It’s difficult to imagine a time when Trisha Paytas wasn’t one of the internet’s most ubiquitous faces. In the realm of content creation, Trisha has done, has tried, has been everything.

“She evolves so effortlessly,” says 17-year-old superfan Lydia Foley Kretsch. “Everything she does feels so natural and so authentic. Because it is.” 

Online, Paytas has lived a hundred lives. She’s been immortalized in every way a human can on the internet’s various tubes. Trisha’s been a meme, a soundbite, and even a TikTok trend. She’s pioneered entire genres. And yet, to the few who are new to her, the Trisha brand is still just a little bit indescribable.

“She’s unapologetically feminine,” says Foley Kretsch. “She knows who she is, and always finds different ways to express it. I never want to stop watching her.” 

Paytas inspires devotion from tens of millions of fans on TikTok, YouTube, and Instagram, and after watching a minute or two of any random video, it’s not difficult to see why she’s so beloved. She sat down with us to discuss her career, her goals, and landing her white whale podcast guest.

Playboy: Okay, before I get to my questions, I just wanted to say every woman in my life that heard that I was going to interview you lost their shit.

Paytas: Really?

Playboy: Absolutely. So what I did was, I consulted with all of them, we basically all got together and convened on things. These are my questions, but these are also questions from some of your most devoted fans.

Paytas: My God, that’s amazing. I love that so much. Seriously.

Playboy: Your podcast Just Trisha is super popular. Do you have any dream guests for the show?

Paytas: There’s Britney Spears, of course. Right now with Wicked, it’s Ariana Grande, Cynthia Erivo, and Jonathan Bailey. I would love also Rosie O’Donnell, Zac Efron, The Weekend…there’s just so many dream guests.

I just don’t even know where to start but Britney Spears is my main main dream…but I don’t think she’d ever do it.

Playboy: I’m pretty sure you could get Britney. I’m just gonna say.

Paytas: I mean, I’ve only just DM’d her. And I’ve tried to contact her manager. She lives literally two minutes from my house. I see her all the time, but I just don’t want to go up and be like, “Be on my podcast!” because I’d be so annoying.

Playboy: What would you ask?

Paytas: I think I would just ask how she’s doing now. “How is life, seriously?” She reposted that she married herself, and I think she’s inspiring on every level. And I just want to see it in person. There’s just so many questions I have.

Playboy: Absolutely. You’ve spoken about wanting to conquer Broadway playing the role of Glinda in Wicked. What makes breaking into Broadway so appealing to you?

Paytas: My gosh, I think I just love Broadway. It’s my escape. I love it so much. I’ve been talking about this so much lately, so I don’t know it’s come up. I’m obsessed with it. It was always my escape, right, from—we all had traumatic childhoods.

And that was my one thing where it’s like I want to be on stage because it’s like being this fantasy world. It’s truly just playing pretend, and singing, and everything works out in the end. I just love musicals for that reason. And I think Broadway is just that. But I would do community theater, if we had something around here that would have me. But I think Broadway is like my ultimate manifestation goal right now.

Playboy: What makes Trisha Paytas laugh?

Paytas: My daughter Malibu. She’s at the stage now where she’s really funny, and she does anything to make us laugh. She throws herself around and she doesn’t care. She always does faces at us and stuff.

Playboy: Is there something that she did recently that really sticks out?

Paytas: She does the Mishka mushka. She loves Mickey Mouse so she’s really good at impersonating. Malibu does this funny impersonation of me. “I’m so tired!”

Playboy: Speaking of which, how’s motherhood?

Paytas: I love it. It’s so fun. I think with my first, I was really struggling for the first year, but now with the second, it almost became easier. Like, I just feel with your first, you’re just like, “My God, this is so overwhelming. I don’t know what I’m doing!” And with the second, it’s like, babies are resilient, they grow up, it’s pretty simple. So it’s been great.

Playboy: You are always evolving. There have all been all these different eras and arcs and it always feels pretty seamless. Have any of these shifts been challenging for you?

Paytas: Every shift is challenging, in a sense. I was never good with change until I became a mom and I’m just like “You just roll with it.” But I think all the shifts have been challenging.

Playboy: What was the last shift that you did that really stayed with you?

Paytas: Obviously, motherhood. But tying it back to the podcast…it is called Just Trish because for so long, my YouTube career has been tied to other people. I always relied on someone more popular than me: Shane Dawson Jeffree Star, David Dobrik, Colleen Ballinger. I was always trying to be associated with someone to help what I’m doing.

And I think the shift into just having his rely on myself…that was a shift, for sure. And being scared that people wouldn’t like me without the trolling, or without the shenanigans, or without being associated with someone more famous than me.

Playboy: Your kids are eventually going to be able to go on YouTube. What are some videos of mom that you can’t wait for them to see and appreciate?

Paytas: I really am excited for them to see my music videos, because I feel like it’s really just playing dress up. And I remember seeing my mom at our community theater on stage and I was like, “Wow she’s a princess!” or she’s whatever she was playing. So I’m excited for them to see my music videos because I really did put a lot of work into them. It’s kind of like Barbie: you get to see her in every career and in every outfit.

Playboy: You have all these iconic viral moments, but if you could only be remembered for one of them, which one would it be?

Paytas: I mean, hopefully not King Tut [Laughs]. That is not what I want to be remembered by. I would say…I’m not so proud of a good viral one that I rewatched the other day. It was the one that I cringe at the most…the chicken nugget one, because I do think it’s relatable. I had some good points. And I was a little out of my mind when I recorded that. I was on some substance, but when I was listening to it, I had some good insight in it.

“Sometimes they’re bad for you, sometimes they’re not good. But, at the end of the day, they’re trying, everyone likes it, they’re fried on the outside, but they’re good on the inside. It starts as pink goop, but it ends up being something delicious.” That’s actually kind of insightful. I used to always cringe at that one, but I kind of like it now.

Playboy: So, we touched on it earlier. I’ve spoken to multiple women across multiple age ranges, and they all basically shared the same feeling when I mentioned Trisha Paytas. The consensus was, “I just wanted her to know how much she means to me. She makes me feel seen. She makes me feel validated.” To close this out, is there anything you’d like to tell your fans that have been with you all these years?

Paytas: I mean, that’s all I could ever want, and that’s why I keep going and doing it because it’s so cool to have these supportive fans. I guess I would just say everything gets better. Lean into the moments where you feel sad.

I’m thankful for all the mess that I put on the Internet to show that there’s hope for literally everybody. I had everything against me: mental illness, lack of education, lack of money, overweight…everything that could possibly go against you in society. And I really feel like I overcame a lot of it.

And actually doing the Playboy shoot was a full circle moment. I remember, as a kid, I had a whole list of things I was gonna do once I lost weight. Playboy was at the top. It was like “Be a Hooters girl, be a playmate, marry a rich guy.” Don’t wait for anyone to see how great you are, just be it.