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Beverly Kills Spills All the Tea About That Wild "Drag Race Down Under" Lip-Sync

"I knew that I could test Kween Kong one last time."

The following interview contains spoilers for RuPaul's Drag Race Season 2 Episode 6.

RuPaul's Drag Race has been delivering epic lip syncs since its very first season. Even after 14 seasons and multiple international versions, fans can still count on a fierce battle between the bottom two queens as they lip-sync for their life to stay in the competition.

That was the case on "Hometown Hunnies," the latest episode of RuPaul's Drag Race Down Under Season 2, when Beverly Kills and Kween Kong found themselves in the bottom two, lip-syncing for their life to RuPaul's classic banger, "The Beginning."

What followed was a dazzling display of dips, flips, drops, and splits that left jaws on the floor. Even judge Michelle Visage yelled out, "What is happening?!" during the action-packed performance.

When the glitter and wig glue settled, Beverly Kills was asked to sashay away, but she didn't leave without putting up a good fight. As Beverly said in her confessional before the lip-sync: "I know this is going to be a battle for the ages."

And it certainly was.

Beverly spoke with Logo and answered all of our questions about the instantly legendary lip-sync, and more importantly: If she's finally seen Muriel's Wedding.

WOW

First off, what did you think when you found out that the song was going to be "The Beginning?"

I love RuPaul's music. I think he's got great music, and then when I found out it was "The Beginning," I knew it was going to be me and [Kween] Kong, you can feel the way that the room is. You know who's lip-syncing before the challenge even happens sometimes. And I just knew that was happening. And when I was like, "Oh, 'The Beginning,' okay, that's fine. We'll make it work. Whatever happens or whoever I'm against, we'll make it work."

After everyone was calling me fake on Untucked. I sort of became quite defeated, to be honest. There's a really quick way to take someone's energy out of them and it's just to question their character. So my energy was already so gone and I just felt so low and so not worthy of being there.

So, by the time we started the lip-sync, I didn't have a lot of energy. And you'll notice that Kong comes straight out of the gate with dips and stunts and kicks, whereas I'm not really doing much. I'm just lip-syncing just normally. And then the more I saw Kong do that, I was like, "All right, bitch. If you want to be here so bad, I'm going to make you fight for it." So I knew that I wasn't going to be able to survive, but I knew that I could test Kong one last time and make her prove her spot to be in the top four. And she did. I think she did brilliantly. I'm so proud of her.

Since you knew it was going to be you and Kween Kong, did you say anything to each other in the workroom beforehand?

We definitely did after the critiques, yeah. We knew it was going to be us, and we were just doing stretches in the corner [of the workroom]. 

At the start of the song you walk down the runway and then Kong runs into you and pushes you. Drag is not a contact sport, as we know, so that must have been jarring.

Yeah, I don't know. The Down Under stage is quite small. So I think you just do what you got to do. I would love a big stage because then Kong and I think would've had a really great lip sync, but because it's so small, I move around a lot and Kong's already a big lady, so it's kind of hard to make it work, but we made it work.

Did you ever get a glimpse of the judges throughout any of this? I love that in the episode, you can hear Michelle [Village] yelling, "What is happening?!"

Yeah. I couldn't see them. I wasn't really looking at them, but I could hear them. I could hear everyone's reactions. Even the camera crew, the producers, were just screaming their heads off and I was ready to start collecting tips. It was fun.

I was gagged.

It's funny. I feel like I've, I've accidentally been a part of two, very quite polarizing lip syncs. Even in my one with Minnie [Cooper], fans are just divided on it. So many people online, the cast can say they don't read the comments... Every single one of us — except maybe Yuri [Guaii] — but everyone else, we're very much involved with fan reception because we want to know how to be able to respond to the fans.

And the fan reception is split into four camps. It's either "Kong absolutely demolished Beverly" or "Beverly demolished Kong," or "They both should have stayed" or "They both should have gone." Everyone in every camp feels very strongly about how they feel. It was kind of the same with Minnie. So many people were like, "Oh, Minnie had a better track record than Beverly, but Beverly won the lip sync" or Minnie people will say "Minnie disrespected Lady Gaga with the lip sync." And I was like, okay, calm down, Little Monsters, get off the high horse. But I thought, yeah, it's been lovely. And then even me and Pomara [Fifth], people really love that lip sync as well. So it's been really cool to be a part of these polarizing lip syncs, I guess.

I really thought it was going to be a "Shantay You Both Stay."

I think at that point, we had both already lip-synced. It wouldn't have made sense. It wouldn't have made sense for me if Kong got eliminated and I stayed or if we both stayed, we would've just gone back to square one. The story was done. I didn't have anything else to give. So, I don't think it would've made sense for us both to stay or for Kong to go. And for me to stay, it wouldn't have made sense.

You must be proud of how far you made it.

At that point, I had been doing drag for two and a half years and I made the top five. Are you joking? Of course. So I think the one thing that people keep forgetting and I'm making sure that people know because I'm proud of it. Aubrey had this big storyline about how she'd only been doing drag for a year and a bit. I had only been doing drag nine months longer than Aubrey, but that wasn't part of my storyline. So I was like, please give me some credit and cut me some slack.

Even when Hannah [Conda] was like, "Oh, I've had really tough times in dressing rooms. Girls will be really harsh on me." And I'm like, well, I haven't had that experience because when I tell you, at that point, 50% of my drag career had been during COVID. I've had a lot better fan reception than they have. So, that's fine. But they didn't realize that in the moment that I hadn't had that experience.

Watching week after week it seemed like the other queens were making the competition harder for you. They were coming for you. Did it feel like that for you?

Yeah. If I knew that someone else was in the bottom, I wouldn't have made their life harder. That's all I'll say. If I knew I was in the top and I saw someone in the bottom, the last thing I would be doing is call them fake when they're already having a tough time. I just think it was out of place and it just was weird. It didn't need to happen.

You really broke down on the couch during Untucked. Was that the culmination of a lot of things and you finally just broke? That's what it seemed like.

Yeah. It was a combination of stresses of the competition, feeling a bit like I didn't fit in with the other crew, and I just think she [Hannah] just pushed it. I don't think she meant to push me as hard as she did, but I think in hindsight she understands what she did. We've spoken about it and she's been like, "Oh, I understand." She gets it now. Which is good.

Have you kept in touch with the other queens?

Well, we all work with each other and we're all traveling. We all do shows in Sydney. We all do these big shows together so I see them all the time. So if I wasn't getting along with the queens, I wouldn't have any work. We've got the Season 2 group chat and it goes off every day. So yeah, we're all chill. 

In your confessional before lip sync, you said it was going to be "a battle for the ages." I think that lip sync was.

It was a lot of fun. People always made comments even before the show happened. We all knew who I was going to be in the workroom. And I was talking with one of my friends and I was like, "I think Kween Kong might be on the show" and they were like, "You do realize they're going to put the two of you together. I'm like, "They probably are."

Were you okay afterward? Did you hurt yourself?

Well, that's what I do three times a week in Brisbane. That's my job. So yeah, I'm very well equipped to safely throw my body around. I think that's the one thing that frustrates me. I hate it when I can see drag performers and they're like, "Oh, I'm going to do a dip or a death drop" or whatever. And they just slam their spinal cord onto the ground. That's really cringe, but there's nothing better than seeing queens who know how to do the stunt and do it. We were able to safely throw ourselves around and just have some fun with it.

You talked about Ru's music earlier. If you could have picked a Ru song to lip sync to, or maybe just your favorite Ru song, what is it?

Ooh, probably "Call Me Mother." I think I know the whole rap. That's not an invitation for me to rap it on this interview.

No, I'm not going to ask.

I think probably "Call Me Mother" or  "Just What They Want" from the new album. I love that one.

And then my last question: Have you now seen Muriel's Wedding?

Yes. Okay. So [the Australian streaming service] Stan, if you watch the episode of Drag Race on Stan, it's the first thing in the suggested to watch. So I spoke with the Stan people and they're like, "Oh, we'll just put it as the first suggestion. That's really easy. We can do that." I've watched it since and I'm going to do a reaction review video to it. I loved it. I thought it was great. And I see why everyone was really upset that I hadn't watched it 'cause it was really good. I think what's good now is that so many people have now been like, "Oh, I will watch it." Now all these people have messaged me being like, "Look, I hadn't seen it, but now I've watched it. It's great. It's a great film. I love it."

You're influencing a whole new generation.

I know. I'm making mistakes publicly. I'm fucking up in public so everyone else can follow suit and learn and educate themselves.

RuPaul's Drag Race Down Under Season 2 is available on WOW Presents Plus.

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