Spoiler Alert: But, honey if you haven’t seen the Season finalé by now WHAT ARE you waiting for?
Sasha Velour, in her first performance pulled her wig off to a flutter of rose petals during the climax of Whitney Houston’s So Emotional and made it into Drag Race herstory. The Season 9 reigning queen of RuPaul’s Drag Race snatched the crown with double whammy of Whitney talked to Vanity Fair and spilled the T on those performances and a Britney surprise she had up her leg.
“I knew that the lip-sync had to be really, really show-stopping, since we were really battling each other for the crown. I like to have some element of storytelling beyond my face or my costume or my movement. The rose petals came to mind because the idea of like, “He loves me, he loves me not,” because of that song. I prepared completely different reveals and performances for each of the different numbers.
What would your Britney Spears number have been?
I had scissors strapped to my thighs when I stepped out onto the stage and I was going to cut the wig until I was bald. [Laughs]
Some fans were worried the sudden-death lip-sync might invalidate all the work you did over the course of the season. What would you say to those fans?
The work from the season is what got us in the top four [laughs]. The judges felt like they needed more information to determine which of us was going to climb to the top of the pack. It had to be more information than is provided in a typical finale. So I think that they switched it up to see who has the real traditions of drag, which is speaking in front of a live audience and then giving amazing shows that take people on an amazing journey. In some ways it’s more in keeping with the traditions of drag than the show necessarily has been in the past. I thought it was thrilling [laughs], but obviously I’m biased.
What do you see yourself doing now that you have this prize money?
The most important thing is I put the money in creative projects that I’ve been working on for a while. I have an art magazine about drag called Velour, named after myself, and I have a monthly show called Nightgowns that curates and presents some of the most creative and high-quality drag in a professional theater setting. I want to take this projects on the road and use them to connect and curate drag across the country and the world, and connect small-town drag with big-city drag. I want to follow in RuPaul’s footsteps, which is that combination of not just personal stardom, but to really transform myself into a producer of drag. That’s the way to make a lasting impact on the world of drag and . . . to make actual differences in the queer community. I think there’s no better model for that than RuPaul.“
You can read the full interview here at Vanity Fair. But in the meantime here’s Sasha’s two winning performances and the moment she won.
Watch.
(via Vanity Fair)
