Maxi Shield

Kristopher Elliot was born in Ballina, New South Wales on 1 June 1974.^[1][2][3][4]

Maxi Shield performed at the 2000 Olympic Games closing ceremony and opened the Gay Games in 2002. She competed on the first season of RuPaul's Drag Race Down Under.^[5][6][7] She impersonated Magda Szubanski during the Snatch Game challenge.^[8] Maxi Shield was eliminated from the competition after placing in the bottom two of the make-over challenge, then losing a lip-sync battle against Scarlet Adams.^[9][10] She appeared at RuPaul's DragCon UK on numerous occasions after competing on Drag Race.^[11]

In 2020, Maxi Shield and fellow Drag Race contestant Hannah Conda attempted to set a new world record for the largest Drag Queen Story Time event at Oxtravaganza.^[12][13] In 2023, Maxi Shield played Maxine Fowler in the film The Winner Takes It All.^[14][15][16]

Elliot was based in Sydney^[17][18] and was an Oxford Street Safety Ambassador for the City of Sydney.^[19][20]

In 2017, Maxi Shield starred in a HIV prevention video campaign run by ACON titled "This HIV Testing Week, Testing Doesn't Have To Be A Drag"^[21]. Maxi was selected by ACON for this role due to her being "tremendously talented" and highly recognisable by members of the Sydney LGBTQIA+ community, as well as her status as a community leader and her role as Oxford Street Safety Ambassador^[22]. In 2022, Maxi Shield participated in the "We're Better Than That" campaign to prevent domestic violence, having experienced it as a child^[23][24].

In September 2025, Elliot announced that he had been diagnosed with throat cancer, for which he began receiving treatment.^[25] He died five months after being diagnosed, on 21 February 2026, at the age of 51.^[26]

• List of people from Sydney