‘Drag Race’ All Stars dish on new season
Silence! “Drag Race“host Rupaul has made her decision.
The seventh season of “Rupaul’s Drag Race: All Stars” (streaming Fridays on Paramount+) features a cast entirely made up of previous winners for the first time in the show’s history. Well, “her”story, if we abide by Rupaul’s vivacious vernacular.
“Drag Race” in the U.S. typically airs two seasons a year: a “regular” season featuring more than a dozen drag queens new to the franchise, and a spinoff “all stars” season, giving standout queens who already competed on the main show another chance at the crown (and cash prize). In a regular season, queens compete weekly, with host Rupaul sending them packing throughout the season when he deems it fit.
But this is “All Stars,” honey, and the winners’ twist is just the beginning.
In this cycle, no one gets the chop. Each week’s winners collect a star, and those with the most stars will get the chance to win a new title: Queen of Queens. But will the queens sabotage each other’s chances of snatching the crown week after week?
“It didn’t remove the stakes,” says Yvie Oddly, who won Season 11 of the original “Rupaul’s Drag Race.” “In fact, it made the stakes that much higher, because you knew you were going to be there every week. What it did was remove the fear of failure. And that’s something that I think we all carry with us in our everyday lives, what keeps us from taking these major risks and doing things that might not turn out for us because you’re afraid to fail.”
USA TODAY spoke with six of the season’s eight drag queens on an uproarious, uplifting Zoom call – sans drag, so (literally) no filter: Raja (Season 3 winner); Monét X Change (All Stars 4 winner); Jinkx Monsoon (Season 5 winner); Shea Couleé (All Stars 6 winner); The Vivienne (UK Season 1 winner); and Oddly.
Jaida Essence Hall (Season 12 winner) and Trinity The Tuck (All Stars 4 winner) were (sadly) unable to attend and were interviewed later.
Q: Did you all have reservations about returning to the franchise? Were you concerned about revisiting competitive drag after already establishing your legacies?
Raja: I did. It’s been 11 years since I was on TV doing drag in a competition setting. I was, to be very honest, pretty terrified, because drag has changed so much. I’m not sure if I had kept up in style and relevance. I’d seen a lot of my friends who had gone on “All Stars” have a sudden resurgence of popularity, and (seen) their followers just climbing. And that’s exciting, so I wanted a piece of that, at the very least.
Monét X Change: People obviously have built this crazy rivalry between myself and Trinity because we both won on “All Stars 4,” but that wasn’t there. I didn’t really have any reservations. “Drag Race” is one of my favorite shows on television. I love watching it. Since I’ve been off this show, every time I see a challenge, I’m like, “I’d like to do that again.”
Jinkx Monsoon: I had a lot of reservations because I feel like I found my little pocket within the drag world and what I do best and where I fit most into the drag world and the “Rupaul’s Drag Race” franchise at large. But in the last few years, I feel like I’ve been very proud of myself and the work I’ve done on myself as a human being, so I thought if I’m ever going to do it, it’s right now. It was a “speak now or forever hold your peace” kind of thing.
The Vivienne: You get to expand so much as an artist and do things that you surprise yourself with, never thought you were capable of, and your true fans will never see you in a different light. They will always see you as their winner. And why the hell not?
Trinity The Tuck: I was excited to be part of this because if, for some reason, they don’t have another one, I wanted to say I did that because it’s making history. But when I was starting to prepare for the show, I just wasn’t in a “competition” mood. I wasn’t feeling competitive. But girl, as soon as I got there, it all just started coming back to me.
Q: What did you all like about this season’s format? Did it feel like the stakes weren’t as high because nobody was going home?
Yvie: In a format like this, where you knew that nobody was going home, it allowed a lot of us to go balls to the walls. If you’re not doing good, then at least do bad crazily, crazily fun. (laughs)
Raja: I would’ve hated the idea of spending so much money on preparing for this and then being sent home. That would have killed me. I would have been very disappointed. It took that edge off of it. I’m not going to lie, about halfway through I was like, “I wish I could go home.”
Shea Couleé: It was really fun to be able to come back and know that you would be able to participate in all of the runways, all of the challenges. I know this is kind of like a weird example. But I just watched that Netflix series “School of Chocolate,” where everyone competes together, but nobody goes home. And so you watch these people who are students of this chocolate master get better and better and stronger at their craft. And it’s actually really touching to see people compete and learn and grow, all at the same time. And I felt like that’s kind of what we got to do in this experience. And I felt like it made us as a cast closer because we got to experience every single part of this competition together.
Q: As queer people we often talk about queer struggles, but I’m wondering if you could tell me about a huge moment of joy that you had during filming?
The Vivienne: (This season) restored my faith in queens as a whole. Because it is a winner’s season and we all have such a shared experience. We all won and we all know we’re talented. We all know that (the) people in this room are some of the best of the best. Every queen on this season is phenomenal.
When it comes to the looks, I think this season is going to be unparalleled to anything that’s ever been made.
Drag has become – partly because of social media and some fans – such a toxic place. But it didn’t feel like that when we were filming this. It felt positive, it felt like a celebratory season to show what this craft is. And it is an art form. And we are here to show the best of what we’ve got to push each other up.
Q: The franchise has been criticized in the past for a lack of diversity among winners. There have been many Black queens, like many of you here. There’s been more inclusive trans and nonbinary representation on the show. It seems to be now in a spot where it’s becoming more inclusive than ever. What has that transition meant to all of you?
Yvie: I don’t know what the right word is. It’s not “restored my faith” in “Drag Race,” but I reaffirmed the reasons that I fell in love with the show to begin with. And that’s because it highlights queer culture, and it puts it at the forefront in a way that’s just so fun to take in. So with “Drag Race” opening up the boundaries of who it casts and who they’re crowning, with every step they take towards representing more and more people, more of our community has an opportunity to be a part of it. I know that there’s still boxes, if you will, that need to be checked. But I’m just proud to be a part of a franchise that’s actively trying to do its best to show people who are marginalized in the world in the most beautiful light.
Raja: I’m the only Asian-american winner. I felt a certain responsibility this time, more than I did the first time, to really showcase that as much as I can and represent because it hasn’t happened since. I think it’s great for us to show the diversity of what drag is. It’s very, very important. There’s still more work to do. I think there’s still room for other types of queens to win this competition. It’s important to be visible.
The Vivienne: As the only British (person) in the workroom, I felt very underrepresented!
Q: Which queen were you most nervous about competing against this time around?
Monet: I’m going to say Raja. Raja was (on) the first season of “Drag Race” I watched from the beginning. Honestly, Raja made me obsessed with “Drag Race.” I was like, “she’s so cool.” Every time she walked on the runway, it would blow my wig off, and I’ve been bald for 20 years.
Yvie: I was most nervous about competing with Jinkx, for a lot of the same reasons the other girls have stated for Raja. I was watching you guys when I was in high school (laughs).
Jinkx: Don’t say it! Don’t say it! Monet: That is wild.
Yvie: I was watching you guys on TV and relating to these things. And with Jinkx specifically, I just related to how much of an oddball and (an) other she was. A lot of her talents and passions and her acting are all things that I shared. So I was like, “if she could win a season with those runways ... “
Jinkx: I’m very excited to have a season to show off marginally improved fashion.
Shea: I’m excited for people to see your runways. I’m excited for them to see everyone’s runways, but I really am excited because you really did the damn thing. So give yourself a pat on the back.
Jinkx:(pats self on back) We all had our own personal dragon we came to slay, no pun intended, but we had our own hero’s journey each of us were on, and we got to go through that together as the Avengers of drag.
The Vivienne: As we are now known. Q: This is a difficult time for the LGBTQ community with a lot of ANTILGBTQ legislation around the U.S. What do you think drag means to the queer community, and how can it be helpful during this era where LGBTQ rights are really prominently under attack?
Jinkx: When you get to know us as human beings, you get to understand different aspects of the community. You get to see the people who are actually members of this community, not just our characters and our personas and our images, but our hearts and our souls. That’s one of the most important things that “Drag Race” provides the world. In America, we’re experiencing all of this backlash to the progress we’ve experienced recently. But this happens everywhere. There’s an ebb and flow of progress.
Yvie: Drag is so important in these times, because it forces everybody to question all of these small, little intersectional pieces of their own identity and the identities of those around them. Your first time going to a drag show, you might be hung up on like, “What’s the gender of the performer really underneath the makeup?” At least I remember that’s what attracted me like, “Wow, I cannot believe these are men dressing up as women.” And then the more you experience it, the more you get to see the pieces of everybody that really make up who they are and how they express themselves. And it goes so much deeper than gender, than race, than nationality. You get to see our queer human souls out on display, covered in layers and layers of makeup.
Jinkx: And glue.
Jaida Essence Hall: (”Drag Race” is) the thing that I wish that I had growing up, especially being a queer person. I always wished growing up that I would see more people like myself on TV. I had Ru as an example. And Ru was and has always been a great example to a lot of us. But to see so many different people with so many different backgrounds, so many different stories coming together, it makes me feel good.
Trinity: It’s super important to just have visibility for all types of people of all walks of life. Specifically for our community, there (are) so many different types of representatives that have been on the show from all genders, all ethnicities, religious backgrounds, from different parts of the country, different parts of the world, and to show that diversity, to share those stories can hopefully help someone who’s not familiar with someone in our community.