Brian McCook is an actor, author, and performing artist who, after graduating from Massachusetts College of Art in Boston, began performing as the drag persona Katya Zamolodchikova. Katya achieved notoriety after placing 5th on the 7th season of the reality competition series RuPaul's Drag Race and runner-up on the second season of RuPaul's Drag Race All Stars. In 2019 Katya wrote and performed a solo show which toured North America, Europe, the UK and Australia.