Drag Race star Megami apologises for Roxxxy Andrews ‘bus stop’ performance

RuPaul’s Drag Race season 16 star Megami has apologised to former contestant Roxxxy Andrews after using her infamous speech about being abandoned at a bus stop by her mother during a live performance.

Way back in 2013, Drag Race was a different beast. We’d only had one season of All Stars, zero international franchises, and certainly no Vs. The World spinoffs or the like.

The essence of the show, though, remained the same; fierce queens, fierce lewks, fierce lip syncs and queer trauma.

Now, you may be thinking that the last addition is in error; it’s not. Over time Drag Race became a place for queens to discuss all sorts of misfortunes that had befallen them growing up queer – non more so exemplified than in Roxxxy Andrews’ season 5 runway reveal that her mother had abandoned her and her sister at a bus stop when they were younger.

The moment resulted in Ru’s iconic, ‘As gay people we get to choose our own family’, moment, and the quote has been etched into the Drag Race hall of fame ever since, with Katya even referencing the story in her All Stars 2 reading challenge.

Eleven years and the same number of (regular) seasons later, enter Megami. The Brooklyn queen got unceremoniously booted from season 16 of Sapphira’s Drag Race after the ‘Sound of Rusic‘ challenge and a Miley Cyrus lip sync, but has since been touring the States at viewing parties and the like.

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It is at one of these parties that Megami performed a mix that involved ‘So Emotional’ by Whitney Houston coupled with audio from Roxxxy Andrews’ tearful confession. The video (originally from TikTok account @alltingzdragrace) has been posted under the caption, “Megami, you’re going to jail for this.”

After a prompt from a fan who urged Roxxxy to “bite back”, the rumoured All Stars 9 contestant had a curt response for Megami.

“Not [sic] time for foolishness,” Roxxxy wrote on X. “Sad and disresepectful to add something like that in for laughs.”

The two-time finalist then added: “Why not just be funny.”

Luckily, though, it seems there are no hard feelings. Megami almost immediately apologised via a lengthy reply, and explained that the mix she made “ages ago” featured a whole host of emotional Drag Race moments.

“But regardless of my intent, I clearly overstepped a boundary and used a moment that shouldn’t have and I will absolutely take it out of the mix,” she continued.

“Especially being on the other side, I understand how things like this affect us all a lot more clearly. You’re literally iconic and I wasn’t trying to make fun of you. I will always own up to being wrong and I was here. And I legitimately apologize for that.”

For her part, Roxxxy graciously accepted the note, telling Megami, “Thank you and I completely accept your apology! You are way too talent [sic] to need to use that! Keep turning it! Thank you for understanding!”

RuPaul’s Drag Race season 16 continues on Friday on MTV in the US and on Saturday on WOW Presents Plus internationally. You can read last week’s recap here.