Katya said that season 7 had a lot of unused talent. (Joseph Shepherd)
Katya admitted that Drag Race’s seventh season was “not so good” and hinted at a frosty relationship with RuPaul.
The self-styled “Russian hooker” said that the moment she entered the werk room was among “the worst in [her] life”.
“They just seemed rotten,” she said of her fellow queens.
“I swear to god I heard Violet say, ‘Well, looks like we needed a filler queen’, or something like that. She swears she didn’t, I think she did. It was awful.”
Speaking to YouTube host Joseph Shepherd, Katya admitted that she “wasn’t prepared to be judged on that level”, and said that she would have left the competition immediately if given the chance.
Katya spilled the tea on Pearl’s RuPaul story.
Among the queens who Katya competed against that year was Pearl, who in 2018 accused RuPaul of showing the queens the cold shoulder behind the scenes.
According to Pearl, after she tried to thank RuPaul for casting her on the show, the host replied: “Nothing you say matters unless that camera is rolling.”
Katya suggested that she had a similar experience.
“Mine was worse, but I have enough couth to not bring Ru into it,” she said.
“I was there that day and I remember it very vividly, the feeling of it.
“My perception of Ru is… I watched your interview with Pearl and she says it best: don’t meet your heroes.”
Drag Race star said season seven had ‘lots of unused talent’.
Despite having made stars of Katya, Pearl, Trixie Mattel and Violet Chachki, season seven is often ranked as one of the worst of the franchise.
When asked about the lukewarm response, Katya said that there was “a lot of unused talent” among that year’s cast.
“I think the general consensus now among the super-fans of the show is that it is a season of great potential in not good challenges,” she said.
Katya pointed out that in a season full of fashion queens, “there was no design challenge aside from the one at the end.” She also took aim at the number of acting challenges in which “you don’t get to bring a lot of yourself”.
“A lot of it just didn’t read at all,” she continued. “It just made the season not so good.”
Watch ‘Katya: Exposed’, the full interview with Joseph Shepherd, below.