RuPaul’s Drag Race creators address future of controversial Global All Stars spin-off

Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato, the creators of RuPaul’s Drag Race production company World of Wonder, have addressed whether spin-off series Global All Stars will get a second season.

The inaugural, global Olympics of drag series Global All Stars premiered last summer in line with the actual Paris 2024 Olympics, and saw 12 drag stars from international franchises Ruturn to compete for the crown.

While RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars and Drag Race Vs. The World spin-off series already exist, whereby queens from across franchises compete, Global All Stars was the first series which featured one queen representing a different country from across the world.

Despite the exciting premise and the Ruturn of fan-favourite queens, including OG Drag Race star Alyssa Edwards, Drag Race UK finalist Kitty Scott Claus, and Drag Race Italia’s Nehellenia, Global All Stars didn’t find much favour within the Drag Race fandom.

Fans of the show felt the native English-speaking queens had an advantage in some of the acting and comedy-based challenges, with most of the episodes being won by English-speaking queens.

Three of the top four queens of the series were from predominately English-speaking countries, while Alyssa Edwards was ultimately crowned the first ever Global All Stars winner.

Some fans went as far as to suggest that they didn’t want the spin-off to return due to what they perceived as “favouritism”.

Now, Bailey and Barbato have addressed the future of the show, and confirmed that despite mixed reviews, they are “hopeful” about Global All Stars coming back for a second season.

Asked by The Playlist about season two, Barbato said: “I mean, hopefully, if our partners don’t do it, I think we might have to do it.”

While Global All Stars is owned by World of Wonder, it aired on Paramount+.

“Yeah. I know that launching Drag Race Philippines: Slaysian Royale which is kind of a little bit of Vs. [the World],’ a little bit of All Stars in a new sort of version,” he continued.

“So, a specific answer, I don’t know the answer to the question, but there are other versions, and of course there’s Slaycation season two, which just filmed.”

The recently announced Drag Race Philippines: Slaysian Royale series will see Asian queens from across the Drag Race universe Ruturn to the contest in host country The Philippines to fight for the win.

Similarly, internet sleuths believe that the third season of Drag Race UK vs. The World is coming soon, too.

The host of the show, RuPaul, recently confirmed that season 18 of the original American series will begin filming soon, and that a number of UK-based seasons have also recently wrapped.

Elsewhere in their conversation with The Playlist, Bailey confirmed that president Donald Trump’s attacks on the LGBTQ+ community will not lead to less Drag Race content being pumped out.

“It’s not as if the audience suddenly wants to watch something else,” he said.

“The rhetoric may be one thing, and there may be all these sorts of pulling back of initiatives, but to me, I firmly believe that more than ever, people want Drag Race, they want drag… steps forward, steps back. But overall, it does keep moving forward, the overall trajectory.”

RuPaul’s Drag Race season 17 continues on Fridays on MTV in the US and WOW Presents Plus internationally.

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