Nashom Benjamin

Nashom Benjamin Wooden October 9 1969 March 23 2020 was an American performing artist Wooden was a member of the electronic dance music band The Ones and performed as a drag queen under the stage name Mona Foot He entered the New York nightlife scene as a Club Kid in the mid1980s By 1989 he worked in Manhattan running the mens clothing department at Patricia Fields boutique while developing the drag queen persona Mona Foot with his friend and former roommate Lady Bunny Wooden credits RuPaul as an early mentor RuPaul taught Wooden how to apply makeup and both appeared in an offBroadway play titled My Pet Homo As Mona Foot Wooden hosted the weekly drag competition Mona Foots Star Search at the New York gay bar Barracuda cited by The New York Times as a likely inspiration for the television series RuPauls Drag Race In 1997 Wooden began to work as a bartender and DJ at The Cock a gay bar In 1999 he appeared in drag in the comedydrama film Flawless Along with JoJo Americo and Paul Alexander as the music group The Ones Wooden cowrote and performed the 2001 song Flawless which peaked at 4 on the Billboard Dance Club Songs chart 7 in the United Kingdom and 2 in Belgium 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 Wooden gave his final performance as Mona Foot in 2018 where he revived the character for that years Wigstock to perform as Wonder Woman Wooden was HIVpositive though he had an undetectable viral load On March 23 2020 Wooden died at the age of 50 as a result of complications from a suspected case of COVID19 in New York in the midst of the COVID19 pandemic in New York City He was buried at GreenWood Cemetery in Brooklyn New York