Willam on Drag Race blacklist and toxic behaviour rumours: ‘They will never put me within spitting distance of RuPaul again!’ (EXCLUSIVE)

”I kind of love that, ’cos everybody always calls me a villain,” Willam says at the beginning of our call when I tell her I want this interview to frame her as drag’s anti-hero. “I wasn’t even a villain on my season. I was nice to people. I let them borrow stuff. I was gregarious.”

Now, she’s fronting a new series on OUTflix. Willam’s Dark Room Duel is part talent show, part strip club, part chaotic queer congregation. It’s also a full-circle moment for a queen who many may not know made her name running LA’s go-go scene.

“In 2002, I started booking strippers for Mickey’s, The Abbey and, like, 20 other clubs in SoCal, San Diego, Orange County and Vegas,” she explains. “I did that until about 2015.”

That side hustle, she adds, played a key role in her now-iconic Drag Race disqualification — a first in the franchise’s history. Midway through the fourth series all the way back in 2012, she was dramatically removed from the competition. To live audience chants of “What did Willam do?” in the reunion episode, she told RuPaul during their chat it was because her husband had visited her in the hotel during filming.

“I wanted to get on All Stars and Drag U and all those things” – Willam on her Drag Race disqualification

However, she tells me that wasn’t the full story. “One of the rules I broke was outside communication. I had a laptop with me. I was still running my go-go business while I was at Drag Race… They didn’t know that till after.” And the televised explanation? “The conjugal visit was me going along with it because I wanted to get on All Stars and Drag U and all those things.”

That go-go business was eventually sold to two strippers, one of whom, Yony, now judges alongside her on the show. “Like, 10 years later, after 20 years of knowing each other, we get to the set and we’re like, ‘Oh, this show’s going to be magic.’”

She adds: “I get to look at strippers, I get to work with my friends, and I get to look amazing.”

It’s a departure from what Willam sees as the norm on mainstream drag TV. “Not like judges on Drag Race, where it’s like, ‘Oh, we share a publicist with Michelle, so you’ll be a judge.’ It’s people who know about stripping, know about being entertainers and who’ve actually done it.”

Willam doesn’t shy away from the taboo around stripping either. “Everybody likes strippers,” she says. “Everybody likes to look at beautiful, naked people. And if you don’t, what are you so afraid of?”

She adds: “I think that me helping people get off or find where they can look at something that they want to have, that moment where they can tip them or follow them online or whatever — I’m here for it.”

“There’s only one group that won’t work with me: World of Wonder”

Willam’s refusal to filter herself for the sake of industry politics has brought both admiration and resistance, along with a refreshing reputation for saying it like it is. Indeed, she prefaces a minutes-long rant about controversial Real Housewives of Beverly Hills star Erika Jayne (the contents of which should probably not be printed here for legal reasons) with “I’m not comparing Erika Jayne to Hitler, but…”. It’s the reason, she believes, she’s been unofficially blacklisted from working with the production company behind Drag Race.

“There’s only one group that won’t work with me: World of Wonder,” she says. “And I think it says more about them than it does about me.” She continues: “It’s in their best interest to keep their shining star safe and shining. And I am a liability to that, because I’m a whistleblower and a truth-teller. When shit is fucked on set, I will talk about it. Like I always did.”

In a world of PR sheen and polished statements, Willam’s candour has long set her apart. “I don’t follow the rules. I don’t kowtow to them… For a lot of girls, RuPaul’s Drag Race is the only opportunity and the biggest opportunity in the game. For me, it was a gig. And I did what I wanted. I knew I wasn’t going to go in and win, so I went in and fucked stuff up.”

“They will never put me within spitting distance of RuPaul again”

When asked whether she could ever return to the show that helped launch her global fame, she says with a laugh: “They will never put me within spitting distance of RuPaul again. They don’t trust me — and they shouldn’t. I wouldn’t either!”

Her reputation for truth-telling extends beyond the werk room. “If I feel something about someone, I’m going to say it. I did on Drag Race and I still do,” she says. “Some of the girls get mad about me armchair-quarterbacking their season of Drag Race, when in reality, it’s like, girl, I’m just a pundit — just like any of these NFL guys or football guys in your country who recap the game. Because this for us is sports.”

“The RuPaul fracking thing — that’s a joke… It’s not like she’s out there digging wells”

I ask about a recent clip that went viral in which Willam calls RuPaul a “climate terrorist”, in reference to reports that the drag icon’s land in Wyoming has been leased for fracking, but she insists it was all tongue-in-cheek.

“The RuPaul fracking thing — that’s a joke… It’s not like she’s out there digging wells,” she says. “But we like to take the piss out of her because it’s what we do. She is the highest person in our field, so naturally there will be people nipping at her heels.” She pauses. “Honestly, maybe it keeps her on her toes.”

Then comes a metaphor few could see coming. “They used to ship fish to North America from Asia, and once they got here, they found the meat was all fluffy and bad, because the fish stopped moving around in their bins. So what the shippers did was put one catfish in with all the other fish, which kept the fish moving and going around. So maybe I’m RuPaul’s catfish.”

Elsewhere online, she admits things can get messy. Willam’s no stranger to getting caught up in digital drama, and her name often appears on Reddit threads and drag discourse across social platforms.

“I’ve been on Reddit for, like, 20 years. I watch a lot of ingrown pimple-popping videos. So whenever I go there, I see the little sidebar of, like, things with my name. And I’m like, ‘Don’t look there, don’t look there, don’t look there,’ but sometimes it gets the best of me.”

“I do need to apologise and atone for some things that I’ve done in the past”

If you’re wondering whether she regrets saying too much, she doesn’t. “I like to live in the light. I’m not a liar — unless someone gives me the wrong information and then I relay it. I try to, like, just keep it pumping and keep it 100.”

That doesn’t mean she ignores criticism. “Some of the people have valid points,” she says. “I do need to apologise and atone for some things that I’ve done in the past. And I don’t find that there’s a time limit or expiration date for the offences I’ve caused.”

She says her online honesty comes from the same place as her stage persona — unfiltered drag as a political and personal act. “I like to be that surprising drag queen and I like to carry on the tradition of, like, Sylvester and Divine.”

When I ask what she’d change if she could go back in time, she’s quick to joke. “My hair from 2008 to 2012 — I was chained to a flat iron.”

She explains: “On Drag Race, you see me as, like, this blonde California twink with, like, straight hair… Everybody always says when I meet them, ‘Oh, you’re so big; you’re so much bigger than I thought.’ And I’m like, it’s because I stood next to Latrice Royale for eight episodes of TV and everybody thinks I’m going to be Kristin Chenoweth.”

Almost 14 years on, Willam and Latrice remain close. “Now I stand next to her all the time because we’re still really good friends… We’re doing a show called Mister Act in North America next year, where we play the nuns from Sister Act, basically, in a drag version of it.”

“It’s more important to me to tell the truth than to be booked”

So, after everything — the disqualification, the online feuds, the stunts, the boycotts — what’s more important: getting booked, or telling the truth?

“It’s more important to me to tell the truth than to be booked for something,” she says. “If someone doesn’t want to give it to me because of me telling the truth in the past, I don’t really need to work with them. It wasn’t meant to be. So let me do it on my own terms.”

She’s also keen to set the record straight about her reputation. “A lot of people believe the rumours about me — that I can be difficult or I’m an asshole or something like that,” she says. “But it’s been… almost 14 years since I was on Drag Race and I’m still working. And I wouldn’t be working if I was as toxic as everybody would like you to believe.”

“My only rule is don’t OD”

And working she is. With her new show on OUTflix, a thriving podcast network (MOM, co-founded with fellow Drag Race alum Alaska), she’s proving that the DIY route works just fine.

“All of my dreams have come true,” she says. “I’ve been nominated for two Emmys [for Eastsiders]. I’ve been in an Oscar-winning movie [A Star is Born]. I’ve had a number one album. I’ve had a best-selling book. I’ve run my own company. I already have my retirement plan set up with a retirement home in Palm Springs. It’s got five bedrooms, a stripper pole and a hot tub. People can rent it out on Airbnb. My only rule is don’t OD.”

And if there’s a secret to surviving cancellations, she’s found it. “I think I’m at, like, 17 or 19,” she deadpans. “But as long as I keep my cancellations at an odd number, I think I’m good.”

Willam’s Dark Room Duel is available to stream on OUTflix from 16 September

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This feature appears in issue 366 of Attitude magazine, available to order here, and alongside 15 years of back issues on the free Attitude app.