And yes, he's been reading the DMs you send him. (So have his friends.)
Mikelle StreetThere was a lot happening on Friday’s episode of RuPaul’s Drag Race: All Stars. Sure a little shade, and a tad bit of workroom drama are par for the course for these queens but four lip syncs back-to-back? That’s a busy main stage mama. But four lip syncs (and three “sashay, aways”) need a little more manpower than usual. Enter: the Pit Crew.
This season during All Stars, we haven’t seen much of our buff boys in underwear with the loss of mini challenges. But their return to the competition and the main stage brought with it a new thirst-inducing member. Now introducing Wilson Lai, the 23-year-old Orange County, California-based addition to the squad.
Out spoke to Wilson about how he got on the show, his DMs (in case you’re wondering, an old tweet indicates he does not bottom) and what’s next for him.
How did this all come about?
It was kind of weird because basically what happened was a friend of someone working with the show, was mutual friends with a photographer I shot with in LA. They asked him if he knew any Asian models who would be down to be on a TV show so he hit me up. I thought, You know I’m not doing anything so why not? They wouldn’t really tell me anything about it so I was sort of thinking is this a casting couch or some Brazzers situation? So I thought, Fuck it sure why not? and eventually someone from the company called me and told me what it was and I agreed.
I had to hold in my excitement about it. They asked “Have you ever heard of a show called RuPaul’s Drag Race?” So I just very casually say “yes” but inside I was like, Bitch, what the fuck did you say?
Did you just film this episode or will you be doing other stuff?
We just filmed the one and I’m not sure if I’ll be in any others. They’ll probably just hit me up if they want me there. Maybe with all of this hype they will, and I think that would be cool. But we’ll have to see.
Did you get to interact with the queens?
It was pretty cool but sadly there wasn’t a lot of interaction. To be honest, I just saw them because we were backstage together. But they were focused on their lip syncs and I thought I should like, let them focus.
Are you rooting for any of the queens on All Stars in particular?
Ahhhh. Not any one in particular. I’m very torn between one part of me is rooting for Valentina and Chicano representation but I’m also digging Monique Heart. So one or the other but I don’t know which one.
Do you identify as Chicano?
Well technically Chicano is more of a political identity, and in a sense I do align myself with that because of my personal experiences but I am of Asian-American heritage.
You’ve been quite popular online prior to this but did you see sort of a spike or a bunch of chatter about this?
Oh I definitely did see a spike in like follows and stuff. It wasn’t the first spike that I had seen but it was the first spike that was directly related to something I knew about. My others were through overseas Asian audience finding out about me or like Tumblr and Twitter people randomly noticing me. This was the first that was a spike in an area that I knew exactly what it was.
Mostly it’s been a lot of gay guys and all of Twitter turning into a thirst fest. So it’s kind of like “OK, fine, I’m just like not going to go outside for a while.”
Have you deactivated your DMs?
Well some of my accounts, I already had my DMs on private but I have gotten a lot of messages. I kind of just show my friends and my fraternity brothers and they are all like “what the fuck, this is some wild-ass shit!” And like, yeah, that’s what I deal with.
But we all grew up in an area of social media so we are all used to having people try to slide in the DMs. But for me it’s basically no, no, no thanks.
So I saw that you’re a fitness trainer and model?
Yeah, I do both. I’m signed to Otto Models and I just get gigs whenever they have them. But my main focus right now is body recomposition aka, personal training.
At the moment I don’t have a particular niche because I’m really new and about to graduate from California State University, Fullerton, where I’m studying kinesiology with a strength and conditioning concentration, so I’m still trying to figure out what I’m really good at handling with people. But so far my main thing has been progressing people from sedentary lifestyles, to more active lifestyles along with body recomposition which is body fat reduction and muscle gain.
So what’s next for you?
Well right now I’m just working on developing my online personal training/coaching platform. I’m trying to get clients for that. But outside of that and school, I just have photoshoot gigs occasionally.
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