“Drag Race’s” Michelle Visage knows the secret to winning the reality competition show: “Make Ru laugh.”
And she should know. Visage has been a judge on the main show, “RuPaul’s Drag Race,” for over 16 years. RuPaul isn’t just a colleague—he’s her best friend. She has said this many times before and repeats it for any queen. She says, “You would think after a few seasons they would understand that.” However, her observation is that queens tend to overthink. “It happens all the time. You want to make Ru laugh, and you’re overthinking. But when you peel it away, you realize, ‘Oh, this is not as difficult as I was making it out to be.’”
Someone who understood the assignment was Myki Meeks. Meeks didn’t have the strongest start to the season, but after her fellow queens placed her at the bottom of the “Rate-A-Queen” twist, she exacted her revenge. And yes, she made Ru laugh several times. In the end, it was Meeks who sashayed her way to the top and was crowned the winner of “RuPaul’s Drag Race” Season 18.
Here, Meeks and Visage look back on the season and pick out their top moments from the show.
Briar Blush faints
On Episode 4, Briar Blush faints after guest judge Law Roach tells her, “You look like a WWE wrestler.”
Meeks explains, “The poor girl was not taking care of herself at the time, and she was under a lot of stress.” While Blush recovered, Vita and Mia thought for a moment that she was faking it.
Visage recalls seeing it, “I think I was like, uh, are you okay?’
Mikey Meeks’ snatch game with Drew Barrymore
By the time it came to the Snatch Game challenge, Meeks was ready and confident. “This was my fourth audition for the show. The first two times, I wasn’t expecting anything; I was doing it for the practice, but I’ve auditioned as Drew Barrymore almost every time, because I knew it was a good impression.”
This time around, the format was slightly different – the “Snatch Game of Love: Island Edition,” where the queens competed in a dating-style show. Meeks says, “One of my biggest strengths is physical comedy, so being able to bring that essence into Snatch Game took the impersonation to another level.”
But it didn’t end there. The moment went viral, and Barrymore invited Meeks on the show for a sit-down interview. “It’s next level to have a current season airing, and have one of the contestants go on daytime, that felt very special, and it helps to make Ru laugh, during Snatch Game. What’s better than that?” Meeks adds, “If you can make Ru laugh during Snatch Game, you check something off in her mind.”
Visage notes making Ru laugh is really the key. She says, “If you listen to ‘What’s the Tee?’ – our former podcast – people want to make it so much more difficult than it is. Myki embodied Drew, and did with her what she wanted to do with her. If you can’t embody someone, then don’t do it, do Drew’s cousin, do something else. There are ways to make it work if you’re not an impersonator. Most people are not, so you have to find a way. Work smarter, not harder. It does not need to be as difficult as people want to make it.”
Discord Addam’s walk
Addams’ walk became another iconic moment from the show. It became a running gag and GIFs galore were created. Visage was humored by it and says, “You see something that not only is it funny, but I love it so much that I would pay, in that moment, to see more of it. I would say, ‘Did you see the walk?’ ‘Please tell me you say the walk?’ And then Ru starts laughing.”
Juicy Love Dion
Visage reveals she was in awe when Dion did a handstand during a lip sync against Jane Don’t. As the two faced off, Dion did a costume reveal. “I can’t tell you again, I’m a kid in a candy story. I love my job,” Visage says. When she’s not happy, get ready for Visage to show her “bitchy face,” but when she is, “you see my face light up.” Dion landed in the bottom two a total of four times, and Visage admits, “But I’d be so excited to watch that bitch lip sync, she is amazing.” Adding, “Not that I was excited she was in the bottom.”
Myki’s confidence shift
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On more than one occasion, Visage has seen queens who come in and don’t start off as powerhouses. “That’s not a bad thing. You’re getting over nerves and realizing that you’re amongst people who are as fabulous as you are, and figuring out how you’re going to play it, what you’re going to do.”
Visage adds, “I didn’t expect this bitch to be so fierce, and then figuring it out, and then when you see it click, it’s like she got it.”
After the “Rate-a-queen” twist, Visage recalls the moment she saw a shift in Meeks. “The climb began when she, concerned citizen Stephanie Miller. And then it was Snatch Game.”
Meeks says, “From that moment, I was mostly in the top every episode after that. That was when I realized I could get to the end.”
When Jane Don’t who had been the front runner, was sent home, Meeks realized she was suddenly the frontrunner.
Visage says, “Front runners are tough when you come out of the box, all guns blazing, the target is on you, and then you start to buckle under the pressure, not always, but a lot of times that can happen.”
And that’s when it clicked for Meeks, that she could win and be crowned America’s Drag Superstar.
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