Drag Race UK star Tia Kofi explains wild way producers monitor rule breaking
Tia Kofi. (Getty)
RuPaul’s Drag Race UK vs the World season two winner Tia Kofi has revealed how the show’s producers can tell if the contestants have broken a specific clause in their contracts.
Tia, who is the most recent queen to join the Drag Race franchise winner circle, spilled the behind-the-scenes tea while speaking to influencer Max Balegde on his podcast, The Useless Hotline.
Baledge questioned Tia about whether the queens are allowed to interact with each other once they head back to their hotel after filming for the day has finished, and asked her to clarify online rumours that their hotel doors get taped shut.
The Drag Race UK queen and “Read My Lips” hitmaker confirmed that it’s true that queens aren’t allowed to talk back at the hotel after filming, and explained the “taped doors” rumour.
“They don’t tape the door shut,” she confirmed.
“They put tape over the join of the door because it means if you try and sneak out of your hotel room, they’ll see that the tape has come off, so it’s clearly just so they can make sure that you’re not breaching the rules of the contract that you signed.”
She added: “People make it sound like it’s really scary, and they’ve Gaffer taped the whole door. It’s actually just a little bit of tape so they can see if you’ve tried to sneak out.”
Baledge then asked Tia to spill the details of the Drag Race contract that she and other queens sign.
“Literally I would tell you if I could, but I didn’t read it,” she quipped in response.
All Drag Race queens are expected to follow a stringent set of rules while filming the reality competition in order to keep the show fair.
In the most infamous instance of a rule break taking place, contestant Willam became the first and only queen to be disqualified from the show in season four in 2012.
While viewers were told that she was eliminated for receiving conjugal visits from her husband, back in 2018 the former contestant claimed there were multiple other reasons for her dismissal from the competition.
In a lengthy post on X/Twitter, the 41-year-old actor claimed that she was kicked off the show for numerous reasons, including having her hairdresser come and blow her hair out, leaving her hotel room with “two other girls” to go to the shop, and stealing from the set.
She also claimed she had confronted producers over what she felt was unfair treatment of fellow contestants including Jiggly Caliente, Sharon Needles, and Latrice Royale.
Since beating off stiff competition from Marina Summers, La Grande Dame, and Hannah Conda to take the Drag Race UK crown last week, Tia Kofi has been inundated with spiteful messages from the show’s fandom.
The wave of hatred from trolls has led to several of her season’s sisters having to release statements, calling for the so-called fans to stop the abuse.
RuPaul’s Drag Race UK vs The World season two is streaming now on BBC iPlayer and WOW Presents Plus.
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