If you’ve been keeping up with the girls and the dolls on RuPaul’s Drag Race, you might have noticed that recurring judge Carson Kressley barely made any appearances throughout season 15. During a recent live appearance for a viewing party on Roscoe’s Tavern, the judge explained the reason behind his overall absence.
“You might have noticed that I was very absent this season,” Kressley teased. “I’m there for the first couple of episodes, and I just disappear, like I’ve been kidnapped by aliens.”
He went on to explain:
“In this world that we live in, we get tested for COVID-19 every day on set. One day I showed up and [they knock] on my trailer like, ‘Can we talk to you?’ And I was like ‘Oh my god, I’m getting fired.’ And they’re like, ‘You have COVID,’ and I was like, ‘What?!’
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According to Kressley, producers then told him that he couldn’t come back to work on Drag Race for 10 days due to a lockdown restriction rule from the California Department of Health related to Hollywood productions.
“The last episode was going to be [in] 11 days,” Kressley noted. “So I was like, ‘Well, at least I’ll get to make one final appearance and see how everybody did.’ And they’re like, ‘No, we need to move the schedule up, we’re finishing in 10 days.’ So I missed the entire season!”
The judge went on to joke about how he wasn’t even allowed to have a “closed-circuit camera” in his building to spy on the queens and how the season was going.
We certainly missed Mr. Kressley on the judging panel of season 15. Thankfully, the show added Ts Madison as a recurring Drag Race judge, which was an absolute treat to the fans as well.
RuPaul’s Drag Race season 15 airs Fridays on MTV.