Drag

Drag Race icon Mo Heart on toxic fans, UK vs The World drama and ‘beautiful’ conversion therapy chat

Mo Heart in a red and white jumpsuit

Mo Heart. (BBC)

Drag Race is best known for delivering oodles of drama, sickening runway looks and side-splittingly funny one-liners on any given season.

But, of course, fans of the show will know it also occasionally acts as a vehicle through which to tell important stories about the queens’ lives and the struggles they may have faced. A great example of this would be the recent episode of Drag Race UK vs The World, which saw fan favourite Mo Heart confide in her fellow queens about her religious upbringing and her harrowing experience of undergoing conversion therapy.

Addressing the viewers, Mo Heart took the opportunity to implore anyone considering conversion against it. “For those who feel like they need to go through conversion therapy, Imma tell you that you don’t,” she said. “Don’t waste your time or your money. You are enough.”

Mo told PinkNews ahead of the highly-anticipated Drag Race UK vs The World finale that she was thrilled with how the conversation came across on screen.

“I think it was beautiful,” she said. “I think it was very, very tender.

“The response that I’ve seen from people and how they just connected with it, people who struggle with their faith, people who walked away from their faith because they were like ‘Christianity says X, Y and Z so I can’t’… It was beautiful.”

She added: “It’s weird to play back because you’re going back to a time that’s very, very traumatic. It’s beautiful and terrible at the same time… much like childbirth, I guess!”

Mo Heart.

Mo Heart. (BBC)

Later in our chat, Mo reflected on recent claims from eliminated queen Jimbo that there was favouritism shown to certain queens, namely Baga Chipz and Jujubee. To this, Mo had little sympathy, quipping: “Remind me, who went home?”

“Producers didn’t keep them,” Mo weighed in. “RuPaul didn’t keep them. OK? So you can say there was favoritism between whichever queens picked the lipsticks… but there’s no production [manipulation]. That’s just not real.

“And for her to say ‘Oh, there was favouritism,’ well… let’s play the full tape back, baby. That’s why she went home. OK? It wasn’t for the neck injury, was it?

“We love her, she’s just upset but is this the end of her career? No.”

Thai queen Pangina famously faced extreme criticism and trolling from fans for her decision to send Jimbo home, with some so-called “fans” even resorting to sending racist and bigoted abuse her way on social media. Sadly, the Drag Race Thailand star is not the first queen to be on the receiving end of racism from the show’s fandom.

We asked Mo why she believes this sort of hateful vitriol is so prevalent amongst the online community of Drag Race fans. “I think we live in a digital age and anybody can say anything,” she said. “I don’t think it’s just the fandom for Drag Race, I think if we were in other spaces we would see the same things.

“Twitter was going crazy when there were like five black people in Big Brother [in the US] and they had an alliance, you know what I mean? So I don’t think there’s a difference. I think how we can stop going around in circles is actually like somehow doing [something about it].

“When we started to receive death threats over here, the BBC was like, ‘We want to know’, so they could therefore send, like, essentially the police or whoever after them to make sure that this does not continue. I think that is when you might go: ‘Oh, there are consequences for my words.’ There are no consequences right now so people will continue to say whatever they want.

Queens receiving death threats for their comments or actions on the show has become all too common of an occurrence in recent years. “I got that I said when I said Valentina needs to go home,” Mo revealed. “I got: ‘You Black n****r!’ for saying a girl should go home.

“This is the internet so there are no rules. And if there are rules, people will learn how to get around them. So I don’t know. I just kind of feel like, yeah, it sucks to get a death threat but if you look at it, like bitch, you’re not the bitch down the street from me, you probably in another country! So I don’t care.

“Pangina had to hire bodyguards. That’s real. So when it’s at that place, it’s a completely different game. But there just needs to be like consequences.”

Reflecting on what was her third stint on the show, and her second appearance in a finale, Mo admitted she felt “very honoured and thankful.”

And as for how she might advise someone else to reach the top four on future seasons of UK vs The World? “Cut the strongest bitch immediately!”

She also agreed with her fellow finalist Blu Hydrangea, who said she would advise future queens to make sure they had seen the international spin-offs of the show so they know who they are up against. “You should know who Janey Jacké is because I certainly did not,” Mo cackled.

The finale of RuPaul’s Drag Race UK vs The World airs Tuesday (8 March) at 9pm on BBC Three.

 

 

 

 

, who previously opened up about wanting show LGBT+ people of faith that you can be both a sickening drag queen and a spiritual person.

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