Watch out, "RuPaul's Drag Race," because Central Jersey has arrived.

Jan, who grew up in Old Bridge, will be among the 13 queens competing for the title of America's next drag superstar and a grand prize of $100,000 when the Emmy-winning pop culture juggernaut returns to VH1 for its 12th season 8 p.m. Friday, Feb. 28, followed by the 9:30 p.m. season premiere of the post-show "RuPaul's Drag Race: Untucked."

"You know, Jersey is all about the attitude," said Jan, 26. "It's all about having pride in yourself and what you believe in. And I definitely have pride in what I do and what I believe in."

Born in Staten Island then raised in Middlesex County, Jan said the roots of her drag career trace back to her time a student at St. Thomas the Apostle, a Catholic elementary school in Old Bridge, and acting in a production of "Oklahoma" there.

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Jan went to high school at Christian Brothers Academy in the Lincroft section of Middletown.

"I went to an all boys Catholic school, and now I'm a drag queen," she noted, adding, "I don't know if many alumni from CBA have followed in suit, but I feel like I'm trailblazing the way.

"It's by fate that all of this happened," said Jan. "I never really sought out drag. I was always interested in it but it's never something that i thought I would be pursuing as a career."

But Jan took a class on the art of drag while studying at Boston Conservatory at Berklee, and left feeling inspired. Then, while working as a performer on a cruise ship, she found herself in Dubai.

"It's conservative there and I felt that I couldn't express myself fully," Jan said. "So what I would do is I would go on land and I would go to the Dubai mall and I would buy makeup and I would come back onto the ship and I would do my makeup and I would ask the girls, anybody who did makeup in the cast, to help me out. And I kind of found this face that was like a beauty, glamour face and I would pop on a wig and call it macaroni."

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She returned to New York City a couple of months later, and a friend noted that the look she'd developed bore a resemblance to reality television star Kris Jenner. Jan decided to create a mix routine combining dialogue excerpts from the matriarch's "Keeping Up with the Kardashians" and the "Les Miserable" ballad "I Dreamed a Dream." It was a number that quickly took her to competition success.

"And I never looked back," Jan said. "And I try to incorporate elements of that, creating a story and an arc through my numbers each and every time I create something new. It's not strung together without trying to display a narrative."

Creating narrative-based numbers, Jan explained, serves to connect her with her audience.

"I find that it helps with people getting on board with you and subscribing to what you are putting out to everybody.," she said. "If you have a story, whether you're telling it in a full theater production or you're just trying to tell a short story in five minutes through a mix, then you can connect to people. And I think that that's what makes my drag so much fun for me, the connection that I can have with people through the stories that I tell."

Under the mentorship of drag mother and "Drag Race" Season Nine competitor Alexis Michelle (also known for her Kris Jenner impersonation skills), Jan enters "Drag Race" with three-and-a-half years' experience in the business.

"Drag Race" famously pits different styles — classic pageant queens, performance artists, skilled singers and dancers, those skilled at serving stunning looks — in a survival of the fiercest. Jan said she found the environment to be inspiring.

"I'm somebody who likes to think I am malleable enough to take something from another type of drag and apply it to my own drag in a unique way," she said. "I've learned something from every single one of my sisters on this season, so it's inspiring to me. It pushes me to be better than I was when I entered onto the show and to keep pushing that envelope and to keep pushing my drag to higher heights and coming up with more unique ways to tell stories and connect with audiences."

And while she's not giving away any spoilers, Jan said something special is in store for "Drag Race," Season 12.

"This is a season that people are really, really going to be excited about," she said. "I'm excited about it. I obviously know what's going on, but I think that audiences are going to really, really fall in love with this show in a different way than they've ever fallen in love with it before, which is exciting to be a part of."