The latest queen to sashay away from RuPaul’s Drag Race UK vs The World season two has reflected on why she thinks she was ‘set up to fail’ during a moment with RuPaul that made her feel “so uncomfortable”, and spoken out about why she wanted Michelle Visage to “give her a break”.
Warning: spoilers for episode five of RuPaul’s Drag Race UK vs The World season two follow.
Following last week’s Snatch Game episode that saw fierce competitor and Drag Race Holland star Keta Minaj shockingly get the chop, this week (8 March) the remaining seven queens were tasked with starring in a Rusical, Seven: Confessions of a Drag Queen.
Which means that, yep, it was another performance-based challenge. And for Drag Race UK queen Gothy Kendoll, who floundered during the Snatch Game, it meant that she was headed straight for the bottom two, for the second week in a row and third time overall.
After she was given a chance and saved by her fellow British queen Tia Kofi last week, this time, the odds were not ever in her favour. Tia landed in the top two once again, but it was Drag Race Philippines star Marina Summers who won the lip-sync, and ultimately sent Gothy packing.
Speaking exclusively to PinkNews following her elimination, Gothy explained that she didn’t mind being sent home this episode, as she had “so much fun” with the challenge. The same can’t be said, however, for her time on Snatch Game.
Ahead of last week’s celebrity impersonation challenge, RuPaul held a walkthrough with the competing queens, asking them to try out their impressions. When it came to Gothy, Ru made her repeat her Ozzy Osbourne impression several times, jokingly threatening to “beat her up” if she didn’t. Let’s just say, it was excruciating to watch.
“It was way worse in person. It was so, so horrible,” Gothy reflects.
And what makes it worse? In the initial walkthrough, Gothy told RuPaul that she was going to be doing Kim Woodburn, and all went well. Then, the show’s producers intervened, Gothy claims.
“We’d finished the walkthrough and then the producer ran over and said to Ru, ‘oh, what did Gothy want to do for her Snatch Game on season one’, and then we started the walk through over again.
“So I was like, ‘ah, we just had a really nice one and now we have to redo it’. I was so annoyed,” Gothy laughs.
Gothy explains that while some contestants “thrive” off RuPaul’s “tough love”, she definitely does not.
“It really does make me feel way worse and just completely shut down. I just couldn’t do anything in that moment,” she says, adding that she could envision how the conversation would be edited, and that it wouldn’t bode well for her.
“I just knew in the moment, this is just gonna be so horrible, like, the way it’s gonna be edited. I think it set me up to fail in Snatch Game.”
Gothy also thinks that RuPaul could have tried to get her out of her shell in other ways.
“There was definitely other ways around it. I know that we’re there to make a TV show, but it really did make me feel so uncomfortable. I really don’t like being put on the spot like that.”
Despite the awkward moment, Gothy maintains that RuPaul was truly rooting for her to do well.
“I could tell that she wanted me to be there; I think she was getting frustrated with me being in my own way. I think she wanted to put me on the spot just to see how I would react. But obviously, she saw how I reacted, which was by not saying a word!”
Another person who evidently wanted Gothy to do well, but kept reminding her that she wasn’t, was Michelle Visage. During the critiques of the Rusical, Visage said, with a hint of sadness in her voice, that she didn’t think Gothy “was there yet” as a drag performer.
“She said it to me every episode. I think they’ve probably only put it in this one but it was like, ‘Alright Michelle, I get it’,” Gothy remembers.
“I also agree. I am a drag DJ at the end of the day, so to be thrown in with some of the best drag queens in the world in a live performance format, I was already out of my depth.
“I definitely do agree to a certain extent but also I was just having so much fun and I definitely did myself proud considering the first season [where Gothy was eliminated in week one]. So, I could see what she was saying but also, just give me a break,” Gothy adds.
She thinks that Visage was, by the end of episode five, “over” her.
“I could totally understand because I think she wants people to do their best, and when she’s seeing people who maybe aren’t as strong as the others, she’s maybe a bit tired of it. But I’m there to impress Ru.”
Plus, Visage might just have given her the perfect merchandise material.
“The best thing she said was on the branding challenge in episode three, where she said ‘Uniqueness ten, charisma, two’,” Gothy laughs.
“I’m going to have a t-shirt with it on.”
RuPaul’s Drag Race UK vs The World season two streams on BBC Three and BBC iPlayer at 9om every Friday.