Here we go again!
Sometimes, the things that you want to say aren't necessarily the things that you're going to say.
Best known for competing on RuPaul's Drag Race season 6 and returning years later for All Stars 4, Gia Gunn has shared a lot of controversial statements over the years. While some of those comments have been funny, other hot takes have rubbed people the wrong way or were outright problematic and insulting.
On Tuesday, July 9, Gia appeared in a new interview for the YouTube channel @OurQueerLife hosted by Matt Cullen. With a title that reads, "Gia Gunn: RuPaul's Drag Race's Most PROBLEMATIC Queen," even the channel itself already prepared viewers for the wild ride they were about to experience.
On one hand, most of Gia's statements in this interview weren't entirely new. On the other hand, her resurfacing and doubling-down on certain topics in 2024 did feel pretty jarring.
Gia still sees herself as the first-ever trans contestant on 'Drag Race.'
After noting that she "hated the way that they edited" her, Gia revealed that she went into the All Stars 4 competition "trusting that I was gonna truly be the first trans woman on Drag Race… which, you know, the girls don't want to give me that title and that's okay."
Matt, the interviewer, referenced how Kylie Sonique Love competed in the second season of Drag Race and came out as a trans woman in the reunion episode of that season. Over the years, a couple of queens have also addressed their trans identity while filming the show — most notably Peppermint in season 9.
Gia had the following response to that moment in the interview:
"Well, she was a boy. She might have been not transitioning, or pretending like she wasn't trans at the time… but Kylie Sonique Love and Carmen [Carrera] were doing interviews as boys, and then the argument was Peppermint, too. But honey, I don't know about you… I saw a boy, so I don't know."
Gia denies that she scammed fans and got free surgeries for her transition.
The interview continued with Gia talking about her GoFundMe campaign to raise money for the medical costs associated with her transition.
"I raised 30,000, and I had that money," Gia recalled. "[But] then I got called for All Stars, so I had to use some of that money to pay to go to All Stars. Once I came off of All Stars, I had to work to save all that money again. So it's not like I scammed people."
Gia then called out a certain "doll" who had been interviewed on Matt's channel before, noting that this person was "another trans girl in the community" who "wronged" her in many ways. Both Gia and Matt dodged name-dropping the person, but Gia highlighted what their main issue was about:
"She said that I raised $30,000, [and] I went and got my surgery for free, and so I just pocketed all that money, which is not true."
Gia shares details about her alleged confrontation with RuPaul on 'All Stars 4.'
When discussing her experiences preparing for All Stars 4 and filming the season, Gia showed that she still feels disappointed about the whole situation.
"It was a lot of money for me to spend to go there, right? To then just kind of not really be seen by Mother Ru. She was very cold to me," Gia said in the interview. "I've talked about it before, but my experience with her was just not warm."
Gia went on to reference RuPaul's infamous interview with The Guardian, where Ru talked about trans contestants not competing on Drag Race — a stance that RuPaul has apologized for, and an issue that the show has solved in subsequent years.
"The show lost a lot of love. A lot of fans… people were not having [it with] that comment," Gia said. "So the way I see it is: Gia was called not only to bring the Gia Gunn-ess of it all, but also to do some janitorial work. To show the world, 'Oh, wait, no, look! Actually, we do support trans people. Look, we have Gia.'"
Gia went on to share other claims about her experience:
"RuPaul never wanted to apologize; she never wanted to touch the subject. [So, during] her little walk around in the werk room on the episode that I got eliminated, I thought it would be a good idea to confront her on her remarks about having trans people on the show. I asked her, 'You know, you said there would never be any trans people here… What's going on? What makes me any different?'"
Gia alleged that RuPaul "literally just looked at me like a reindeer in headlights and was like, 'Well, we've always had trans people on this show, honey. I'm not so sure what you're talking about.'"
Gia allegedly responded with, "'Yes, but not fully realized like this.' Girl, you know what I'm asking. These were your 10 seconds to touch on the f*cking subject. Let's not play any games here. We knew why I was there. I know why I was there. (…) Why can't we talk about this? Why can't you clear the air? I thought I was being fierce, and bold, and taking one for the team. But no, I was eliminated instead, and then I was edited to look like an assh*le."
"That whole experience [All Stars 4] really just didn't rub me the right way," she concluded. "Because I was then stuck with $30,000 worth of drag that I had to put in storage. I had no f*cking tits. And I had to go and do what I had to do to make the money back."
Gia responds to the backlash from this interview.
In a series of Instagram stories, Gia defended the statements she made in this new interview with Matt Cullen.
"I thought it was appropriate to jump on here not to explain myself, not to apologize, and not to justify anything, but simply just to say: it is what it is," Gia said in a video via Instagram stories. "And if I'm missing something, then that's on you, boo. But what else do you guys expect from me? I'm the queen of telling it like it is."
She continued, "I've had a lot of things built up that [needed] to be released, and I want to encourage you to do the same. It feels so good to literally bring some of your trauma to the light, bring the darkness to the light, and just set yourself free."
"With that being said, I do wanna thank Matt for bringing me on his channel," Gia noted. "I've been such a fan of Matt's queer series. I think it's so important what he's doing, and that's why I went on not to talk sh*t, not to clown, but to seriously share our stories."
She concluded, "I think, as a whole, we are all humans at the end of the day — regardless of whether we're LGBT or not, we all have such different stories [and] different lives. And I think in order to grow, we really need to hear each other out… and facts are facts."
Gia then proceeded to share a collage featuring the confessional looks of Kylie Sonique Love (season 2), Monica Beverly Hillz (season 5), Kenya Michaels (season 4), Carmen Carrera (season 3), Peppermint (season 9), and herself on All Stars 4.
It's an interesting choice for Gia to include the confessional looks of Kylie in season 2 and of Monica in season 5, even though they've already come back to compete as trans women on All Stars 6 and All Stars 8, respectively.
In her case, Gia did not include her confessional look from season 6, but rather the way she presented on All Stars 4.
In one less Instagram story shared in this series, Gia re-posted the lyrics of Lana Del Rey's new song with Quavo, "Tough," which has the lyrics: "It's not what you wanna do, it's what you're gonna do."
You can watch Gia Gunn's interview with Matt Cullen below.