Put a wig on it. According to Willam, that’s the secret to making just about any reality show better. The RuPaul’s Drag Race icon is bringing her signature wit to Love’s a Drag, Elixir Studios’ hilarious new dating series where straight men are transformed into drag queens before competing for romance.
In our exclusive interview, I chatted with Willam about casting queens behind the scenes, teaming up with Raja, introducing contestants to the realities of wigs and stilettos, and why she’s already hoping for another season of fabulous, forced feminization.
I think Love’s A Drag is absolutely hilarious and probably my new favorite dating show.
Isn’t it dumb? I hope they bring back ’90s dating shows, but make them self-aware now, and fun.
It was giving me very Singled Out vibes. I don’t know if you remember that one from MTV…
Yeah, no, I remember Singled Out. I actually did Rock of Ages with Chris Hardwick in LA in 2005, and it was crazy that I was working with him then because I loved him, and then he went on to Nerdist, and I did At Midnight and I won that. I fucking love Singled Out…Carmen Electra and Jenny McCarthy before she went crazy MAGA. Ugh. Damn.
How did you get involved with Love’s a Drag?
So, Love’s a Drag came to me because my friend Jesse has an older brother who works there [at Elixir]. He’s one of the three producers, Noah Tennenbaum, and he and the other guys have 50 years of reality TV experience under their belt between all these different shows, so they opened their own YouTube thing because they saw where the trend was going, and it was going to YouTube. It’s going away from networks. It’s going to all the online shit, so they basically opened their own YouTube studio.
I had seen one of their shows and thought it was funny, and then they came to me for this, and I was like, “Oh, I know these guys.” So, it was an instant yes. I thought the idea was great, as long as they hired gay people to do the transformations. You’re not just going to use drag as an “in” for heterosexuals finding love. They already have it easy. Come on. So, I was like, “Give all my friends jobs. Get Aurora Sexton. Hire Raja. Give my girlfriends jobs. Let them be creative directors,” because that’s what we do as drag queens. And it turned out that they listened. They’re great producers. And the contestants had fun doing drag, and they finally figured out what women have to go through, just society’s unrealistic beauty standards. Guys have no idea about that. They just exist naively unaware of women having to pay taxes on tampons, and they shouldn’t have to do that. There should be a lot of things that are fixed, but guys have no idea. They don’t know how much a fucking wig costs.
Who was responsible for the drag transformations?
The transformations were done by Michael Anthony, this makeup artist that I know who’s great, who does drag, and who worked on We’re Here. And then Aurora Sexton, another drag performer, former Miss Entertainer of the Year. And then Marco Marco, who did Katy Perry’s cupcake bra that squirted, and the looks for Britney’s residency in Vegas, and he’s everybody’s designer. He did all the looks because he has an archive that people rent costumes from and they just figured it out. And it was fun. It was working with my friends to make all those guys into he-she monsters. Some of them thought they were so beautiful, but some of them looked like distance and darkness would’ve been their best friend.
Now, you’ve hosted a lot of things. How did hosting a dating competition compare to some of the other things you’ve done?
I do well hosting and I feel like if I put myself in the place of the person on the couch watching and what they’re saying, I’m thinking of what I’m saying to them, so for me, it’s easy for me to just be a good host. I’m not trying to make it about me. If I see the opportunity for a joke, I’ll just slip it in, and if you miss it, there’ll be another in five seconds. Don’t worry – and a whole different wig too. I just keep it pumping and keep these guys moving because, honestly, they couldn’t even pick a good drag name. Me and Marco came up with this great drag name, Bambi Dextrous. Her mother died when she was young and she’s good with her hands. But yeah, I love that people are using drag as a way of find dates on TV.
The contestants are all doing drag for the first time. Were you surprised how quickly some of them embraced it, if they did?
No, because some of them I feel had done drag once and they were lying. It’s not a representation of reality TV, the television is. But I think a lot of them liked it because feeling like this smooth feather or stockings on your legs, you’re like, “Oh, wow.” For the first time, it’s a different sensation, and it makes a guy feel like, “Maybe I’m a sissy,” and then they question their whole life.
When these guys got all dolled up, did you see any rookie mistakes that you were not surprised to see?
Yeah, some of the guys didn’t want to shave their chests, and I was like, “You would be so pretty if you did that. Right now, you just look like a sideshow act.” Come on. And you have to be like, “Oh, wait. All drag is valid.” You’re not allowed to be a bully anymore, and I made my whole career on that for the first decade – which is crazy, but whatever.
Did any of the contestants end up having a genuine appreciation for drag by the time the show was over with?
Yeah, I think Foxy definitely has an appreciation for drag. He was the one that was a rock star in the black and red wig, I think. And Big Steppa was also very sympathetic because he and all the girls have to walk around in heels. It’s like stilt walking. They’re short stilts, but they’re stilts.
Was there anyone who unexpectedly turned into a natural drag queen out of the contestants you’ve had on the show?
We’ve only had six and would not put any of them on any shows anytime soon. Foxy was… she knew where her feet were going before her shoulders. And a lot of the girls were like leaning towers of creatine.
Beyond the laughs, do you think putting these men in drag gave them a different perspective on gender expression or confidence?
I think they definitely realized what it takes to be presentable as a woman, and they’ll probably never rush a girl again. And what this is saying is that these guys are cool, and just by going on this show, I think that shows that drag is one of those things that is acceptable for everybody now, and it makes any facet of any show better if you just put some drag on it somehow as a spin.
You had mentioned Raja, and she’s like your partner in crime on the show. What was it like having her involved with the show?
Raja kind of elevates anything. If she’s available for a party, you’re like, “Oh, invite her.” She just makes everything cooler, and her schooling the guys and telling them what to do was great. She comes from a place of authority because she was on America’s Next Top Model. She taught the girls to model. She did their makeup. The world knew about Raja, so when we could get her, I was like, “Okay, this show is real now.” Everybody knows her, so for me, having her as a little lieutenant, that was perfect.
Do you think that drag actually makes people more confident when it comes to dating?
It depends. If they’re confident in drag and they want to date that way, sure. Some people it’s like their best version. People use it just as a performance thing. Some people don’t do drag for work, but they won’t go out and get guys in it, so to each their own.
What do you think makes for good chemistry on reality TV, and can it actually lead to real romance?
I think it can. The trick to good reality shows is to cast Cancers. Cancers are fucking crazy. We hold grudges. We’re wild. We’re unpredictable. We also have a thick skull or shell that’s impenetrable to science, except when we’re being fucking whores. Cancers are great on reality shows. I would say also always have alcohol to get the contestants drunk. Shady producers and what else? Enough money to feed the cast because I was on a show where they didn’t have money to feed the cast enough, and I was like, “This is crazy.” “Y’all haven’t been feeding us.”
What advice would you give to anyone trying drag for the very first time?
The best advice I would give to someone trying drag for the first time is to just be fearless and put the fucking shit on your face, and then take a picture, see what you look like, and then do a little more makeup or fix it. See what you look like from a point of view that’s not just the mirror. Get a really honest friend or a camera phone and see what you look like before you go out – and take a couple of pictures from behind with the timer just so you can make sure your wig’s not fucked up in the back and the back of your neck ain’t showing or something. I would say just make sure you’re 360. Figure out all your angles beforehand, 360 degrees. You can fully rotate…and ho-tate.
If Love’s a Drag got another season, what would you like the show to do next?
When Love’s a Drag gets another season, I would love to find more people I forcibly feminize for the possibility of a date.
What else is going on for you besides Love’s a Drag?
I’m on a Hulu show called The Mob this fall that Parker Posey is hosting. I’m very excited for that. And I’m going to be on tour in Australia for all of July on a Drag Roast tour with Raja Reuben Kaye, Thorgy Thor, Kween Kong, Art Simone. Who else? Darlene [Mitchell] and what’s the other redhead bitch’s name? Jane Don’t…and then me. We’re doing like eight cities in Australia and then in August I shoot another season of Willam’s Dark Room Duel on OutTV. It’s the stripper show that I host where we find the king of the dark room. So that’ll be on in 2027, I think. I’m booked and busy and thrilled to be working.
Will there be more Beatdowns?
I just filmed four of them and then one more and then that’s it because I’m more interested now in creating our own stuff rather than commenting on other people’s stuff. And it’s hard to be a bully now. People can’t take jokes, so I had to change something, so I’m going to change my content a little bit, do different things. Alaska and I just redid the dressing room for a makeover show pilot, and that went really well. So, if I put out good things, then hopefully good things will keep coming to me.
Check out Love’s a Drag on Elixir’s YouTube channel. Keep up with all things Willam on Facebook, YouTube, Instagram and his website.
