Sasha Velour has revealed that the televised version of RuPaul’s reaction to her iconic rose-wig reveal in the season nine finale may not have been her real one.
The world truly stopped during the finale of RuPaul’s Drag Race when Sasha Velour, in the penultimate lip-sync against undisputed frontrunner Shea Couleé, pulled up her wig to Whitney Houston’s “So Emotional”, and a cascade of rose petals fluttered out.
It was the moment when she snatched the season’s crown, despite having the second-least number of wins, but no-one could deny just how gagged the in-theatre audience – and viewers around the world – were.
But in a resurfaced passage from her 2023 book The Big Reveal, Sasha shared that she’s not sure the version of RuPaul reacting to the moment we saw on TV was actually her genuine reaction to Sasha – because of some production trickery.
The former We’re Here star revealed that in order to get enough reaction shots to lip-syncs, RuPaul’s Drag Race has to film lip-syncs twice; once with the queens, and once with crew members as “stand-ins”.
In her book, she wrote of the season nine finale, “I tried to see through cracks in my mask as they swept my wig and rose petals into a tangled pile on the side of the stage. Then they brought in some ‘stand-ins’ onto the stage – two guys in cheap blond wigs, smeared with a bit of lipsticks.
“They started playing Whitney’s “So Emotional” again – this time at half volume, as the stand-ins attempted to reenact our lip-sync while the cameras captured reaction shots of the audience and of Ru. I felt like I shouldn’t be watching, but I couldn’t stop.
A producer then had to prompt audiences to ‘react’ to Sasha’s reveal, despite the actual moment happening minutes prior, and Sasha continued, “The crowd went wild and stood up again. I could only see the back of her head, but I wondered if Ru was reacting more than she had to the real thing.”
Sasha has since said that she would return to RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars for another All Winners season – so fingers crossed for some more reveals.
RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars 10 is available to stream on Paramount+ in the US and WOW Presents Plus internationally. New episodes air on Fridays.
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