Drag Race icon Shea Couleé recalls how newly-crowned Sasha Colby inspired her drag
Shea Coulée has revealed how Drag Race winner Sasha Colby inspired her early drag career (Getty Images)
RuPaul’s All Stars victor Shea Couleé has welcomed Sasha Colby into the Hall of Fame, reflecting on how the former Miss Continental inspired her at the very birth of Ms Couleé.
Rarely has there been a winner so unanimously called from the very outset than Colby on the recently concluded 15th series of RuPaul’s Drag Race. Introduced to the wider world as “your favourite drag queen’s favourite drag queen”, Ms Colby won four challenges through her tenure on the show, avoided the bottom two entirely and, to put it bluntly, p**sed all over the competition.
Aside from snatching the crown (and prize money) for season 15, Sasha also cemented her status as a trans role model and a mother to many viewers. But Colby, who won the prestigious pageantry title Miss Continental in 2012, has always possessed a reach that stretches far beyond the confines of Drag Race‘s pink, fabric Werk Room walls.
Enter Shea to verify that fact, while headlining the sickening Lipstick Ball Tour for her new album, 8.
Performing to a packed-out Heaven nightclub on 21 April, the Drag Race triple alumni (season nine as well All Stars series five and seven), took a brief interlude to talk to the crowd about Miss Colby’s win, starting with a fair few expletives to describe her finale performance.
“That f**king “Goddess” number, Jesus f**king Christ,” she enthused.
Miss Couleé then told fans that the birth of her drag persona pretty much coincided with Sasha’s Miss Continental win.
“I started drag back in the summer of 2011, just before Sasha Colby won Miss Continental. And they always hold that pageant in Chicago, so I went because the girls were like: ‘B***h, you want to know anything about drag, you better go to Continental.'”
Shea Couleé recalled that she saw Sasha Colby “f**king tear the house down” – which had a lasting impact on her. “I remember standing there, like: ‘Damn, b***h. If I could be a tenth that fierce, I think I’ll be all right.'”
Never one to miss an opportunity to remind a crowd that Miss Couleé didn’t come to play, though, Shea continued: “One crown and $130,000 later, she is actually.”
Period.
Elsewhere in the concert, the winner of All Stars 5 spilled more tea on her upcoming role in Marvel’s Disney+ series, Ironheart.
“A b***h got monologues. Story arcs! Honestly, I was living my best life in Atlanta this summer, filming the show.”
Fans believe that Couleé, the first drag artist to join the Marvel Cinematic Universe, has been cast as Shade/Darkveil, a mutant from the comics with the ability to teleport, whose character was reportedly inspired by a number of drag queens including… Shea Couleé.
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