Drag Race UK’s Sminty Drop explains iconic exit and reveals she had to ‘change entire character’
Sminty Drop. (BBC/World of Wonder/Guy Levy)
Drag Race UK eliminated queen Sminty Drop has said that having to lip-sync against Baby was ‘heartbreaking’ – and that her exit was an out-of-body experience.
The queens were challenged to flex their claws and improv skills in this week’s maxi challenge, Catty Man, a spoof of Alan Carr’s legendary talk show Chatty Man. Sminty, however, failed to wow the judges with her performance, landing in the bottom against fellow London queen, Baby.
Upon losing the lip-sync, Sminty performed a ‘sad-twerk’ instead of a classic exit line, in a moment that’s been hailed as the best exit since the iconic “Miss Vanjie”.
Speaking to PinkNews and other media, Sminty revealed what was going through her head at the time.
“When I got to the back of the stage, I was in such state that I literally couldn’t even form a sentence and I just felt my body sort of go into this weird position. And I was like, well, now we’re twerking. Now we’re going and I can’t stop. OK, and everyone’s laughing. OK, we’ll go with it.”
this is hands down the best exit on #dragraceuk ever!!! pic.twitter.com/zWMQLwhSKE
— Seddera Side (@sedderaside) October 13, 2022
Speaking about the performance that lander her in the bottom, Sminty revealed that she changed her character moments before going onstage.
“I had like a really deep raspy voice planned. And then I heard Dakota doing it before me. I was like, Oh my god, I’ve literally got to like really quickly change my entire character. And then the lights were on me and I was completely frozen, having an out of body experience. I just crumbled under the pressure.”
Joking about her elimination, the queen – who placed high in the previous episode’s design challenge – said she was chosen to sashay away probably because she was hogging the camera.
“They had to get rid of me to give somebody else some airtime, you know! It was a setup, it was that I had literally been such a camera hog! But I had such a good run in the four episodes I was there; I was there for a short time, and I was there for a bloody good time, and I made the most of it.”
That was a Vanjie level exit hahahah I love her SO much #DragRaceUK— jack rem (@jackremmington) October 13, 2022
When asked whether there was anything further that she wished she could have shown on the show, Sminty’s answer said, aside from a Rusical, it would be her friendship with Baby.
“Me and Baby literally were inseparable, we formed such a close connection. And I feel like people didn’t get to see that. And I was really, I was kind of upset that people, they’ve seen my character development, but they’ve not seen my development with somebody else as well.”
Sminty said it was “heartbreaking” to lip-sync against her friend.
Sminty Drop twerks in the ‘best exit since Vanjie’ (BBC)
“When it was announced that we were in the lip-sync, we couldn’t look at each other because we would just cry. And [we weren’t in the bottom together because the judges wanted a] ‘best-friend-off’, we were just rubbish. But that was really hard.
“Knowing that I was against someone that I considered to be my closest friend in the competition, it was honestly so heartbreaking. It was just so emotional. Yeah, I love her; that’s my girl.”
pic.twitter.com/FcFf123TxE— SMINTY (@smintyd) October 14, 2022
The London-based queen also revealed that she would have performed as Diana Vickers for the show’s iconic celeb impersonation Snatch Game episode:
“I was gonna do the whole thing, I was gonna have like bare feet on the desk thing. It was gonna be like dirty, grimy, like living in the woods, tree bark in the hair Diana Vickers. She was literally going to look like a witch doctor.”
Definitely through to judges’ houses for that one, Sminty.
Drag Race UK airs on BBC Three and BBC iPlayer Thursdays at 9pm.
