Drag Race UK season 6 queens reveal what they wish they’d known before filming

Sep 26
Written by Charlie Duncan

The Drag Race UK season six cast spill on what they’d tell their pre-Werk Room selves (BBC)

The queens of RuPaul’s Drag Race UK season six are ready to bust through the Werk Room doors – but here’s what they would tell themselves the day before filming.

As the RuPaul’s Drag Race UK season six cast prepare to burst onto our screens (26 September), the 12 assembled glamazons reflect on the advice that they’d give themselves the day they got picked up and whisked away to RuPaul’s basement (the Drag Race UK set).

With a cast of 12 drag queens from around the UK, a dazzling bevy of guest judges already confirmed, and, of course, RuPaul, Michelle Visage, Graham Norton and Alan Carr returning to hold court, season six of Drag Race UK looks like one not one to be missed.

Before the Werk Room doors open, though PinkNews has asked the cast of Drag Race UK what they’d tell pre-Drag Race them. Here’s what they had to say.

Actavia

“Drag Race UK is somewhere that you, as an artist, have wanted to be for so long. So just live in the moment and don’t live [in your head].

“You’re among so many incredible artists and queens and honestly, this cast is insane, across the board insane. So I think just remembering that you’re also within that, and you deserve to be there.”

Chanel O’Conor

“Calm down. Maybe I needed to take a Xanax every morning or, like, be smashed over the head with a lamp, just so that I could just, like, chill out.

“It’s such an intense environment to be in, and you can watch every show, you can listen to all the other girls who’ve been on it, but until you’re in that room, you won’t know your own unique experience. And it can be very different to everyone else’s.”

Charra Tea

“Learn how to glue your lace down properly before going on Drag Race UK, because that’s not what you want to learn during Drag Race. Hopefully they put a good filter on that.”

Dita Garbo

“Pack a few more eyelashes! And pack a bit more music that you can listen to when you’re on your own.”

Kiki Snatch

“Go snatch them up, babe, make some friends and show them who the f**k you are. You are it, you’re snatched, so is your face, you’re fabulous, and have fun!

“I’ll tell that to that Kiki! Because that’s exactly what I was like in taxi. I was like, ‘Go and do it, You got this, you are fierce.’

“I was like, crying, because I was leaving my man, but I had to tell myself: ‘You are fierce. You’re going to make some friends, and they’re going to become your sisters’.”

Kyran Thrax

“Cherish every moment and just acknowledge that you’ve made it to the place where you want to be! I feel like, as drag queens and as artists in general, you’re constantly going, ‘What’s the next huge thing that I’m going to do?’ rather than enjoying the thing that you’re actually in.

“Just cherish it, look around, take it in.”

La Voix

“Pack vodka? That would be my advice. They did not let me have a drink for weeks. It was not Drag Race UK, it was rehab.

“Do you know what, looking back, I’ve got no regrets at all. The show is so much fun, and I really hope that you guys enjoy it as much as we enjoyed making it. I had the time of my life, we were looked after impeccably.

“I thought maybe the Werk Room would have three walls, and one wall would just be empty, like a film set, and there would be cameras, but no, it’s the full four walls, and there’s the door that Ru walks into, and there’s the screen with the Ru-Mail that comes on. What you see is true!

“You live and you get ready and you get de dragged in that workroom. I didn’t feel like I was on Drag Race. I felt like I was in Drag Race. I mean, it’s blooming petrifying – I wouldn’t do it again!”

Lill

“Chill out? Oh, my God, just chill out. I was so stressed on the first day. Chill out! I’d tell myself that everyone’s nice and you’re going to get on with them. So everything’s fine.

“And I really did get on with them. Whether they got on with each other is another story.”

Marmalade

“It sounds cliché, but I would just tell myself to remember to enjoy it. The getting ready process is when you do all the work, but getting to Drag Race UK is where it’s fun and you get to enjoy it. And I certainly did enjoy it.

“But I think going in, there was that sort of fear of: ‘What am I doing? Am I going to say the right thing? Do the right thing? How am I going to come across?’ As time passes that fades away, but I think I would have reminded myself to go in straight out the gate with that mindset.”

Rileasa Slaves

“The last few seasons I was like: ‘Nah, I ain’t doing this.’ And it was only now that I was like ‘Baby, just send in the application,’ because I was like ‘What is stopping me’.

“So it’s that attitude. What’s the worst that can happen?”