The season 5 and “All Stars 2” queen calls her and Plastique’s latest victory a “redemption for ‘Snatch Game’ and a redemption for girls that tend to get that pageant edit.”
You can’t underestimate the doll.
In just two episodes, Roxxxy Andrews went from being tied for last place to the frontrunner of RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars 9. Last week, she was gifted both a precious Beautiful Benefactress Badge by Nina West and earned one on her own with a Makeover Challenge win. And in Friday’s newest episode, she scored a back-to-back victory for a comedy challenge alongside Plastique Tiara.
But after Roxxxy triumphed in a lip-sync to Nicki Minaj’s “Super Freaky Girl,” the power of getting to cut one of her sisters from potentially earning a badge next week proved to be just too much pressure for the season 5 and All Stars 2 queen.
Below, Roxxxy is here to make it clear to Entertainment Weekly why she first tried to randomly choose who to snip and what led to her emotional breakdown when she discovered her intended victim was Angeria Paris VanMicheals, who she’d just blocked the week prior, before finally settling on cutting Gottmik instead. Plus, she tells us the difference in fan reaction to her this time around compared to her previous seasons and her strong words for Aura Mayari when the season 15 queen reached out after they got into it on social media recently.
ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: Nina and Shannel seemed to be bordering on an alliance, but then Nina ended up giving you her bonus badge from Snatch Game last week instead of her fellow Liberace, who was also badgeless. Do you think she did that to avoid alliance allegations?
ROXXXY ANDREWS: At that point we had all started talking about what is going on, are there alliances? Are there cliques? It was just a lot of talk and you didn’t want to be a part of that. So I felt like 50 percent of it was for her to prove that she wasn’t in an alliance with Shannel and then 50 percent of it was I helped her with the sewing challenge and she felt like I should have been a winner, and she gave me the badge because of that. I know Nina, she’s a great person and she’s so giving, and I think that was just her.
At that point you did not yet have a badge, now you’re a frontrunner. Do you think it was stupid on Nina’s part to give you her extra badge?
I was a top dog on season 5 and then season 2 of All Stars I was on the bottom a lot, so you never know where people are going to land. Their reputation can’t always tell you, but I’m definitely someone that doesn’t give up and I work hard. So giving me the badge, I don’t know if that was a good choice for her. I’m thankful, but it definitely might come back to bite her.
You and Plastique had everyone in stitches this week in your skit, with total commitment to those characters and making yourselves look ridiculous. Did you both view that as a redemption for Snatch Game?
Redemption for Snatch Game and a redemption for girls that tend to get that pageant edit where they’re like, okay, well they’re pretty and they’re always going to look great on the runway, but they don’t always perform well in comedy challenges. So I think it was a redemption for all beautiful pageant girls that go on the show that they can be funny as well and they can let loose. It comes with growth. We don’t always have to be perfect.
After winning the lip-sync, you had a really hard time choosing who to cut. First, why did you decide to not look at the other queens when you made your pick?
The only person I wanted to know where they were was Nina, because Nina gave me the badge and I definitely didn’t want to snip her because it was like a thank you. I let you slide last week and I’m going to let you slide this week, but it’s free game now. So I definitely wanted to know where she was, to give her one more week of the slide, and everybody else was free game except for Angeria. But at the same time I was like, if I turn around and don’t look, wherever I land, I believe in the universe and I believe everything happens for a reason. Now when I landed on Angeria, it was like not only heartbreaking, it was just this cannot happen because the reason that was going on in my mind is I came in here to play a certain game. She snipped me the first episode and I just got off of snipping her. Doing it a second time would be more so a vendetta against her. And Mik had cut her previously, so this would’ve been the third week that she got cut, and she was feeling a certain kind of way, like a little beat down from getting snipped twice. So I wanted her to have her full range to get a badge and to win the next challenge. So when I landed on her, I just knew, no, this cannot happen. This is not what I’m doing, and I’m going to continue to pick somebody else. And I had just seen the girls when I turned around, so I couldn’t continue to go backwards.
So you did not remember how everyone had lined up or know where Nina was at first?
I didn’t know Nina, nobody. When I turned around, I said, “Where’s Nina?” And everybody started laughing because they thought I was joking that I was going to go cut her. She said, “I’m at the end” and if you’re backwards, you know where the stage is, how long the runway is. So I knew not to go all the way because that’s where she said she was.
Since there are no eliminations this season and it’s for charity, why not lean into being a little more cutthroat or a little more shady?
There’s only eight of us. We’re so close that it never crossed my mind to be that way. I wasn’t thinking about the fandom and I wasn’t thinking, oh, they’re going to think this about you. I wasn’t. I didn’t go in playing the game like that.
Have you felt any differences in fan reception to you this time versus your other two stints on Drag Race?
Oh my God, yes. The fandom has been absolutely so sweet, so receptive. They love the doll. I’m thankful for it. There’s people that are always going to feel a certain type of way about you. People make mistakes, and I’ve definitely made my share of mistakes, and they’ll hold it against you for a while, for a long time, if not forever. They never get to grow out of it. I don’t know why, I’ve never been that type of person in my personal life.
What did you think of all those “You can’t read the doll” memes that were going around immediately?
They’re the best. They make me laugh. Every day I’ll wake up to another three or four. There was one yesterday, “You can’t breed the doll.” They’re so silly with them. I love that it brings joy to people and it makes them laugh.
You got into it on social media with season 15’s Aura Mayari after she questioned whether your and Vanjie’s makeover win was just “so everyone has badges.” Were you actually pressed?
The thing is that we as Ru Girls have all lived the experience together, whether we’re on the same seasons or not. If you felt like Jorgeous and Plastique did better, that’s just expressing your opinion. Now when you’re going into [questioning if it was] production and [know] that’s not how things worked on the show, don’t put that out there for fans to go and run with it. So I basically was answering her question and the fans ran with it. They started reading her on her season and how she shouldn’t have won [a challenge], and where she landed that had nothing to do with me. She put a question in there saying, “Did they do this so that everyone could have badges?” No, they did this because we were good just like everyone else, and if everyone was going to have a badge, why doesn’t Shannel have one?
Have you spoken with her since then?
She actually wrote me yesterday and she apologized and I said, there’s nothing to apologize for. You were expressing an opinion, you just added a little mess on there. Don’t do that. Don’t go there. Especially when the fans like to take things like that and run, you only cause your own demise on that one because people were going crazy on you. They weren’t going crazy on me. If you feel a certain way, then put that out there, “Hey, I think Plastique should have won.” Okay, great, she didn’t, but that was just your opinion. You added a little mess to it, and you got to be careful with that. I think she learned.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.