RuPaul says Drag Race UK queens are ‘very cutting’ but in an ‘intellectual way’

Words: Steve Brown

RuPaul Charles says the queens on Drag Race UK are ‘very, very cutting’ but in an ‘intellectual way’.

The first ever UK version of the Emmy Award winning show is set to start airing on BBC Three on October 3 and our excitement is building and building each and every day.

And during an interview promoting the new season, Ru teased what fans can expect from the UK queens and joked it’s going to be interesting for worldwide audiences to ‘decipher some of the lingo’.

He said: “Well the British queens, they do a lot of tongue and cheek. And they can be very (laughs) very cutting but in an intellectual way.

“It’s going to be interesting for audiences around the world to try to decipher some of the lingo. That’s been hard for me too.

“The other day one of the girls said that she had the ‘mouth of a navvy’ – I didn’t know what that was. I asked her, she said a ‘navvy’ is someone who works on the roads.

“Still makes no sense to me but you know, I’m married to an Australian so I’m used to a twist of a phrase and word abbreviations.” 

Over the weekend, RuPaul’s Drag Race took home the Emmy Award for Reality-Competition Program and Mama Ru also won – for the fourth year running – Outstanding Host for a Reality or Competition Program.

And in the same interview, Ru opened up about learning from the queens on each season of his award-winning show and said he has learned ‘a lot’ from them in terms of resilience.

Ru added: “Well the intention of our show from the very beginning was to celebrate the art of drag. And the art of drag has many different facets.

“First of all, how do you create a character that is fully realised and fun and really exciting.

“And then, after that, it was really to create a launch pad for these incredible artists and talented, beautiful creatures to be presented into the world.

“And then, really to entertain myself, I love drag, all the producers we love drag so that was really the game plan.

“They’ve been bullied, or they’ve gone to conversion therapy and you understand that their coping skills are so valuable to so many people out there who may be going through the same thing right now.

“And it’s not just gay people, it’s anyone. All these other things came into play like how the stories of these queens, became, I mean some really deep stuff, became lessons for a lot of young the kids out there watching.

“A lot of these queens have gone through so much, have gone through so much pain. A lot of them their parents have thrown them out of the house.

“Ever had a dream, who’s been told ‘you can’t do that’, can take a lesson from our girls here. I’ve learned a lot of from them in just resilience.”

RuPaul’s Drag Race UK is landing on BBC Three from 8pm every Thursday. It begins on 3rd October and will be exclusively available on BBC iPlayer.

Images from BBC Pictures.