Drag Race legend Mariah Paris Balenciaga reveals she was ‘cringing’ over All Stars lip sync
Mariah Paris Balenciaga captivated fans with her All Stars 5 variety performance. (Netflix)
Drag Race superstar Mariah Paris Balenciaga opened up about her All Stars 5 exit and her instantly iconic variety show performance.
Almost a decade after she was introduced to the world on Drag Race season 3, Mariah – aka Mariah Paris, aka Mariah Successful — returned for an all too short stint on All Stars 5.
Mariah wowed fans – and guest judge Ricky Martin, if not the rest of the panel – in week one with a powerful spoken word piece on racism, which she told The Advocate was written six years ago.
“America is just the white canvas, or the blank wall, so to speak,” she said.
“The luxuries that this country has is because [of] … the blood, sweat, and tears of disenfranchised and people of colour: Latino, Black, and indigenous people.
“And they’re not the ones benefiting from it. I wrote the poem six years ago, and I was just thinking about the fact that the painting that is so shiny, that is America, used oils and mediums that are really ugly. And that is the pain. That’s the stain on the wall.”
Drag Race’s white queens need to do more when it comes to racism, says Mariah.
Mariah says that although she hasn’t personally come up against racist abuse from Drag Race fans, she has witnessed other queens being targeted with vile abuse.
The white queens of the franchise must do more to speak up, she said.
“Hold each other accountable. White queens, hold white fans accountable for what they say.
“Don’t just act like you didn’t see it — because you see everything else on your social media, somehow you’re not seeing the racism that’s happening, or you’re blissfully unaware?”
Addressing her untimely All Stars 5 exit, Mariah said that the lip sync between Jujubee and assassin Monet X Change, to “Juice” by Lizzo, left her “cringing” for a very specific reason: she starred in an alternate version of the song’s video with the singer.
“For that to be the performance that was determining whether I might stay or might go, and it was going down like that?” she said.
“I was just like, just tap me in! Let me lip-sync for my own legacy! Let me lip-sync for my own life! I wanted to redeem myself from season three.
“I wanted to go and show how I could nail a f**king song.”
