Draft:Madame Yoko

Madame Yoko, real name Ian Lejeune, born 1990 in Cần Thơ (Vietnam), is a Belgian drag queen, founder and owner of Cabaret Madame (Barnum) in Redange-sur-Attert (Luxembourg).

Youth and education
Born in Can-Tho, Ian Lejeune was adopted at the age of three by Belgian parents. He grew up in Radelange, near Martelange, close to the Luxembourg border. His father, Jean-Pol Lejeune, was an English teacher at the Athénée Royale in Athus. His mother, Marie-Paule Huberty, is a retired primary school teacher in Martelange. An only child, Ian Lejeune grew up in a family sensitive to art and literature. His father was a freelance journalist for the newspaper La Meuse and also a collector of comic strips. This led Ian to choose his stage name Yoko, based on the comic strip Yoko Tsuno, which his father read to him as a young child. He is also the cousin of writer Patrick McGuinness, who writes about his father and Ian in his book "Other people's countries: A journey into memory".

After completing his secondary education at the Athénée Royale in Arlon, although he would have liked to study stage design, his parents urged him to study interior design instead, first at the ESA Saint-Luc in Liège and then in Brussels. He obtained his Master's degree with a specialization in conservation of built heritage in 2015.

It was in August 2015 that he discovered the world of drag for the first time, when he accompanied his long-time friend, director Quentin Van Roye, to a drag show at the Boule Rouge in Brussels.

Career
Madame Yoko was born on April 16, 2016, when Ian Lejeune performed for the first time on the Boule Rouge stage in Brussels, at the invitation of his Drag Mother, Catherine d'Oex. On this occasion, he was still known as Lady Sushi, a name he later changed to Madame Yoko. For two years, he performed regularly on the Boule Rouge stage, making regular trips back and forth between Brussels and Luxembourg, where he worked.

During this period, Madame Yoko appeared alongside Leona Winter, LaDiva Live, Catherine d'Oex and Lara Fullcamp.

On December 2, 2018, she took part in Luxembourg's first Drag contest "Drag against AIDS" and won the crown. It was on this occasion that she first met her future Drag daughter, Medusa Venom, against whom she won the lip-sync contest. At the end of this adventure, she became the spokesperson for the "HIV-Berodung" of the Luxembourg Red Cross as part of the "Sidaction " AIDS prevention project.

In September 2023, Madame Yoko took part in the filming of the second season of Drag Race Belgium (broadcast in 2024), where she finished in eighth place.

Brasserie Barnum - Cabaret Madame
In 2019, after working for a time as a manager in a painting company and as a salesman in an interior design company, Ian Lejeune opens his own restaurant with cabaret in Luxembourg, Cabaret Madame, with his partner Alex Goedert.