Sminty Drop is a contestant on RuPaul’s Drag Race UK who entered the competition with a rich legacy; she is the drag granddaughter of Drag Race UK Season 1 contestant Gothy Kendoll. With eye-popping aesthetics and a larger than life runway presence, Drop might have departed the competition, but she clearly has her eyes set on other runways around the world. I sat down to catch up with Sminty Drop and we discussed her Drag Race UK experience, her own personal experiences regarding body image as a drag performer, and how presenting the person behind Sminty Drop was crucial to her during her Drag Race journey.
Michael Cook: What was your Drag Race UK experience like?
Sminty Drop: The experience was like something that I could not describe even if someone paid me to. I cannot even put it into words; It’s one of those things where you have to go in and actually do it to be able to tell people about it. Gothy(Kendoll) was trying to tell me what to expect and I thought it didn’t sound too crazy and had a very chill vibe and then I got there and it was like “whoa”! That was crazy, but the experience was one that I will never forget and something that I will take with me for the rest of my life. I have met some of the best people that I have ever met in my life, and I am going to go on to meet even better people as I progress through this crazy career that I’ve got now. It’s a really exciting time right now. The whole filming process also, it was so weird and it was buck wild, I had no idea what was going on half the time!
MC: What do you think the best advice that Gothy gave you prior to heading off on your own Drag Race journey?
SD: She said, “go back to Episode 1 and watch what I did and do the opposite. Do not do anything that I did” (laughs). I was in the top and she lost (laughs)!
MC: Was the style of improv done in the challenge something that you had done in the past?
SD: I had done not improv specifically, but literally from being the youngest I can remember, I was in drama classes, musicals my whole life in school and high school, then in clubs outside. I was excited for that type of challenge to come, and I am glad that I made it to that kind of challenge. I think it was just the nerves took over me, I took that veil off my face, saw the lights, saw everyone look at me waiting for me to do something funny, I froze up and had a panic attack and blacked out. I woke up from this black out paralyzed and was still sitting on the stage with everyone looking at me, No one else was on the stage with me and I thought “I don’t think im supposed to be here anymore, but im not gonna get up because I can’t” (laughs). It felt like it was going on for so long and I remember Alan Carr looking at me like “are you gonna go”? I thought, “no, I’ll just stay right here” (laughs).
MC: Every year, Drag Race UK seems to include legendary UK queens in the cast, and this year was no exception. What was it like being in a competitoin with people like Danny Beard and Cheddar Gorgous, who are so well known to drag fans in the UK and beyond?
SD: I knew Danny and Cheddar prior, but not where we talked all the time and were besties. Honesty, I think for me a lot of people have said that they were icons and on a pedestal, and I thought that they were on the exact same level as me in the competition and we were doing the exact same thing in the workroom. I feel like we’re on the same television show, I’m also an icon (laughs)!
MC: When did you know that drag was going to be much more than a hobby and a legitimate and viable career for you?
SD: I’ve always wanted to take pictures and I’ve always wanted to wear crazy things that I never thought I would be able to wear. When I was younger, I was always sketching women in dresses, gowns, and crazy hair and I was just obsessed with drawing women in fashionable clothes. Six year-old me thought I was very groundbreaking..this is fashion (laughs)! I was drawing the designs, but it was like..I want to wear this; I was drawing them for me. It was like, I don’t want someone else to wear this. I could never do it though, because I was a boy and I couldn’t wear that stuff.
When I started doing drag and I started getting better and confident in it and started experimenting more with my style. I even went through an era where I was padding, and I looked so stupid and I don’t want to go back to the “padded era” I looked insane! I think once I took control of my self and my body, because people have always told me I need to “eat a burger”, I started to realize that I don’t need to pad, I have a nice body, and I’m going to use it. Once I started feeling confident in the skin that I was in and my body, I began to love myself. I started to think that “this is exactly where I needed to be and this is what I want to do”. I am going to start loving myself, love putting these designs on my body, and turning myself into this fierce glamazon diva ready for the runway!
MC: Did you keep any of the designs that you originally sketched as a child?
SD: No, but I did keep one drawing and it is on the inside of a cereal box. It’s a drawing of a mermaid on a rock, I was always obsessed with mermaids, that’s probably why I wear long hair now (laughs)!
MC: Body image in the world today is something that people find themselves under scrutiny for, and it seems that hearing you are “too skinny” shows that drag performers are not immune to that criticism either.
SD: From my runways, I think it took more of a toll on me than I thought it would. People were automatically just ragging me off and saying things like “it’s just another white Twink showing their body, who cares”. I enjoy showing my body, but I kind of use my body like an outfit, and anyone can do that; I’m still getting roasted for it though. Like Naomi Smalls said though, “don’t come for the girls who rely on the body, because you could never”!
MC: What do you have planned next career-wise?
SD: Obviously I want to go into modeling, I wanna be on magazines and runways. I also want to release some music as well. I am so inspired by Charlie XCX, Brooke Candy, Cobra, all of those women in the music industry in the hyper-pop scene that are also queer focused as well. I am so influenced by their style and everything that they do. I’ve always wanted to sing my whole life, and I have a single coming out with Gothy Kendoll and out DJ friend Forbid, which came out on the 15th. That is going to start a music journey for me, releasing music that I love listening to while walking down a runway to it; that’s the dream.
MC: What do you think your drag reveals about you as a person?
SD: I think to everyone watching me as an artist, especially from the show, people have realized that I enjoy paining like this and snatching it all up, looking as perfect as I can down to the last detail and really holding myself at a high level. I’ll also get down on the floor with a Sharpie and run around the room screaming. I am just so happy to show that part of my personality so I don’t just look like a stone cold untouchable Instagram person; I’m so not that. I am glad people have seen that and feel comfortable approaching me, I love interacting with people! People are now seeing themselves in me, they are a chaotic hot mess like I am, they have brain fogs like I do, and everything can be falling apart, but it all comes together in the end. I’m really happy that people have been able to see that and I hope that has come across well.
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