In his final qualifying week RuPaul's Drag Race Season 16, the top four queens were given a crash course in an important part of their lives after the show – the art of branding.
On Friday's episode (aired April 5), the remaining contestants showed off their personalities by creating covers and excerpts from their own fake memoirs, before giving a series of interviews with Las Culturistas' Matt Rogers about their books.
For Nymphia Wind, the challenge turned into a triumph, with judges praising the star's vulnerability in her interview, as well as her striking look worn for the cover of her book – the queen claimed her long-awaited third win and a position in the final. Meanwhile, after much trouble from the judges, queens Plane Jane and Q found themselves at the bottom after performances that fell short of those of Wind and Sapphira Cristál.
Lip-synching to Tina Turner's 'Better Be Good to Me', the queens used every weapon in their respective arsenals to try and grab the final spot in the show's grand finale. Eventually, Plane Jane landed without much fuss, leaving fashion queen Q on the tarmac.
Below, Q chats with Advertising sign about her time on the show, her approach to landing some of her best looks on the runway, talking about living with HIV on national TV, and how she takes online hate from fans “one day at a time.”
You made it to the top four! How does it feel, looking back on your run, knowing you made it that far?
It felt really great — it's always been a dream to be on the show. Now, you know what happened, and here I am now, and I guess we'll see what comes of it in the future.
I wanted to reach out to you — I know your fan base was pretty die-hard and you finally decided to deactivate your X account a few weeks ago. How have you been feeling since you made this decision?
Prices? I'm fine. I'm trying to take it all one day at a time. I have days where it's not so great, and then other days where it really doesn't bother me at all. But it sure hasn't been as bad since I left X and disabled that account. I don't know, it definitely has… the online part of it all has definitely shaped a big part of this experience for me.
People really need to learn to stop taking this show so seriously.
Yes, sure, I agree. Here is hope.
In the show, you have to show your skills as a seamstress. Your approach to fashion, and especially style, is really refreshing for the show – what do you think makes your skills stand out?
Well first, thank you. I guess what I see as fashion and style is definitely a lot more theatrical than what someone else would see as fashion and style. It definitely comes from my theater background, and so sometimes, I really try to lean into that and try to make my costumes a lot more grandiose and costume-y. And that's where a lot of my taste level comes from, I think.
Did you have a favorite look you wore on the runway this season?
Oh man. Yes, I really liked it floral corridor. I think it was my absolute favorite that I did all season.
This was a very different kind of challenge for this season, where you were essentially tasked with not only branding yourself, but being really open and vulnerable. How hard did it feel right now?
Honestly, he didn't touch this challenging — I thought I was doing well until I got on stage and got my reviews. But since there were only four of us left, we literally all thought we did pretty well this week before we hit the main stage. When you get there, it's really the first time you really get a gauge of how you did when it's so late in the competition.
You've also shared a lot with your sisters already by this point in the season — how it felt to publicly talk about living with HIV back in episode 11?
Yes, it felt great! I did it because, I thought if I could help one person who felt the way I did when I was diagnosed, then it would be worth it. Having people come up to me now, saying it helped them, really helped me realize it was worth talking about on the show.
What did you think of Plane's? now-viral response at once;
It really didn't seem like as big of a deal at the time as it has since, to be honest. At that point we had heard very More amazing things come out of Plane Jane's mouth, so that was nothing!
Before we let you go, I wanted to ask — is there any music you've been listening to lately?
I mean, I'm always the one with Artpop on repeat all day since it came out. I'm big on “Venus”, personally.
from our partners at https://www.billboard.com/culture/pride/drag-race-q-online-hate-top-four-1235652141/
