Canada’s Drag Race season four finalists react to finale result: ‘Losing is the new winning’
Canada’s Drag Race season four queens Venus and Aurora Matrix. (Crave/World of Wonder)
Just 24 hours after the tense and tear-jerking finale of Canada’s Drag Race, the top two queens – Venus and Aurora Matrix – are in London for RuPaul’s DragCon UK 2024.
Warning: Spoilers for the Canada’s Drag Race season four finale follow.
It’s been a wild few weeks for the pair. Season four of Canada’s Drag Race has been dubbed as one of the very best in the franchise’s history by fans, thanks to its sickening cast of talented queens, an epic array of lip-syncs, and of course, contestant Melinda Verga – who brought more chaos in one episode than most seasons deliver in their entirety.
For 28-year-old Vancouver-based queen Venus, who – spoiler alert – became the first ever indigenous winner of Canada’s Drag Race, it’s hard to take it all in.
“I think not until I go home, in my bed with my cat and have a good cry, will I be able to fully process everything that’s happening,” she tells PinkNews at DragCon UK.
Though the queens never could have anticipated such a rapturous response from fans and fellow Drag Race alumni, Venus reveals that there were several times she knew that TV gold was being created before her.
“We brought it back to the good old days,” she says of the season’s gag-worthy drama (in episode four, Melinda Verga flips a table and storms out of the room).
“When you’re there, you start to see that magic unfold. Just knowing that everyone in that room was so passionate about what we’re doing – that drove the season because there’s so much talent in that room,” she continues.
“You know, that iconic episode where it all begins, episode four with Miss Melinda? My producer wheels started spinning. I was like, ‘Oh, girl, it’s a go. It’s done. I need to start s**t talking right now, I need to get in on this!’ And then I did, and I said what I had to say.
“We’re such passionate people who feel so deeply, and I think that’s why people really connected with this season,” she adds. “Shout out to all my season four sisters!”
For lip-sync assassin Aurora Matrix, who finished as runner-up but won the hearts of the entire Drag Race fandom, the amount of love she’s received has been “validating”.
“It really is so overwhelmingly amazing to hear that people loved what I did and they resonated with my stories and things that I said, so I’m very grateful for that,” the Chinese Canadian queen says.
“And also with meeting queens that I have been fans of forever, and then they’re coming up to me saying: ‘Oh, we loved you in your season, you should have won this [challenge], you did great at this’ – I can’t even describe how that feels. This is happening. Here I am.”
Though Venus just pipped Aurora to the post and bagged the crown, she has a lot of love for her drag sister.
“I wouldn’t have wanted to share this with anybody else, no shade to my other season four sisters,” Venus says.
“From the get go, we both knew who each other were and I was always saying she is my biggest competition, but also someone that I got to love and care for so deeply.”
Venus has Aurora tipped as a future All Stars winner, that’s for certain.
“Obviously regardless of what happens, as RuPaul has said, losing is the new winning. Winning is great, too – I’m having a really good time with that,” she jokes.
“But I think Aurora is such a f***ing superstar that no matter what happens, she’s gonna be divinely protected.”
Though Venus couldn’t predict whether it could have been a double crowning à la Trinity The Tuck and Monet X Change – “We already had enough twists and turns this season,” she laughs – there was a moment when she realised quite how likely it was that she’d be named the winner.
“It’s one of those things where you really take it week by week, but in that last challenge, when I was in the top with my mother [for the makeover challenge], I looked at her and I was like: ‘Oh, that’s it. The track record is good. I showed up.”
She still had pangs of “self doubt”, but after seeing the “incredible” way pop star Nelly Furtado responded to her in the final episode, when the queens had to work with her to create an original single, Venus knew her chances were high.
“I just knew that I showed everything that I wanted to show.”
Canada’s Drag Race is streaming on BBC iPlayer and WOW Presents Plus.
