RUPAUL’S DRAG RACE ALL STARS: Starrbooty: The Rebooty

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RuPaul gets to walk and point her way across the main stage and pretend she’s performing while the queens get handed one of the lesser Rusicals in the history of the form, but first…

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We have to admit we’re going to miss these messy bitches. We get that some viewers don’t like the drama and villainy, but Drag Race has a tendency to sanitize drag and it’s refreshing to see some queens play this game the way a drag queen would. Having said that, we were sick of all of them by the end of the episode. This bracket format’s working out nicely because each segment gets to speedrun through an entire season’s worth of grudges and God bless these bitches, they were determined to hit every one of them before they left.

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Look, Mistress is shady as shit, no argument there. Jorgeous hasn’t been the sweetest of queens either and Lydia is doing a very good job of manipulating people while professing her own innocence. And while we think Mistress and Jorgeous lying about who they were going to give their pins to was a shitty move, for us, it doesn’t rise to the level of, say, Arietty stealing Jewels’ jokes or making fun of another queen’s medical condition. Fucking around with pins and points is literally part of the game and to her slight credit, Mistress is entirely open about her own shadiness and untrustworthiness.

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At a certain point, Kerri, Tina and Nicole have to own their own gullibility and culpability. When Mistress told that obvious lie about Tina trying to manipulate the points, Tina reacted in the most guilt-ridden manner possible (instead of just laughing at her and calling her a lying bitch) and Kerri got all wide-eyed and considered the ludicrous proposition that Mistress was telling the truth. We’ll give Nicole credit for treating it all like the lark that it is, but Kerri was legitimately hurt by all of this and Tina simply could not let her anger at Mistress go. Every time one of them said something like “I’m sorry, I thought we were here to support each other…” we half thought the whole thing was a put-on. You can’t seriously believe that, girl. After ALL this time.

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But Mistress is playing a… well, we won’t call it a dangerous game because that would be melodramatic even for us — call it… a game with questionable efficacy and a lot of potential for blowback. It’s not exactly the most locked-in of Drag Race laws, but generally speaking, the show loves villains for their entertainment value, but the record for handing them a crown doesn’t exactly assure that Mistress is going to get what she wants. Of course that forces the question of what she actually wants out of all of this. She says she’s playing to win it, but there’s always the chance that she’s simply playing for as much camera time as possible (the classic reality show villain’s ploy), except the show’s fanbase can be extremely negative about nasty queens, especially if those nasty queens aren’t pretty, thin white girls, and that can have an effect on her rates and bookings. Because here’s the thing: she’s not actually slaying the competition as much as she’d like. She’s top-tier for sure, but we wouldn’t call her output flawless — or even the best in this group.

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We’ll take this opportunity to make one of our less popular observations about the show. When Drag Race started, it was all about that female gender illusion (“Gentlemen, start your engines…”) and it had a focus on the techniques and transformational quality of drag; specifically, the process of watching men make themselves over into beautiful women. This is why the makeup mirror conversations became such an essential part of the Drag Race experience, across all the franchises; because that process of putting on your face is essential to the art. But over the years, it’s become more and more common for the queens to hit the Werk Room with a full beat and a killer outfit. It may seem like we’re singling out Kerri here, but we even think Mistress is pushing it a little and there have been plenty of instances of cis or nonbinary queens also showing up to work with a full beat or wearing cute little outfits. Some of this shift is because trans women are cast in every season now (which is an unquestionable very good thing, of course), and some trans women are going to have deeply personal and even political reasons for wanting to serve a look at all times.

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We get that, but we do think the show loses something when it doesn’t emphasize that transformational process. We suggest no solution here; just making an observation. Although, we’ll give World of Wonder this idea for free: they should do a stunt season – call it All-Stars or give it some other variation – where the queens only show up with basic dresses and wigs, have to DIY all of their drag, and have to do the prep work in matching utilitarian jumpsuits and no makeup at all. Now THAT would be a damn competition. Yes, the jumpsuits can be pink.

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World of Wonder is never going to miss an opportunity to bring up Starrbooty, but we thought this whole Rusical was pretty lame. First, it was pitched to the queens as a chance to share the stage with Ru and we’re not even sure she shot her scenes on the same day. We hate to be mean about an aging performer and we do think the kind of drag Ru does is taxing on the body, but she clearly can’t or won’t move the way she used to. Not that she was ever much of a dancer in her “Supermodel of the World” days, but her affect on stage now is so bored and low energy and the movements give the impression that she really can’t do much, whether that’s true or not. We wouldn’t make such an issue of this except every time she gives one of these performances and then sits down to tell a bunch of queens that “you seemed unsure” or “we couldn’t connect with you” we can’t help but think “Bitch, who are you?” And frankly, we shouldn’t be thinking that about RuPaul.

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Mistress crowed about how she masterfully manipulated who got which roles, but literally everyone wound up with the best role for them, so we don’t know what the hell she was talking about. These three were definitely weaker than the villains, but that’s partially down to the material. Kerri did a cute voice, Tina was aggressive in the way she was supposed to be, and Nicole is actually really fun to watch onstage. The costumes were too basic, the lip syncing was terrible and the choreo was a bit too basic.

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Jorgeous and Lydia looked amazing and absolutely owned every inch of that stage. We’ll give Mistress credit for being a commanding performer with a killer look, but she was definitely the weakest of the strongest.

Category Is: Wild Wild West! Which lewk are you yeehawing for? #AllStars10 pic.twitter.com/tWbPpbCp2k

— RuPaul’s Drag Race (@RuPaulsDragRace) June 7, 2025

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This one is going long, so we’re just gonna tear through these final looks. Nicole’s pink pony was cute and creative, but it wasn’t on the same level as the rest of these costumes. We hope she gets a lot of increased bookings and attention out of her time here. She’s fun. Tina’s western Wonder Woman was pretty damn amazing; probably the best costume she’s had yet. Kerri’s was gorgeous, although we didn’t understand the rain reference or why her hat was shaped so oddly. We get that it was a cloud, but still. Mistress’s was gorgeous from the waist up, but those tights were wrinkling and bunching every time she took a step and we’re surprised she wasn’t called out for it. Lydia really has come into her own this time around. We had problems with so many of her costumes in her season, but there’s been consistent improvement both in the technical aspects and the creativity. This is gorgeous but it’s also weird in that Butthole Kollins kind of way. Jorgeous’s is very cute and it plays to her strengths, but we weren’t as wowed by the creativity as the judges were. It just feels very expected that she would interpret the west as a showgirl.

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These two were in the top. We’re not all that upset by the pairing, although we think there’s a very good argument that Tina deserved to be there over one of them.

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Personally, we thought Lydia did a more interesting job with the lip sync but regardless, we’d have wanted Jorgeous in the semi-finals no matter what.

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Here’s the thing: the three queens who made it to the semi-finals are also the three queens who did the most to manipulate the competition (or in Lydia’s case, to passively allow the manipulations to happen in her favor) and you could say that’s terrible and that they don’t deserve it. But Jorgeous, Lydia and, to an admittedly lesser extent, Mistress were all doing elevated drag within the limitations of this bracket. The other three queens had their moments, but in the short time they were all given to make an impression, we really do think these three did better than the three who are mad at them. As Mistress repeatedly pointed out, the points-awarding was literally part of the game and as Tina, Nicole and Kerri showed with their final backfiring attempt, absolutely none of them are above attempting to manipulate it.

Come see us in DALLAS this month for Pride, where we’ll be giving a talk on the drag and trans legends who changed the world and we’ll be handing out signed copies of our book! Details here!

Legendary Children: The First Decade of RuPaul’s Drag Race and the Last Century of Queer Life, a New York Times “New and Notable” pick, praised by The Washington Post “because the world needs authenticity in its stories,” and chosen as one of the Best Books of The Year by NPR is on sale wherever fine books are sold!   It’s also available in Italian and Spanish language editions, darlings! Because we’re fabulous on an INTERNATIONAL level.

[Photo Credit: Paramount Plus via Tom and Lorenzo]

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