Lee Dawn Hershey is a model and actor who was born in the small country town of Abilene, TX. Their parents moved to South Houston, where Lee grew up, before taking a leap of faith and moving elsewhere around the age of 24. Lee played ball and everything under the sun to keep them busy and to keep eyes and ears off of them because they were queer. However, it may not have actually thwarted looks and suspicions about their gender expression and sexuality.

“I thought the more sports and activities I did with a team that it would keep people from knowing that I was queer and I was like, ‘you're doing the gayest things,’” said Lee about their childhood and upbringing. 

“Being an athlete my entire life pretty much set the mode for my behavior, my mindset, my family, and my orientation,” Lee explained. “I come from a very broken home and, my own tribe began at an early age, probably about 10 years old. Whenever I started competing with other girls, those individuals and their families became a part of my tribe. I decided to play collegiate soccer. And when I played soccer, some stuff happened. I'm actually making a movie about it. It's called Hi Pretty and some really crazy stuff happened to me during my freshman year, which caused me to go home.” 

During their freshman year of college, Lee fell in love with one of their teammates’ older sisters. The teammate, the sister, and Lee all lived in a big three-bedroom apartment in Dallas, and the relationship remained hidden from the teammate for some time to avoid hurting her. Retaliation ensued with self-harming and other terrible situations after the teammate found out. She tried to maliciously expose the couple by committing suicide but ended up accidentally murdering someone else in the process, and Lee was told that they should go home and spend some time with their self. It ended their soccer career, and Lee ended up turning to bartending after the terrible series of events as a way to express themselves. 

“I became a bartender and by bartending I was doing show flare, which was flipping my bottles within my tins, doing cool napkin tricks and I filled the void of being an entertainer on the field by being behind the bar,” Lee said. “Bartending created a stage for me to dance on and to share myself as an entertainer, as a creative, and as a very compassionate individual. I started bartending for a while in downtown Houston and then a lot of people told me that I should be in Austin because I was different and I was queer and out and proud.” 

Lee Dawn Hershey took the Houston bartending scene by storm. Lee spent the latter half of their 20s diving headfirst into the craft cocktail world in Austin where they worked closely with Tony Parker from the Spurs and a wide array of people such as Baby Bash and several Houston rappers. 

“That’s how Girls with Flare evolved, Hershey explained. “I was getting booked for all these big events with this private clientele and they're asking me, ‘Well, do you know someone that does this? You know, someone that does that.’ And I was like, ‘actually guys, here's my artillery.’ They told me I should be doing something with this. I was always outsourcing since I can remember. I've been giving away my cookies, giving away my toys to make sure that somebody felt good about themselves, even though I was dirt poor. Networking was always my favorite thing to do, especially with females, connecting them from point A to C without the B, which is bullshit, and we can run into that so much.” 

Girls with Flare became an all-female free agency production company that ended up booking an event for Ruby Rose twice within six months and one pride event. The company also did a South by Southwest (SXSW) showcase, which ended up being the largest unofficial showcase that SXSW had had in a while. However, Lee felt like something was still missing. 

“Someone out here in California ended up booking me in Los Angeles for Pride,” Lee said. “So, as I am out here doing my thing, I'm slamming in, I'm meeting all sorts of people, and something just went off in my head and 

“Go for it. Don't hold back, and when you walk into that room, leave it all on camera.”

I was like, this is it. This, this is what I've been missing. People have said, ‘Lee, you would be amazing in LA’ and I was like, ‘No way. It's too fast. It's crazy.’ Of course, I'm just listening to everything my dad had said about it and it's the one thing I listened to him about, but it was the best place I could be. I finally realized that's it. I went home, sold everything I had, and in two weeks I uprooted myself, packed my dog Baxter and said ‘Let’s get outta here girl.’” 

“The next thing you know I was found off of Instagram by Adidas and Stella McCartney, which is Stella Sport with Adidas, and I was the face for their spring-summer line in 2017 and that kind of blew the doors open,” Lee continued. “I had never even been to an audition. That was actually my first thing ever to even go in and be there in front of the camera and I was like, this is it. This is exactly what I was looking for. Cause it felt like I was going into a tryout, but it wasn't a tryout, and it felt like people were actually listening.” 

Lee ended up doing eleven national commercials last year and quite a few solo print jobs. They also booked jobs with their partner Julia, whom they met right after moving to Los Angeles. They ended up shooting for Madonna and Mercedes Benz, where they were asked to get engaged on camera. They were taken to the wedding chapel in Vegas to get married in a talking smart car with AI. The car was able to perform the marriage ceremony in the car for the commercial. The couple’s image is even in stores nationwide currently for T-Mobile with their dog. 

“We pretty much scooped each other off the scene. Julia's a graphic designer and a web designer and does a lot of branding for companies and just individuals. She was doing that full time when we got together as a freelancer and had more creative control to go with me to auditions. Once I signed with my agency, they sent me out, and then I got sent out to another one and they were like, ‘You're gay, right? So does that mean you have a wife?’ I said ‘I have a partner,’ and so we went and we killed it. I called the agency and told them that they are missing out on quite a bit by not having Julia on the roster as well. I feel like she's so talented on her own that you can send her out alone, and then you can send us together and boom.” 

With all of the success that they had, it made sense to ask Lee what advice they would give to young up and coming models. 

“Go for it. Don't hold back, and when you walk into that room, leave it all on camera. Before you walk in the room don't have any expectations because, if that role is right for you then you will get it, and if that role is not right for you, then you won't get it. It has nothing to do with you as a person. The next one will be even bigger.” 

You can follow Lee Dawn Hershey via Instagram at @leedawnhershey for more information about their work, the film set to release this year, and their many other projects. 

Read More: