The cast of RuPaul’s Drag Race UK vs. the World season two.(BBC)
The third queen eliminated from season two of Drag Race UK vs The World has revealed some werk room rules were broken – which will go unseen – and why they knew they were going to be sent home ahead of next week’s Snatch Game.
Warning: spoilers for episode three of Drag Race UK vs The World season two follow.
Following last week’s Happy Ending Ball that saw Drag Race España‘s Arantxa Castilla-La Mancha sashay away, the nine remaining international queens were split into three and given the task of a branding challenge set in the wider Drag Race Ru-niverse.
La Grande Dame decided to take a week off from landing the top two, so Tia Kofi and Scarlet Envy filled in, with Jonbers Blonde finding herself in the bottom against Keta Minaj.
Despite fierce and frenzied talk of a UK alliance, and Scarlet Envy claiming that she was going to take a page out of Naomi Small’s very tall book by sending home the statistical frontrunner (Keta), it was revealed after a Kim Petras lip-sync that she’d actually elected to send Jonbers home.
Speaking exclusively to PinkNews about following in Mayhem Miller and Arantxa’s footsteps, Jonbers explains why she got the chop – and why she thinks she was the frontrunner of the group over Keta.
“Scarlet did say in episode two that she was going to get rid of her biggest competition,” Jonbers reminds us before expanding on why she believes that was her.
“I had a target on my back, I didn’t do the worst in the challenge. And if we’re talking track record, I am a previous finalist [from Drag Race UK season four]. So, especially being the only UK queen from this cast who has ever been in the final of a UK season, I think Scarlet knew I was good.”
When asked how she knows she didn’t do the worst in the challenge, Jonbers says: “I don’t want to say things that haven’t been shown, because it’s out of context. But there were [negative critiques] that were said to other people that didn’t get said to me – other people got worse things said to them.”
There was also an extra, strategic layer to her elimination, Jonbers claims.
“We knew Snatch Game was right around that corner. And after this challenge, I knew I was gonna be in the top for Snatch Game. So they were like, we’re gonna get her out.”
On the subject of any unseen moments that would have changed how viewers might have seen the competition, Jonbers practically barks with laughter, before bringing up the previous week’s sewing challenge, and emphasising that being a Belfast belle, she has always played fair.
“There’s a lot I could say, but it’s not gonna change anything. There was a lot, especially in that sewing challenge, that you didn’t see.
“Every challenge is given rules. And a lot of those rules were broken”, she states.
She adds: “I also would have liked you to see RuPaul tell me I should be the host of Drag Race Ireland from this episode.”
Jonbers also points out that even post-elimination, she still has a leg up on most of her rivals.
“I’ve never been eliminated by Ru. I’ve never been eliminated by RuPaul,” she points out. “I’m being eliminated by a drag queen but not Mama Ru – all those other girls have been. Scarlet has been eliminated twice.”
As to whether the UK alliance will hold now that the group of Tia, Gothy Kendoll and Choriza May is down to three, Jonbers laughs: “There’s no UK alliance, what are you talking about?
“It got very easily [cancelled] in episode two when Choriza was like: ‘No, I would send those girls home’.”
Jonbers’ pick for the crown is Drag Race Down Under‘s Hannah Conda, and she insists that the cast do actually – yes, honestly – like one another, but adds: “You do have to be shady at times. We’re drag queens!”
RuPaul’s Drag Race UK vs The World continues on BBC Three and BBC iPlayer on Fridays at 9pm.