Original subtitles

Now sissy that walk.

[cheering]

Trend alert.

I'm new to a lot of things.

I ain't new to stunning.

I always joked about running away and joining the circus,

and I basically have. [laughs]

Category is New Jersey/ Atlanta housewife.

♪ She's a super queen ♪

Naomi's such a whore. I love it.

I don't need a lot of communication.

I just need to, like, there to be a plan.

Vanessa Vanjie Mateo.

Thank God.

Oh, send me home!

♪ And if I fly or if I fall ♪

♪ 'Least I can say... ♪

Hi.

Hi. [laughs]

Do I make you nervous?

[laughs]

Detox, take two.

What do you want me to say?

Just, hi, I'm Detox, and you fucking know who I am?

Okay. [laughs] Like, I'm going to.

Yeah.

Hi. It's me, Detox,

and you already fucking know who I am.

Everyone's afraid of me apparently.

With good reason.

Why do you think that is?

Because I'm a stone cold bitch.

I have, like, this touch bitch exterior,

and can be somewhere intimidating apparently.

What do you want, Jasper?

I didn't sign a contract yet for this.

I don't know.

I've gotten that my entire career.

I think maybe it's just because my aesthetic is so severe,

and I've been around for so long,

I think that some people just assume that I'm gonna be a cunt.

Which I can be if you cross me.

The cunt comes out when people try my patience,

waste my time, are not nice to other people.

The alpha mom comes out, the attack dog.

But for the most part, I'm just a really lovable person.

I wear my heart on my sleeve,

and I think that's an endearing quality.

Really I'm just a big softie.

[cheering]

-Shut up! -The hardest.

That's what I always tell them. The hardest number of the show.

How you feeling?

I feel fine...

as I wheeze and take my inhaler and ask for a cigarette.

How do you feel?

Oh, she's back.

Yes, she is.

Are you gonna bring out the old face lace?

-Whoo, whoo, whoo! -[laughs]

I cannot think of one person

that's had a negative comment about Detox.

Everyone loves Detox, because she also takes on, like,

the mothering kind of role on tour.

That's the actual mother of the tour.

Oh, Mama Detox. Legend.

I love her so much!

We're gonna have so much fun!

I know. I've missed you guys.

Detox is one of my favorites ever, so...

Detox keeps it real. She keeps it one hundred.

She runs the fucking rehearsal.

If you're late, she'll let you know.

4:30.

D is our mama. She is Mama D.

And she's always, like, trying to protect us or anything.

We'll be whispering. She'll be like, "Who said what to you?"

"What? Who do I gotta beat up?" [both laugh]

Like, she's super protective of us.

Detox is definitely a good buddy of mine.

Hey, you stupid motherfuckers,

What are we doing for this Werq the World promo shoot?

Because Detox won't tell me.

She's being shady.

She's being a shady-ass bitch today, I guess.

[laughs]

She's very, very, very secure in herself

and secure with what she does,

and I think that's very inspirational,

so I like looking up to that.

Detox is the most Southern... [laughs]

like, Southern country pageant drag queen

I have ever met to not live in the South or do pageants.

You know, Detox is very what you see is what you get.

She's so Southern and funny.

She, like, treats me

like somebody she's known all her life, so I'm jazzed.

I'm jazzed I actually get to work with her.

Aw. [laughs]

It took me a second. I was like, oh.

Well, girl. [laughs]

Everything and a little bit more.

I mean, she's just an icon period.

I mean, look at her.

Perfection everywhere all the time.

Baby Detox was wild.

You know, I have a twin brother,

and my poor parents, we were both really, really wild.

We would always steal my mom's clothes and wear her heels

and steal her jewelry and play in my sister's makeup

and do all those things

that eccentric, artsy, flamboyant, gay boys do

when they don't realize that they're gay.

They just feel like they're, you know, a princess.

And now I'm a queen.

[chuckles]

-That's a wrap. -That's a wrap.

I got a DUI when I was 18,

and I was hanging around with a bunch of crazy kids,

and we were shoplifting at a thrift store.

And I sped away from the thrift store

and got pulled over immediately

because there was a cop in the parking lot.

So they arrested me and I did three months in jail.

I was still a queen in jail.

I got treated really well. [laughs]

I spent Halloween and Thanksgiving

and Christmas and New Year's in jail.

But even that experience, as it sounds terrible,

because I was in a dorm with 60 other men

and I was young.

I was, like, I don't know, 19 years old,

19 or 20 when it happened.

But I kind of, like,

I kind of took over the jail, which was interesting.

I was able to stay up late at night

and watch Sex in the City.

And the COs really loved me,

and they brought me food from the outside.

[laughs]

It was kind of endearing, because all the guys,

like, any time new people would come into the dorm,

and they would have a problem

with me being super feminine and super gay

and they would try to start shit,

everybody that was in the dorm, like, protected me.

They looked at me-- they looked after me,

which was a really interesting experience.

Just goes to show you how far charm can get you, I guess.

It's also where I fell in love with Puerto Rican men.

[laughs]

That's a different story.

I mean, put two and two together.

I fell in love with a Puerto Rican man in jail.

I don't know, but I think about him often.

I nicknamed him "Curly"

because he had the most beautiful, curly hair.

He looked like a Cabbage Patch doll.

He had, like, this big, pouty mouth, and he was beautiful.

I kind of did.

I remember calling my mom on New Year's

to wish her a Happy New Year's,

and it was, like, I convinced them to let us have a party

and stay up late and watch the ball drop.

And she was like, "Where are you at?

Are you out of jail? Oh, my God."

I was like, "No, we're just having a party."

She was like, "Of course.

You would convince the people to have a party with you there."

[cheers and applause]

I grew up young, yeah.

My sister did, too, and she's always been my biggest supporter

and my biggest influence and my biggest role model.

She grew up really young.

We had to. Our parents were kind of absent.

My sister, thank God,

was the one to, like, really drag me out of the closet.

She was like, "You're gay.

"You just need to admit that you're a fag

and just come out."

And I was like, "Okay, you're right."

I was 15, I think, when I came out.

I just stopped going to school.

Being bullied and being a queer kid,

I just didn't wanna be there.

I hated it.

So my sister agreed to take me in.

I got emancipated. I got my GED.

That's kind of when I really started

diving into the drag world.

We are in Orlando, Florida, my hometown, where I was born.

Orlando has a lot of fun meanings.

I mean, obviously it's where I grew up,

and I have a lot of memories of that.

But it's also

where I really started coming into my queerness.

It's where I started doing drag, it's where I met my drag family,

it's where, you know, Detox was born.

We had a big fetish fashion show,

and that's the first time I ever did drag onstage.

I was like, "Well, I'm gonna be a part of the show, too,

and wear, like, all those, like, fetish corsets."

And I had big water-balloon tits,

and our friend did my makeup,

and she gave me the name Cornanda Cob. [laughs]

And so that was essentially my first drag name

was Cornanda Cob.

And it started right around here.

I'm trying to find out where it is.

I can't really get my bearings yet.

Some of it is also, like, a little cringey, being back here,

because it's like, oh, I just remember those days,

being a wild, hot mess.

And, you know, I did three months in jail here.

[laughs]

We are on our way to Pulse nightclub.

We're actually pretty close.

Pulse and I have a very tight history.

It was the first bar in Orlando that I had a regular weekly gig.

It was when I moved to L.A.,

they were the bar that threw me my going-away party.

And we're coming up to it right here.

Pulse.

Pulse nightclub, um...

Goddamn it.

When the shooting happened,

obviously it was very jarring for us as a community.

But for Orlando and people who come from Orlando,

obviously it was life changing.

It's something that you just really can't shake.

Something that horrific

happening to people that you grew up with,

and that are your family is so hard

because as affected as I am, I can't imagine.

I don't even know what they're going through on a daily basis.

[sniffles]

And that breaks my heart,

because there's nothing I can do to make any of that better.

It was such a part of my life being here.

You know, this where I grew up, and this is where we all, like--

so many of us grew up together. And it was such a--

I was saying earlier that this was the first--

you know, for my generation, the gay community here,

I feel like this was the place

that we really took ownership of.

We all really fell in love with it

because it felt like our space,

which is why, like, it just, you know, hits so close to home.

It was the first place that I had a regular gig.

Like, that meant everything to me,

because I was, like, basically scrubbing toilets in drag

just to get noticed and to work anywhere.

I was a cigarette girl every week. [laughs]

I didn't make any money because I smoked all the cigarettes.

Every time I would come home to visit,

this would be the place that I would work, so it's--

It's still there?

That's wild.

Yeah, it's still there.

That's great. Undamaged.

That's even wilder.

It's sad, but it's also really--

I feel so much love, because I had so much love here.

Like, even just walking over here,

I'm just having memories of, like, just being a drunk mess,

stumbling everywhere.

Like, finding all the, you know,

smoking in the back over there between numbers.

It's just really wild.

A lot of really, really happy memories,

but it's also a lot of heartache.

If you look all the way down,

you see it all back there in black?

Mm-hmm.

-On the board? -Mm-hmm.

That's actually where Axel--

Where Axel and Piggy came through?

Yeah.

-And everyone who was there? -Yeah.

In the dressing room?

So many memories sort of that dressing room.

I know. [laughs]

When I heard all the details about them escaping there,

I was just, like,

I knew every nook and cranny of that dressing room.

That's where a lot of the people who were working

or who were here locked themselves in

to try to hide and to be safe.

I knew so many people that were there.

I lost a lot of friends that night. [sniffles]

I lost a lot of people that I didn't really know,

but I knew because of being there so long.

You know, having so many of my, like, drag family

being there that night, and luckily escaping.

I can't even imagine what they go through daily,

especially seeing the bullet holes,

and seeing where my friends

crawled out of the air conditioning duct

and all of that stuff.

That was just, you know, very, very sad and scary and weird.

I know there's a lot of controversy

surrounding the fact that they wanna build a monument

or memorialize the event or the location.

I think that it's important,

because especially for survivors,

it's a way to turn such a tragic event

into something that's more peaceful and beautiful,

and hopefully a nice remembrance

of the good times that we all had here.

Everywhere in the world,

people in our community, they have a Pulse.

You know, there's, like, there's that bar to them

that is their sanctuary and their home,

and where they have their family.

I think that's why when everything happened globally,

everyone in our community,

in the gay LGBTQIA+ community was affected by it.

Because that is the one place

that we should be able to feel safe,

and obviously, that was shaken.

And I think that it's important

to have a place to remember it by,

and that the building is going to remain

so you can go and witness it,

and see, like, this is-- it's very real.

One thing I was talking to Barbara

is I just wanted to go touch the building,

just to, like, you know, have some kind of just--

not closure, but, like, just feel the energy of it

and put my energy into it.

And I think that that might be

a really beautiful thing for people to have.

Well, this is--I mean, being here at Bob Carr

is really crazy, because I used to come here a lot

when I was younger.

I would come to plays here with my mother,

and always, like, just imagined

being on the stage as a kid

and, like, wanting to be an actor

and wanting to do theater and all that kind of stuff.

So it's kind of wild that I'm here,

and in such a different capacity,

as not necessarily an actor,

but, you know, headlining this amazing show at this theater.

It's kind of cool.

My mom will be here later, which is really fun.

So it's kind of like a full-circle moment being here.

In a way.

Like, she's definitely much more supportive now.

I think for most of the family,

it took them a minute just to, like, kind of process the fact

that I was--that I'm experimenting with gender roles.

And especially once I started getting, like,

all the body modifications and changing my appearance so much,

I think they didn't really know what to think about it.

And they were just concerned, as, you know, most parents are,

like, how are you gonna make a living

and be a functioning member of society

by cross-dressing in gay bars. [laughs]

Which now it's funny, because I don't think any of us

thought that I would be where I am now,

being part of a huge pop culture phenomenon.

Hey, baby!

Now she's like my biggest fan.

She's obnoxiously fan-girlie. [laughs]

She has her own Instagram account

called "The Only Mama Tox."

She comments on everything.

He was always very precocious, always acting.

You know, he was always the star

at any little event that he was in.

He was just always the center of attention.

I was the last one he came out to.

He said he was afraid to come out to me,

and he came out in a really rough way.

I think he was afraid to tell me,

but he said it in such a way

that really kind of took me a little bit back,

and I didn't take it well, to tell you the truth.

It's definitely a generational thing.

My parents were older when they had me.

But you know, they just didn't--they didn't really know,

and I didn't know until I was older.

My dad was definitely not around,

and my mom didn't really know what to do with us,

so we had to kind of grow up ourselves,

whether my mom will say that or not.

Everyone said to me, "You had to know that he was gay."

"Come on, you didn't know he was gay?"

I never put a label on him, and I used to get upset with people.

"Leave him alone. Let him be who he wants to be."

He was born to be who he is,

so I'm hoping that there's a part of me that he cherishes

and knows that I always loved him

and I always will love him.

Welcome to my boudoir.

[laughs] Oh, what did you do?

I'm tangled up in my purse.

You've taught me to accept myself more,

to just, you know, own my beauty,

own my realness, own my whatever.

Not give a fuck.

Not give a fuck is basically, yeah.

And then, you know, say, oh, okay.

And you know what? It really helped me,

and I wish I had been more like that when I was younger.

Mm-hmm.

I think I get a lot of my sincerity

and my kindness from you.

What else do we take from each other?

I took a lot of your jewelry

and your shoes when I was younger.

Oh, I know that, yeah.

Oh, my gosh, why didn't y'all say something?

-This is Aquaria. -She knew it was me.

-No! -You didn't know it was me?

I smelled a lot of perfume, but I didn't--

I couldn't tell specifically

that it was, like, an inherited trait.

I didn't realize.

And a TV and the show. Ooh.

You guys don't have that in your room?

They must love you.

This is Joe, her fiancé.

Hi. We've met.

-I already met him! -[laughs]

[all talking at once]

It's so cute.

She brought me a bunch of stuff, and she was like, "Oh, my God,

I have all the girls' magazine covers."

So he pulls out, and it's like Katya and Brooklyn

and then it's you.

And I was like, "You have to bring it to the meet-and-greet

and make her sign it."

-And I forgot. -Oh, gosh. Oh, my goodness.

Well, hopefully they book me back here sometime soon.

I'm gonna let y'all get back to your television time

-and stuff like that. -I have to get ready.

-Y'all enjoy. -Okay.

-I love you. -I love you, too.

-Have fun. -Thank you.

-Mwah. -Bye.

I think I perform more full-out

whenever I have important people in the audience that I know.

She's doing drag.

She's doing drag.

-No. -How's the back of this?

Can you, like, see my boy hair?

-Oh. -It's fine, right?

Oh, oh, oh.

I'm so done, Detox.

This is--this is you all European tour.

-My eye! -Ready?

It's amazing for me to see so many families

bringing their artistic and different and creative kids

out here to see the show, and are supporting that.

Because, I mean, I wish that I had something like this

when I was growing up, because my parents didn't understand me.

And so it's nice that I can be a part of that now,

and see so many kids

that remind me of myself when I was their age,

and seeing their families being so supportive of it.

The more seeds that we plant,

the larger this entire beautiful garden is gonna grow.

[cheers and applause]

I'm happy to say

that this is a huge, huge honor and dream

for me to be on this stage in Orlando, Florida.

And I love you, Orlando!

Thank you for everything.

[cheers and applause]

I don't miss this weather, I'll tell you that much.

Every time I go back home to Orlando,

it's always a full-circle moment for me.

You know, I remember being 16, 17

and sneaking into the clubs and starting to do drag.

But I also remember struggling and trying to fit in there,

and not necessarily fitting in

because my drag was weird and different

and more quirky and club-kiddy.

But also it was amazing being there,

because I still, even though I was weird

and nobody really understood me, I had so much support there.

So it's always great when I go home,

and I'm able to, like,

share in this success that I've had after Drag Race,

and have them be, like, "Wow, that bitch did it.

She made it. Good for her."

And also kind of a fuck you

to the people who didn't believe in me.

[cheering]

My number in the show is really exciting.

It's really high energy and sexy and sultry,

and I get to be, like, crazy in neon.

And so I wanted to be challenged with the choreography

and challenged with everything in the number,

and it's a lot of fun.

And exhausting because my shoes don't fit, but they look good.

I've been doing drag for over half of my life now,

and I don't intend on stopping anytime soon.

There is still a lot of negativity

and a lot of bigotry out there,

especially in the Southern states, clearly.

That's why we have who we have in office right now.

That's why I think it's so important

for us to be even louder and prouder and bigger and gayer

and fucking as bright as we can be

so we can remind all those people out there that we exist,

we're not going anywhere.

If anything, we're fucking taking over,

so get used to it.

Man up, and don't be so intimidated by our fabulosity.

[cheers and applause]