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When Chappell Roan started calling herself “your favorite artist’s favorite artist”, fans of RuPaul’s Drag Race knew exactly what she was talking about. The phrase referred to a viral moment of Meet the queens, the video segment featuring each season’s contestants, in which the Hawaii-born, Los Angeles-based artist Sasha Colby called herself “your favorite drag queen’s favorite drag queen.”

This wasn’t just reality TV bluster. Colby had been performing for two decades at that point and had a knowledgeable and dedicated fan base. She’s loved for her confidence (“It’s a mix of youngest child syndrome, being a Leo and being delusional narcissistic,” she jokes), which was on full display when she took on the challenge to become the first trans woman of color and first native Hawaiian to win Drag racing.

Bringing up Colby obliquely, then yelling at him Fallon—Roan was showing drag fans that she not only owned the aesthetic of drag, but that she truly cared about the medium. A few months later, she and Colby took the stage together in Seattle, and at the afterparty, Colby officially made Roan his drag girl. Below, Colby describes what it was like to witness this major expansion of the Colby House.

Honestly, I imagined “I’m your favorite drag queen’s favorite drag queen” while smoking a bunch of weed. My eyes were bloodshot Meet the queens, if you notice. It wasn’t on the show, but one of the things Ru said to me when I was on the podium was, “You’re a drag queen of a drag queen.” » And so it stuck in my head, and I kind of let it slip.

Someone said, Did you write this? I’m like, Write this? This just came out. Imagine the things I say that aren’t filmed!

So that was the day when season 16 Drag racing the finale aired and I was doing the finale show in Hawaii for my Stripped tour. I was getting painted and my agent said, “Oh my God, Chappell Roan I just shouted you out at Coachella. To be completely honest, old fart, I’m like, “Who is Chappell Roan?” And then my friend who does my makeup, he said to me: “My sister, we listen to it all the time. Before the rebranding, Midwest Princess moment, you listened to her sad girl songs.

I didn’t really have time to let it sink in and I kind of left it alone. But then Fallon, she repeated it, and she actually said, “That’s Sasha Colby’s line.” It was really cool for her to not only quote me, but also quote me. So I was like, Fine, I’ll meet her. (laughs)

Luckily our managers were talking, so I went to a festival she was doing in Seattle. I have to hang around backstage; they really took care of me. She arrived maybe 10 minutes before her set started, and that’s when we finally got to meet. And then she said, “Do you want to do ‘Hot to Go!’ with me? Do you want to go out? I said to myself: “Yes! » I didn’t get into drag for nothing, and who’s going to say no to that? Thank goodness I had learned to dance.

After that performance, we went back to his dressing room and hung out, and I was like, “You have the energy of a girl.” You must be a Colby. And so I made him a Colby on the spot.

And then I have to present it at the VMAs. It was her first time working with dancers and a few of my friends danced for her. So it was really a great reunion. I was having so much fun, just watching the stars backstage and sitting next to Paris Hilton.

What’s the best part of watching her climb? You know, he’s not a nepo baby. She is simply talented and she didn’t need to use or trade her talent. And his weirdness. She can say, Hey, I’m going to be unapologetically queer, and I’m going to be myself, and I know my talent will back it up. She doesn’t need to hide her sexuality or anything. The songs are great. The writing is brilliant. His voice is crazy. I think a lot of Gen Zers, and a lot of people in general, love that authenticity. Like, wow, you get to play the game as yourself instead of an avatar of yourself that may not be as authentic as your art.

For me, I mean, I’ve been doing drag for about 25 years, and it’s only been two years of real public prominence. Fame has been a crazy journey: I feel like I entered a random competition that people love and now people expect me to know the answers to everything. And that wasn’t the principle of the show! I literally only know drag. I don’t know the state of the world. I don’t know how we’re going to get out of what we find ourselves in.

But Chappell is on a whole other level, and it’s pretty invasive. No one else knows what she’s going through. She could be our generation’s next Gaga or Madonna, but even stars can’t relate to each other. I’m sure it’s really lonely. There is no support group. Still, I loved how, when she had to cancel that last music festival, each of the artists did a cover of one of her songs. They knew how much of an impact she had already made.

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