Canada’s Drag Race vs the World 2 has already proven that anything can happen on the reality competition series. And anything WILL happen! The international queens are bringing their best drag as they hope to become the Queen of the Motherpucking World. While their time on Canada’s Drag Race vs the World 2 was cut short, Le Fil made an incredible impact, representing for queer Asians watching, but also for drag artists who defy the norms of gender in the art form. Le Fil celebrated their unique approach to drag and discussed why they use he/they pronouns in and out of drag. But it was one major acting decision that ended up being their downfall.
Hosted by former RuPaul’s Drag Race contestant, Brooke Lynn Hytes, with judges Brad Goreski and Traci Melchor, Canada’s Drag Race vs the World 2 has brought together nine international queens as they fight their way to snatch the crown and a cash prize of $100,000. The cast includes, from Lemon, Miss Fiercalicious, and Tynomi Banks from Canada’s Drag Race, Alexis Mateo, Eureka, and Kennedy Davenport from RuPaul’s Drag Race, Cheryl and Le Fil from RuPaul’s Drag Race UK, and La Kahena from Drag Race France.
Le Fil Celebrated the Premiere With the Cast
Originally from the fourth season of RuPaul’s Drag Race UK, Le Fil jumped the pond to bring their extraordinary sense of drag to a bigger, broader international stage. Hailing from Brighouse, West Yorkshire, Le Fil spent their time on their original season trying to find their footing and make a mark on the competition. But Le Fil attached balloons to their hair and sent themselves over by “Air Male” to Canada to compete again.
After spending two fantastic days at RuPaul’s DragCon LA, Le Fil celebrated the season’s premiere alongside their Canada’s Drag Race vs the World 2 family. “When I was asked to do Canada, I was doing lots of pros and against. I was weighing it up like a true Libra. The main thing was, I wanted to show my work on an international level and be able to come to DragCon LA. And be able to do all that. And I was like, this is the ticket. So I took it and I went with it. And I loved it!” she said. “What was so nice was having that opening episode and watch with everyone. And be together for those moments. It’s really rare that we get to do that on an international cast because getting everyone’s time tables. Wild.”
Le Fil Is Shocked Over Cheryl’s Big Reveal
With Canada’s Drag Race vs the World 2 including some real heavy hitters walk through the door, Le Fil mentioned that the one queen who gagged them by their presence was Alexis Mateo. They said, “She’s been someone I watched ages ago. To me, she’s sort of a Drag Race legend. The fact that she was there, the fact that I was competing with her on the same cast, I was like wow.” She went on to joke, “In my head, I was like if you don’t win this time, you’ve really fucked up. I’m happy to step aside. Actually that’s why I left the show. To give the people who have been on four times the actual chance to win.”
Despite having a British connection, with both queens representing RuPaul’s Drag Race UK, Le Fil was quite shocked that Cheryl didn’t consider them her number one ally. “Literally, when we were all watching that premiere together, sat in Rocco’s, sat next to each other. When she said that, I turned to her and said, ‘Rude!'” Of course, Cheryl’s having an alliance with Lemon stemmed from the duo also competing on the first season of RuPaul’s Drag Race UK vs the World. Did Le Fil have any alliances in the game? “Not alliances. That word seems like a contractual thing. Who I got along with really well with was Tynomi. We have a very similar calming type of personality that we really got on from the offset. When she chose “This Beat” song, when I stood there, her hand grabbed mine and we sort of comforted each other. The way that we worked in that challenge was really nice. I would offer some things and she’d be like yeah, so I’d do some more. It was really encouraging. The fact that she gave me license to help choreograph everything, she’s really an amazing dancer, I really loved that. I really respected Tynomi.”
Le Fil Knows Things Could Have Been Different Without the Golden Beaver Twist
This season, the Golden Beaver twist returned, following its initial debut on Canada’s Drag Race 4. With the Golden Beaver, the top queen of the week can save one of the bottom three queens from lip-syncing for their lives. This was a gag to many fans, as generally, in a returning queen season, there is always a lip sync for your legacy or win. Now, the power was in the bottom queen’s hands to save themselves. But it also has proven that it might have resulted in different outcomes thus far this season. I shared that I believed she might have been in the top two in the first challenge of the season. And they agreed. Le Fil noted, “I think it would have been a really nice redemption thing as well. I can understand why Lemon was in the top though. She had such rubbish time in UK vs, so it made sense that her group was there. However, having said that, Kennedy didn’t even know her words for the lip sync for the girl group! How does that team all win?!” She went on to say, “That twist threw me actually. I brought a whole outfit for each of those lip syncs for the wins. I had a whole wardrobe and concepts planned out for different songs and stuff. I really wanted to put on a show.”
In the first episode, Miss Fiercalicious offered a strategy to the group that rather than saving the best queen of the week, which ended up being Alexis Mateo, Lemon, as the winner of the episode, should save La Kahena and make the two Americans, returning for their fourth time, lip sync for their lives. But thanks to a little spat on X, the website formerly known as Twitter, Le Fil had mentioned that perhaps they were the one who offered this strategy first. “What I said in Untucked was Lemon was going, ‘What do you think I should do? Who would you pick?’ and we all went around the sofa, so I went first. Alexis and Eureka are amazing and really good, but Kahena has so much more to show. She’s only had one week last time, she needs more time. That is what I said, and everyone else forgot,” she shared. “I probably should have been more obvious and said, ‘SAVE KAHENA!'” Le Fil didn’t secretly want to, they openly wanted to see Alexis and Eureka lip sync because it would have been amazing. As she said, “High kick central!”
Le Fil Breaks Down the Importance of Their Gender Expression in Drag
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On the latest episode, the queens were tasked to take on reality television archetypes as they improvised their way through a challenge called “The Hole.” The challenge was a parody of whodunnit programs like The Traitors and The Mole. Oh, and they were joined by reality superstar Lisa Rinna. For Le Fil, they played a part that was essentially a reject from The Bachelor. In their critiques, the judges told Le Fil that their performance was too much of the same. It’s time to solve the mystery of what went wrong. Le Fil spilled, “My thing was it’s a girl in love. She comes off with this nativity, this young, optimistic girl. Finds a man, Brad or Lemon, and really goes in for that. Really chases the love. By the end of it, she becomes a crying, hysterical mess. So it’s not really all the same, it’s not one note. It’s this whole thing that progressed and had a story. I ended up crying on Lisa’s shoulder. Literally sobbing my eyes out.” While it may have been too much of a niche reference, Le Fil revealed that their character was based on The Traitors UK contestant Mollie Pearce, who infamously was infatuated with the traitor, and ultimate winner of the series, Harry Clark. Le Fil doesn’t know what the judges saw but they enjoyed themself.
When it came down to Le Fil versus Tynomi in the lip sync for your life, Le Fil knew their fate. She said, “We had to fight against each other. She was one of my besties. I was like, you do what you gotta do. I knew ‘Let Me Think About It’ is her song. She’s been dancing and lip syncing to it for like ten years. I didn’t even know this song! I was stepping into her performance here.”
For Le Fil, their time on the show was important for them as they got to showcase their art and their identity as a drag artist. Speaking about the exclusive cut scene where they shared their pronouns with the rest of the cast, Le Fil said, “Making work, all the way back when I was in art school, it was about exploring my expression as a Chinese man within Yorkshire. My identity, not as someone from Hong Kong or China, but someone who grows up in UK. It was all about the type of gender I used to grow up with and roles. A man must do this. You must be an accountant. You must look after you family. All this stuff. In my head, I also wanted to dress up, play with dolls and make clothes. The expectations of what a man should do was so constricted that I was really depressed as a kid. I think through art, through exploration of those, it could expand what the definition of what a man is. For me, that’s a really important part of the work. People saying, ‘Oh she looks too much like a woman anyway,’ that’s the point! A woman can be anything as well. Women can wear joggers, tracksuits, t-shirts, have their hair in a bun, have it shaved. There’s no such thing as being ‘like a woman.’ For me, being ‘like a man’ can be as femme as anything. And be as androgynous and as glamorous because there’s not one thing of being a man. I wanted to represent that and that was sort of the essence of my work. It was really important that it was spoken about.
To hear Le Fil’s full exit interview, you can listen to Block Talk on any of your favorite podcast platforms.
Canada’s Drag Race vs the World 2 streams new episodes every Friday at 9:00pm on WOW Presents Plus and Crave in Canada.