Jinkx Monsoon reflects on winning ‘RuPaul’s Drag Race’ twice, previews ‘Sketchy Queens’ Season 2: ‘Let’s keep going’
Welcome to Reality Derby, our weekly deep dive into all things reality TV, hosted by Gold Derby senior editors Marcus James Dixon and Denton Davidson.
Joining us this week is Jinkx Monsoon, the two-time winner from RuPaul’s Drag Race and the co-creator, writer, and star of Sketchy Queens Season 2 on WOW Presents Plus. (Our interview begins at the 27:31 mark in the video above.) The “Queen of All Queens” talks about where she keeps her Drag Race crowns, why she tries to block out compliments from fans, and whether she’d ever want to appear on the biggest sketch program of all time, Saturday Night Live.
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“So my first crown is at my manager’s office, ’cause you know, you gotta trot the pony around a little,” she laughs, referring to her fifth-season victory on RuPaul’s Drag Race. “But my second crown and scepter [for the all-winners season of All Stars 7] are in my office at home in Portland on my trophy shelf. But ‘trophy’ is a loose term, because I have a lot of different things up there that you might not consider a trophy.”
When people call Jinkx the best drag queen of all time, she prefers to “block those things out,” blaming her star sign. “I’m a Virgo and I’m terrible at accepting compliments,” she tells us. “But what I like to translate it to in my over-analytical brain is that they really appreciate the work that I’m doing, and I really like doing the work that I’m doing, so as long as we’re all still getting something out of this, let’s keep going.”
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Referencing the new episodes of Sketchy Queens, which stream every Monday night, Jinkx proclaims, “When you get to a Season 2, you really get to pull the ripcords. We’ve got guest stars. We’ve got a budget! That should say it right there. They believed in us enough to give us a crew. It’s very, very special.”
Season 2 features a sketch in which Jinkx may or not be a witch, and she has a large mole on the tip of her nose. “The mole and I don’t speak anymore,” she deadpans. The witch sketch was the brainchild of co-creator-writer-director Liam Krug and director-producer Pete Williams. “I showed up on film day and I was like, ‘All right, you want this? Fine, I’m gonna give it to you,'” she recalls. “That’s the fun of our group. We all write the sketches and conceive them, so sometimes I’m just saying ‘yes’ to one of Liam’s stupid ideas.”
One day, Jinkx would “love to” pull a Timothée Chalamet and serve as the host and musical guest of SNL in the same episode. Lorne Michaels, what are you waiting for?
We also dive deep into the 15th episode of Hell’s Kitchen (“One Hell of a Ride”), the sixth episode of The Traitors (“A Dysfunctional Family”), the fourth episode of Deal or No Deal Island (“Throw and Tell”), and the fifth episode of RuPaul’s Drag Race (“RDR Live!”), and we preview the new coach lineup on The Voice Season 27. Watch this week’s Reality Derby show above, and then be sure to join the discussion in our forums.
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