All drag race fans have been anxiously biting their nails this past season and last weeks All Stars episode was the ultimate gag of the season. While millions of fans were losing their minds over the fact that Naomi Smalls FINALLY won a challenge, her decision to send home the front-runner and obvious winner, Manila Luzon left fans thiking she was robbed.
Throughout this season, Manila and Naomi created such a close bond,especially after Naomi told Manila how she looks up to her during the first episode. So seeing Naomi send Manila home, especially after she was consistently good and winning almost every week, drag race fans have every right to be gagged, angry, upset or any other negative emotion after Naomi sent Manila home. All throughout the competition, all of the queens decided to base their elimation choices off of track record, so Naomi sending Manila home was a real game changer, making the other queens begin to question who would be safe in the remaining episodes.
The week after Maila’s elimination, Trinity the Tuck was the first queen to confront Naomi on her elimination choice. Naomi simply explained that the competition is getting harder and the finale is so close that she wanted to get rid of any and all competition. Monét X Change, who was also in the top two last week, also revealed that if she won the lipstick she would also send Manila home. Not because she was competition, but because Manila was going to send her home a couple weeks back to save Latrice (which was so shady and I’m glad Monique won that lipsynch because that was NOT Monét’s time to go).
While all drag race fans were heartbroken over Manila’s elimination, Naomi has been recieving racist death threats as a result of this. Of course drag race fans love to make jokes about queens being “robbed” and share our outrage online, but attacking a queen over something so unimportant is insane. The influx of racist death threats Naomi recieved only highlighted the underlying racism within the lgbtq community and how it needs to be addressed instead of being gently brushed over and excused.
Despite all the drama and hurtful things Naomi recieved, she remained unbothered and showed how strong she is as a queen and I’m hoping she takes the crown this season. Make sure to Watch Rupaul’s Drag Race All Stars, Friday nights at 8 on vh1!