Fans and RuPaul’s Drag Race queens alike airing out their grievances MTV on blast for shortening the episodes of RuPaul’s Drag Race season 15 to an hour. The decision comes as the network is promoting its new reality series, The Real Friends of WeHo in between Drag Race and RuPaul’s Drag Race: Untucked.

Fans have been complaining that the show is rushing through introducing its queens and weekly challenges. One viewer wrote, according to Gay Times, “I feel like these Drag Race episodes need to be 90 minutes long with how many queens are on the cast this season…I feel like I’m not getting to know most of the girls, and the eliminations feel rushed/anticlimactic.”

“Nah, y’all need to make this 90 minutes again this is too much,” wrote another viewer. “WE WERE FLYING THROUGH THE WHOLE EPISODE!”

Fans have also created a GoFundMe petition demanding MTV change the format back to 90-minute episodes and not air The Real Friends of WeHo. Currently, the petition has nearly 20,000 signatures.

The petition’s creator, Brandon Wu, wrote that the reason for the petition is to give the Drag Race contestants enough airtime to give viewers the episodic context fans feel like they are missing. Wu also brought up Real Friends co-star Todrick Hall, who has been at the center of several controversies, including his scandals from Celebrity Big Brother.

“The 90 minute format was unique to any other reality competition show where we actually have context for the content of episodes,” wrote Wu. “Also, we really don’t want The Real Friends of WeHo to air. Given Todrick Hall’s problematic behavior last year on Celebrity Big Brother, it’s irresponsible to give him a platform he doesn’t deserve, and he refuses to take accountability. So we ask politely and aggressively to allow Drag Race to have the 90 minutes fans deserve.

Many of the petition signers who left comments echo Wu’s sentiments, with Adam Arent writing, “These girls are investing thousands of dollars and hours upon hours of time to prepare for 20 seconds of air time while [R]idiculousness gets an all day run time. ON TO POF THAT, a show with a bunch of gays who know one cares about… no.”

Cedryc Nasau-Manuwai, another commenter, simply wrote, “No one wants to see Todrick Hall.”

Commenter Teddy Calhoun wrote how they felt The Real Friends of WeHo promoted damaging stereotypes, writing, “There are people around the world who need to watch Drag Race, for escapism, for education and most importantly to help normalize and spread the word of the LGBT+ around the world. The Real Friends of WeHo does none of that, and instead gives a harmful platform to rich white cis-men, those of which who have been in numerous scandals and take away representation from other sides of the LGBT+ [community].”

“Drag Race is a work of love that the cast and production pour lots of time and money, and cutting down its runtime in favor of a show that mocks our community is plain disrespectful and offensive,” they continued.

Drag Race queens have also sounded off, with Drag Race Down Under contestant Molly Poppinz writing, according to Gay Times, “Maybe Drag Race making the switch to @MTV wasn’t actually that fierce…cause that 42-minute episode was not it ma’am.”

Salina EsTitties, who is a contestant on season 15 of Drag Race, also wrote how the episodes aren’t catering the queens.

“We worked too hard and invested too much money for a 45 min edit,” she wrote. “And I say this as a viewer and fan of the show. I just wanted to see more of the gals.”

Aura Mayari, also a current contestant, wrote about last week’s episode, “Yeah, that was a fast one…so this is every Friday, huh?”

Drag Race alum Detox responded to EsTitties writing, “I hate it,” according to Pink News, which also reported that Maddy Morphosis, another Drag Race queen and the first straight male contestant, complained about the length of the episode.

“They [MTV] play 20 hours of Ridiculousness everyday, but they couldn’t squeeze an extra 30 min for drag race [sic]?” she wrote.

Drag Race alum and makeup business founder Kim Chi tweeted a promotional photo from The Real Friends of WeHo, writing, “The villains of season 15 of RuPaul’s drag race [sic] has been revealed.”

The villains of season 15 of RuPaul’s drag race has been revealed. pic.twitter.com/Wsjs0MIh0T
— Kim Chi (@KimChi_Chic) January 15, 2023

The Real Friends of WeHo will finally make its debut Jan. 20 in its sandwiched timeslot after being teased for two weeks. But we will see what happens if the fandom ire gets louder.