotel and charged with felony battery on a police officer and misdemeanor counts. She said she was held in a men’s jail unit, which officials disputed. She was released on her own recognizance shortly after her initial court hearing, so she did not have to post bail, and was later involuntarily committed to a psychiatric facility. She has since disclosed a bipolar disorder diagnosis.
