After the show didn’t go ahead last year, Drag Race Down Under judge Rhys Nicholson got to the point where they thought the series might not return at all.
“I started to think, ‘Oh, it’s not going to happen, but at least we went out on a high’,” the Melbourne comedian says. “It was tough to talk about because I didn’t know, and I’d see [queens] like Art Simone or Lazy Susan at things – people who really want Oceania drag to be around the world – and they’d be like ‘Have you heard anything?’”
Nicholson had reason to worry. While Australian editions of Survivor, MasterChef and Married at First Sight have broken big overseas, the antipodean take on RuPaul’s Drag Race is routinely ranked by fans and critics among the worst of the franchise’s more than 20 global editions (though 2024’s fourth season was a marked improvement).
It’s not for a lack of talent (Down Under queens Kween Kong and Hannah Conda were finalists on other international seasons). Instead, the series has been hampered by a combination of production issues, ranging from a limited budget to controversies around race and representation.
And with Nicholson the lone local judge for the first three seasons, alongside Michelle Visage and RuPaul, there were also a lot of lost-in-translation moments – not just specific references to The Wiggles or queer artist David McDiarmid, but the essence of what Down Under drag was.
But the franchise is now back, back again, with a serious glow-up for its fifth season. This is the first of a “vs the World” spin-off, where five of Australia and New Zealand’s finest queens face off against international all-stars from the United States, Britain, Spain and the Philippines.
“I’m excited! It’s a bigger production,” says Nicholson of the series, which has moved from its tiny Auckland studio (often referred to as a “shed” by trolls and former contestants) to filming in Portugal. “I look forward to seeing what the next thing [is] that select members of the fan base have a problem with on Reddit.”
Nicholson doesn’t say it directly, but this season (airing domestically on Stan – owned by Nine, the publisher of this masthead – and internationally on co-producer World of Wonder’s own streaming platform) is Down Under’s all-in attempt not just to see its queens v the world, but to win it over too.
“It’s the most Down Under experience possible: begging to be liked … but there’s no shame in asking or wanting to be seen.”Lazy Susan, judge of Drag Race Down Under vs the World
The season’s cast includes season one finalist Art Simone, fellow Sydney queens Vybe, Coco Jumbo and Nikita Iman, and New Zealand’s Flor, alongside British finalist Michael Marouli, Philippines powerhouse M1ss Jade So, Spain’s Estrella Xtravaganza and American queens LaLa Ri, Nicole Paige Brooks and Raven. (I’ll come back to that last addition.)
Lazy Susan, who won Down Under’s fourth season, has also joined the judging panel alongside Nicholson and host Michelle Visage.
“I’ve been judging people my entire life and, finally, I’m getting paid for it,” says Lazy, speaking out of drag over Zoom, a stack of wigs behind her. “What a dream! I hope every homosexual one day experiences the monetisation of their discerning and judgmental eyes.”
“There is some of the most immaculate drag being presented on the runway this season,” Lazy says. “I hope the camera is even able to capture the sheer level of detail and glamazonia that appears … We’ve [also] got a lot of funny girls, and that’s the lifeblood of a good Drag Race season: not just having pure glamour, but girls that can take the piss out of themselves.”
Nicholson says the differences between local and US contestants are also a real highlight: “It’s a little bit messier here. Something I didn’t expect and really enjoyed this season was seeing the interactions between international and our queens, particularly Americans, because I think they’re a little more focused on imagined rules around drag.
“Australian and New Zealand drag, generally speaking, is less focused on female impersonation,” Nicholson says. “It’s about this fully formed persona – meeting queens on- and off-stage or in and out of drag, they’re different people. That’s what’s fascinating to me.”
It’s a US queen who has everyone talking, though. Down Under has pulled out the big guns – or big gun – with the surprise headline-generating addition of Drag Race royalty Raven to the cast. A runner-up (twice) on early US seasons who has been RuPaul’s personal make-up artist for a decade and won an Emmy Award for it, Raven’s casting would be monumental on any season.
For the uninitiated, this is akin to Matt Corby singing covers on a rebooted Australian Idol – or maybe, to use a real-world example, chart-topping star Jessie J winning a Chinese singing competition in 2018. There’s no real logic to it, beyond the love of the game.
Naturally, speculation among the Drag Race fanbase has run wild, with theories that it’s a fake-out (something the show already did with Raven on All Stars 7) to generate viewers, even after The Hollywood Reporter confirmed she was competing. The premiere last Friday showed Raven competing like any other queen, but fans online are still suspicious.
While laughing it off, Nicholson gets the disbelief. When they arrived on set, they didn’t think it was real either.
“I looked at one of the producers and was like, ‘Are you serious?’” Nicholson says. “I got them to take me behind the [Werk Room] screen when they had started filming, and was like, ‘Right, I have to go work a little harder on my make-up.’
“Seeing Raven standing on the stage was kind of panic-inducing. I’ve got to critique you, and I can see you’re clocking my face right now. You will have thoughts about my contour and how, yes, it has had to get darker since season one. My head is changing shape.”
Lazy felt the same way. “Realising you’re going to be judging one of the iconic mugs of drag history is not really correct,” she says, laughing. “But you do as best you can to hold your nerve and look into the sun for as long as possible. It was crazy, but all of these divas are people that I respect so much.”
For all that’s changed with Down Under, it’s a case of the more things stay the same. The theories about Raven recall similar rumours about RuPaul in season one. Lighting back then was so questionable that viewers speculated the famous host wasn’t on set in Auckland but instead edited into Werk Room conversations in post-production.
“It’s always something!” Nicholson says. “My thing with that was that you can’t complain about the lighting and also think we meticulously green-screened in the host of the show. They can’t happen at the same time!”
Conspiracies aside, Lazy has concocted her own scheme for viewers: a continuation of her season four social media campaign to get US winner and Drag Race recapper Bob the Drag Queen to watch Down Under. While it didn’t work in 2024, she’s been messaging him on X again and might meet up soon in Los Angeles, though she admits she’s been left on read.
“It’s the most Down Under experience possible,” Lazy says, laughing. “Begging to be liked. But drag inoculates you to shame. There’s no shame in asking or wanting to be seen. I didn’t put glitter on my human eyes just so you would ignore me. There’s no shame in being seen wanting things.”
Drag Race Down Under vs The World streams weekly on Stan.
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