My Interview With RuPaul Drag Race's Asia O'Hara
“RuPaul’s Drag Race: Werq the World Tour 2019,” will be at Foxwoods Resort Casino on Oct. 25 at 8 p.m., by far Connecticut’s biggest drag event ever, with a show that features Aquaria, Detox, Kameron Michaels, Kim Chi, Monét X Change, Naomi Smalls, Violet Chachki, Asia O’Hara, Plastique Tiara, Vanessa Mateo, and Season 11 winner Yvie Oddly. The tour started the year in Asia and Australia and played more than 30 cities in Europe this spring. Following the USA and Canada, the tour will finish the year in Latin America.
I talked with that fabulous chameleon, Asia O’Hara, who was a finalist for Season 10, on the phone from her home in Dallas just before she was to start the next leg of the tour. At 37, the Texas native is riding high with a new music video and single, “Crown Up,” and was happy to talk about the song, the future of drag, and the time RuPaul slapped her across the kisser. (We skipped over her sad butterfly incident when, in her final lip-sync for the crown, butterflies which were concealed in her costume didn’t exactly flutter fantastically free but rather did a death-drop to the runway floor.)
Connecticut VOICE: How has the show affected you, not just professionally, but personally?
Asia: I had personal moment on the show when Ru told me to remember who I was. That really stopped me. And recently in Los Angeles, a young girl came up to me and she told me how much that moment really changed her life. She gave me this handmade, silver-plated bracelet that said, “Remember who you are” on it and that’s something I’ve worn every day since then. It’s great to know that little moments that affect you have the same power for other people, too.
