Scarlet Envy speaks to PinkNews following her Drag Race UK Vs The World departure (BBC)
The seventh queen to depart from season two of Drag Race UK vs the World has claimed that the decision to eliminate her was “personal” – and that she tried to get the top two queens to “pull a Pangina” and send her rival home.
Warning: spoilers for episode seven of Drag Race UK vs the World season two follow.
After last week’s “Strictly Come Prancing” dance challenge saw Newcastle’s spiciest sausage Choriza May depart from the competition, the five remaining international queens were tasked with a roast challenge, set at the wedding of Michelle Visage and Graham Norton.
With one queen from five separate franchises in the semi-final, the stakes were higher than ever.
Drag Race Down Under‘s Hannah Conda and Drag Race UK star Tia Kofi landed themselves their respective third and fourth top two placements, thanks to a variety of dad jokes and clever quips.
Due to a classic “if you’re not in the top, you’re in the bottom” twist from Mama Ru, Drag Race France‘s La Grande Dame, Drag Race Philippines‘ Marina Summers and flagship franchise star Scarlet Envy all found themselves having to plead their case for a spot in next week’s reunion and lip-sync smackdown for the crown.
Ultimately, Hannah nabbed her first RuPeter badge after triumphing over Tia in the lip-sync, and revealed that she’d chosen Scarlet to go home for the second week in a row – a move that Scarlet says felt “personal”.
“It did seem personal,” the season eleven and All Stars 6 alumni exclusively tells PinkNews.
“I never really picked up on her reasoning and her thoughts [for doing so]… I think it’s pretty apparent that it was personal. Especially that first lipstick pull was kind of shocking.”
At the beginning of the episode, Hannah Conda revealed that she had chosen to save Choriza May last week, and would have sent Scarlet Envy packing – despite her having the better track record.
“I was just really shocked. I think most most people probably will be. But what’s done is done, mama.”
Earlier in the season, Scarlet had said that she wasn’t necessarily going to send home the queens based on track record – even though when she did nab a RuPeter badge, she ended up conforming to that rubric and sending Jonbers packing.
When asked if she thinks she had a target on her back because of those early comments, she disagrees, declaring: “I think I had a target on my back before my entrance.”
The roast challenge was one that Scarlet hadn’t yet encountered in her illustrious Drag Race career. In typical Ms. Envy fashion though, she revealed that reading the judges was like “therapy” for her for grudges, which stretch all the way back to her first time on Drag Race in 2019.
“You only roast people that you love,” she laughs. “So I thought it was a really fun opportunity. And I was looking forward to this therapy to get to read some of the judges in a fun way… [It was my way of replying to] critiques from this year or five years ago, or any of them in between.”
The “five years” ago refers to Scarlet’s first Werk Room experience, on season 11 of RuPaul’s Drag Race – and the “in between” references her All Stars tenure. When quizzed on why she wanted to come back for round three, Scarlet teases that she had (and still has) “unfinished business”.
“When Ru calls, you answer,” she says. “The reason I came back was because I think I had some unfinished business. I think I had to do some things for myself, like Snatch Game – I was excited to deliver some things that took a couple years… and my business will never be finished.”
Despite Scarlet having good material and funny jokes in the roast, her performance landed her in the bottom. On the episode, Scarlet claimed that had there only been a bottom two, she would have been safe – a stance she sticks by.
“I don’t know what happened. Really? I mean, I don’t know. I thought they were funny jokes. It’s just one of the things on the final challenge of the series. You know, if you’re not in the top you’re in the bottom, but I don’t think it was a bottom performance necessarily.”
And then we come to the elimination: in Scarlet’s Werk Room chats, she did her absolute best to convince either Tia or Hannah to keep her around. Those tactics included trying to tempt Tia to “pull a Pangina” by eliminating the season’s strongest competitor, Marina Summers, instead.
In Drag Race UK vs The World season one, eventual winner Blu Hydrangea shockingly eliminated frontrunner and Drag Race Thailand judge Pangina Heals, much to the fury of the fandom.
“Of course I was [trying to convince Tia to eliminate Marina]! All bets are off,” Scarlet says.
“I was there to shake some s**t up,” she says, before adding that she’s “kind of glad” Tia Kofi didn’t cause a Pangina 2.0.
“I don’t really think that the blowback of that happening would have ended up being good for me. But I was throwing some wrenches in it.
“I think you when you start to see the writing on the wall, I kind of knew that it was going to be my time when I got thrown into the bottom.”
RuPaul’s Drag Race UK vs the World continues on BBC Three and BBC iPlayer every Friday at 9pm GMT.