RuPaul critique didn’t make ‘sense’

The latest queen to sashay away from RuPaul’s Drag Race UK has shared her thoughts on the RuPaul critique that didn’t make “sense”, and addressed the drama behind the Roast Challenge running order.

Warning: Sickening spoilers ahead for episode nine of RuPaul’s Drag Race UK.

Drag Race UK season six is really getting down to the wire, with next week’s grand final looming large over the final four queens.

As fans on social media have said, it’s tough to see any of the competitors leave the contest, considering this year’s cohort of queens are some of the very best in Drag Race UK herstory.

Yet this week was particularly hard, as it was Manchester-based people’s princess Lill who ended up getting the boot.

Roast week saw her mess up jokes not once, but twice, as her “mind was completely blank”. But like a true entertainer, she continued the show, and made RuPaul, and the audience – season six’s eliminated queens – howl with laughter in the process.

But during the judges’ deliberations, RuPaul seemed to find another fault with Lill’s performance in the competition so far, saying: “We’ve been waiting for Lill to let loose, and to really show us that fun, frivolous, exciting part of her.”

Speaking exclusively to PinkNews, Lill reflected on why RuPaul’s comments don’t make complete “sense”.

“To be honest, I thought that they’d seen that side of me and they’ve been complimenting that side of me, so that didn’t necessarily make the biggest amount of sense to me,” she admitted.

Fans would argue that Lill’s sense of “fun” has been well and truly on display, from her Snatch Game performance as Queen Victoria, to her kooky cabaret performance in episode one.

“But do you know what,” Lill continued, “the judges… that’s their opinion. They’re allowed their opinion, but I’m also allowed not to listen to it. Do you know what I mean? So it’s fine, like, whatever.”

Someone else who had an opinion to share during the episode was frontrunner La Voix.

After the previous week’s lip-sync survivor Rileasa Slaves was tasked with ordering the Roast line-up, she originally put La Voix in third, and Lill in fourth. Yet after Lill expressed worry about going straight after known comedic genius La Voix, Rileasa swapped the two of them.

The comedy queen didn’t seem too thrilled at place being swapped, though. 

“I think she might have been a little but [annoyed], you know. I think she might’ve been a tiny, teensy weensy bit,” Lill laughed. “It was just a sense that I got. You know when someone’s pretending that they’re annoyed but there’s levels to it, because they’re actually annoyed. I feel like that’s what it was.”

Lill continued: “But also, why did she care? She knew she was going to be the best one anyway.”

For mysterious reasons, the ordering of the Roast line-up always seems to be something that causes tension among the queens. 

“I think there’s loads of things like that on Drag Race though isn’t there, where there’s like, not a trope, but a tradition of people putting a lot of emphasis on something that maybe isn’t that important,” Lill reasoned.

“Because they’ve seen loads of seasons of it already, it’s kind of become its one thing, when it actually just isn’t really a thing.”

During the episode, Lill confessed that she wasn’t “delusional” and knew she would end up in the bottom two. Considering she was dressed as Marilyn Monroe in a vinyl gimp suit, she knew also that she wasn’t likely to win the lip-sync.

“I definitely knew that [losing] was something that was likely to happen, because I was so uncomfortable. I could barely move, could barely breathe, couldn’t hear anything because I had the hood over my ears… It was a lot,” she said.

“I was so sweaty. I was exhausted. I wasn’t really at my prime to be doing a lip-sync, but I thought, you know what, I’m gonna have fun. I’m gonna have a laugh, and if they decide to keep me on, then that’s a bonus. If not, then it’s been a ball.”

While her Drag Race time is up for now, she’s not closing the door on the competition completely, revealing that she would be up for an All Stars Ruturn – but not until way down the line.

“One day, in the distant future,” she shared of a possible comeback. “But I need a massive break first. I’ve got loads of bits and bobs coming up so, gonna see where that takes me for now. And then who knows? If they ask me!”

Drag Race UK is streaming on BBC iPlayer now.

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