Yvie Oddly slams Drag Race execs in blistering outburst: ‘Capitalist culture thieves’
RuPaul’s Drag Race winner Yvie Oddly has laid into the show’s producers, criticising them for meddling with “real people’s lives, career opportunities and health”.
Right now, everyone is watching as queens such as Kandy Muse, Jimbo and Heidi N Closet tackle challenges on season eight of All Stars. And that includes former contestant Oddly, who won the eleventh season of the US version of Drag Race in 2019.
The queen, who gained tens of thousands of fans with her unique sense of style, extremely flexible lip-sync tricks and outspoken nature, has shared her thoughts on the current All Stars season in a Twitter thread.
She began by praising the current “remarkable” queens and noting that the contestants have always been the “lifeblood” of the series, before making some bold statements about the production team behind the show.
Yvie Oddly. (World of Wonder)
“The producers are often the greediest, most-calculating, capitalist culture thieves,” she wrote.
“They f**k with real people’s lives, career opportunities and health. They drive themselves home in their luxury cars when their contestants are sleep-deprived, depressed and drastically underpaid for their contributions to the cultural phenomenon.
“Then they tell themselves they’re good people for showcasing queer content and creating opportunities for us, while ignoring the irreparable damage they cause, and creating a chokehold monopoly on how drag artists can succeed.”
They fuck with real people’s lives, career opportunities, and health. They drive themselves home in their luxury cars when their contestants are sleep-deprived, depressed, and DRASTICALLY underpaid for their contributions to the cultural phenomenon
— Yvie Oddly (blue checkmark) (@OddlyYvie) May 29, 2023
Backing up her claim, she pointed to the fact that the show is yet to cast a drag king across any of its 40-plus series, and also highlighted that trans performers were “barred from being themselves” until the more recent seasons. Season nine’s Peppermint was the first contestant to walk through the werk room doors while openly identifying as trans.
Signing off, Oddly unleashed a final bombshell, alleging that it took “over a year” for her to be paid the $100,000 (about £75,000 at the time) she was owed for her victory.
P.S. they took over a year to pay me my winnings because they conveniently kept forgetting they owed me 100k
— Yvie Oddly (blue checkmark) (@OddlyYvie) May 29, 2023
Let me be clear: I am so so SO thankful for Drag Race!
That show changed my life LONG before I was ever a part of its fiber, but I’m hopeful for a future where queer people have opportunities to flourish outside of a fake competition to make a few rich old gays richer https://t.co/3ZHulYG6D1
— Yvie Oddly (blue checkmark) (@OddlyYvie) May 29, 2023
Unsurprisingly, fans of the series are unimpressed to hear about how Oddly was treated, but grateful to her for raising her head above the parapet.
“Thank you for speaking out, Yvie. We support you, and if there’s anything else we can do to support the queens in a fight for better conditions on the show, please let us know,” one person wrote on social media.
A second stated: “Honest criticism should never be taken as unappreciative. Drag Race gives a great platform for a lot of great reasons, but it also gatekeeps drag to an extent and that’s not cool for the largest platform for drag at the moment.”
It’s not the first time Oddly has spoken out about her experience on the show. After competing in RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars 7 last year, she said the she felt the producers had “lobotomised” her with the final edit.
In an Instagram post, she claimed that her experience was “pretty gruesome from the start” but little of her struggle, or her connection with the other competitors, made the final cut.
PinkNews has contacted producers World of Wonder for comment.