The Dec. 2 episode of Canada’s Drag Race was a heartfelt one, finding the queens helping some amazing queer teenagers live out their prom fantasies. Despite the episode being full of warmth and togetherness, that doesn’t mean the Drag Race chopping block rests. This time, the queen leaving the group was Adriana.
Adriana spoke to Shadow and Act about what it was like to help the teens find confidence in their individuality.
“I did affect me a lot, not in a bad way but such in such a good way that I’ve never felt before. I felt like I was making a difference by being a part of that,” she said. “This is such a powerful episode. I think it’s one of my favorite episodes of all the franchise, outside of having left in that episode. But at the same time, I couldn’t have asked for a better episode to leave, meeting these amazing teenagers. It was incredible to see how smart that are and how they are giving to our community. Nobody asked them to do so, nobody asked them to, nobody pushed them. And they’re just like heroes for our younger generation.”
“I know that a lot of people look up to us, but I think that they should start by looking up to these people that are in their community and that they are there to help you and show you that we are in a beautiful community and in a supporting community, and that you’re not by yourself to live through everything that’s coming [in your life].” she continued. “It may seem like a lot, but you have the help that you need. You just have to reach out because they’re there. [This is such] a good episode.”
She said how helping her teen partner Friday get in drag opened up a new side to them.
“I feel that drag is so powerful. I feel that the makeup that we put on the character that we put on, it’s kind of a shield to protect us from everything else. It’s like living in a different reality. When you’re all in drag, you feel your most fabulous. You feel that you can do anything and that you’re powerful,” she said. “Doing drag is not only expressing your art, but also expressing a better [or different] version of yourself than we see in a workday or at school.”
“I think it gave [the teen participants] so much confidence in themselves. I know that Friday [one of the teen participants] talked about becoming a model after, so they loved being on stage,” she continued. “I’m so glad that I made a difference to that person because they’re doing a lot of good things for the younger generations and seeing them look at themselves in the mirror, all glammed up and feeling the prom fantasy that they didn’t have, what better prom could you ask for? And I’m so glad that Canada’s Drag Race worked with It Gets Better Canada because I wish I had something like that when I was young. I’m so glad that the younger generations do now. So it makes it a little bit more simple to go through everything, all the changes.”
While Adriana helped change her teen partner’s life on the show, Adriana also changed Canada’s Drag Race forever by being the first Colombian queen on the show. For her, it was an exciting moment to be able to represent her home country and her culture.
“I am so excited. I was excited being on the show, but representing my country. We are very proud of our country and there’s a lot of negative things that has been, have been said in the media and stuff like that, and a lot of them are true, but what is true too is that we have a lot of talent. We have a lot of beautiful people and we do have these amazing country with [every climate] you could imagine that the landscape that we have and the culture that we have is so beautiful.”
“I wouldn’t say that my Colombian origin describes my drag; it does influence it, but it doesn’t describe my total drag. I’m not just a Latina. I think that I showed that I was versatile through the whole season, and that’s how versatile our country is. It’s like me; once you see it, you fall in love with it.”
She was also happy she was able to showcase her acting talent, which helped her secure the win in the first acting challenge, “Scream Queens.” Her cracked-mirror version of Brad Goreski, “Blood and Gore-eski,” impressed the judging panel and cemented her as a queen to watch throughout the competition.
“I’ve always felt like an actress, but at that time, I was like, ‘Okay, I’m going to trust my instincts. I know that this is not Brad Goreski I’m playing. I’m going to turn him into a weird, kind of Rocky Horror Picture Show character and let’s see if that works,'” she said. “So I guess it could have been a miss, but it went so well and I just trusted myself and it felt so good performing it…But at the same time, everyone was so good in that episode that when they announced the top three and bottom three, I was like, ‘Am I in the bottom three?’ I wasn’t sure that I wasn’t the top because the others were good too. But receiving that win, I was like, ‘I hope that the other contestants can see me now,’ because until then I felt like they didn’t see me because I was more quiet. I showed that I’m here.”
Adriana said she was happy with her time on the competition, as it allowed for her to not only spend some time getting to know herself better, but to also create a family with the other contestants.
“Getting to know them was such a nice experience, just being there and just living that [moment] with [the queens]. Seeing them go one by one was hard every time because [even though] we just met, we already have a connection,” she said.
As far as what Adriana has coming next, she said she has a lot in development for her fans.
“I have a lot of projects going on right now. I love creating shows and I love putting myself there out there. I love showing others’ talents, so the shows that I’m working on are always including someone else, because we work so hard on the TV show, but that doesn’t make my drag worth more than [other drag queens],” she said. “I’ve seen so many people work so hard and it’s not easy to stand out and to make yourself known by everyone. So if I can do it on my show, that’s what I want to do. I want to encourage other artists, and of course, I want to go to Colombia and just go hug my country and just show them how proud I am of representing them up here.”
The season finale of Canada’s Drag Race airs Dec. 16 on WOW Presents Plus.
