AIDS documentary produced by Drag Race winner is Oscar shortlisted: ‘So proud to be part of this history’

Cashing Out, a documentary executively produced by RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars 9 winner Angeria Paris VanMichaels and Fellow Travelers star Matt Bomer, has been shortlisted at the 2026 Oscars.

The documentary film, directed by Matt Nadel, explores the morally murky world of viatical settlements, which boomed during the AIDS crisis. People living with HIV, abandoned by the government at the height of the epidemic, were forced to sell their life insurance policies to investors in order to live out their dying days in relative comfort.

Cashing Out sees Nadel interview four people who were in some way involved with the industry during the AIDS crisis: his father Phil, who bought into the industry in the early ‘90s; Scott Page, who brokered the sale of his partner Greg’s life insurance policy so Greg could live out the rest of his life securely; Sean O. Strub, who sold his policy and set up HIV/AIDS magazine POZ; and DeeDee Chamblee, a Black trans woman who had no life insurance policy to sell, and was forced to protect herself and her community through other means.

Now, the documentary has been shortlisted in the Best Documentary Short category at the upcoming 98th Academy Awards. “Growing up, you think about things like going to the Oscars and the possibility of that happening,” Angeria tells PinkNews. The fact that it’s becoming a reality for the Drag Race star “just feels amazing. It feels incredible.”

Angeria hopped on board as a producer alongside Matt Bomer long before Cashing Out started to find major industry recognition. Nadel had emailed her asking her to join the team, and as an entertainer whose drag career has its beginnings in HIV awareness, Angeria didn’t hesitate to throw her support behind it.

“I’m not originally from Atlanta; I’m from a small town in Georgia,” Angeria says, adding: “Growing up, people either don’t know about [the HIV epidemic] or they do know about it [and] it was just very shunned off and hidden. Growing up, people never really talked about it. I always saw it as this scary thing that you just don’t talk about.”

The drag star, who is now 32, first learned about the scale of the crisis after coming out as gay and moving to Atlanta, Georgia’s capital.

“I was in college when I did my very first drag show and it was for an HIV benefit. I knew about it, but after being further educated on it and actually having people in my life that had it, I definitely wanted to support that and spread the awareness for it,” she explains.

“Any time I do get the opportunity to be a part of anything that has to do with HIV and AIDS awareness, or even sexual health prevention, I definitely jump to be a part of it.”

RuPaul’s Drag Race – which Angeria appeared in for its 14th season, making it to the finale, before winning spin-off All Stars 9 in 2024 – is famed for highlighting the stories of contestants living with HIV. In season one, fan-favourite queen Ongina revealed that she is living with HIV on stage in front of RuPaul. “I still remember watching season six, Trinity [K] Bonet, who was a friend of mine at the time,” Angeria recalls. “I didn’t even know that she was HIV-positive and she came out on the show and was so out and proud about it.”

Yet there are still plenty of stories from people with HIV which have not been told. Before getting involved with Cashing Out, Angeria knew very little of the decisions people had to make in terms of selling their life insurance to pay for their healthcare and to make their last days fulfilling. 

“Back then, people were just trying to survive and still live their life in the epidemic and there [were] different ways to go about doing that,” she reflects. “I think at the time, the viatical settlements even being an option was just like, you got to do what you got to do.”

“There is a connection to right now,” Nadel stresses, “in the sense that we can’t afford to be crossing our arms and being morally pure about everything. These are really tough times and people have to survive how they have to survive and sometimes that means forming unlikely coalitions and partnerships.

“HIV does not discriminate. Restricted access to health care also doesn’t discriminate,” he adds. “We see people across the country, across the political spectrum, especially in the South who, because of the changes that have happened under this administration in the US, they can’t access healthcare. They can’t go to the doctor. It’s too expensive.

“So, if there’s a lesson that I hope this industry teaches us, it’s that we all want to live. We all want to be healthy. We all want to be able to access care.”

Above all, Angeria is “so proud” to be shining a light on a part of LGBTQ+ history that has remained in the shadows. 

“I have many people in my life that have HIV and have been living with it for years,” she says. “You can’t move forward without knowing and being educated on what happened in the past.”

Cashing Out is available to watch on YouTube now.

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