"You guys, we are so good!"
Mikelle StreetLast night, for the first time RuPaul's Drag Raceaired a socially distanced finale. Contestants filmed their respective segments at home for three rounds of lip sync performances and sent them into production. Production then edited and aired them. As in season's passed, the queens truly don't know who wins until the episode airs — they all film their own respective acceptance speeches and after Ru makes a decision on who wins, that one is chosen to air. Typically the finalists watch the airing at highly-attended viewings, but given the shutdown of the nightlife industry, this year they all watched from home. The good thing: they filmed their viewings and watched alongside one another.
In a clip released by Drag Race today, finalists Jaida Essence Hall, Crystal Methyd, and Gigi Goode toast to each other and pat one another on their virtual backs for making it to the top three. Then, alongside the rest of the world, the performers watch the performances back, providing commentary along the way.
"You guys are everything," Goode says before the song starts. "We are everything, we're so iconic!" Both she and Hall show how their hands are in anticipation.
"That was my Widow [Von Du] dance" Methyd says at one point during the performance. "I was doing a TikTok dance," she adds later.
After the end of the performances, they all applaud one another before Methyd realizes a detail in the footage.
"Jaida, that crown?!" she says referring to a crown in the design of the train of her dress, which she has pulled up in a peacock-like back piece.
"Thank you," Jaida replies. "My designer came up with that!"
As the winner is announced, their anticipation is pretty palpable. Once Hall is announced, the expected (but heartfelt) congratulations are played to Hall, who takes a moment before she begins to scream.
"Girl I feel so weird, this is weird," Hall yells. "I can not believe like .. girl! Oh my god, I was not even supposed to be there bitch. Oh my god."
"I feel like no matter what just happened today for me or all of us, this has made such a change in our lives," she continues. "Like this is so crazy. Oh my god. And like, all of our dreams are going to come true; I've told y'all this so many times, for us everything is going to happen for us that we always wished could happen."
Congratulations to Miss Jaida Essence Hall.
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