Whether she was storming the runway with unique and one of a kind looks or inhabiting the iconic Joan Rivers during Snatch Game, Loosey LaDuca is one of the most polarizing and entertaining queens to hit RuPaul’s Drag Race in recent memory. While she departed the competition right before the Top Four, LaDuca has plenty up her sleeve in her post Drag Race world. I sat down to chat with the Connecticut dynamo to discuss her Drag Race experience, her sometimes controversial interactions with her fellow competitors, and we manifested her dream role on The Great White Way.
Michael Cook: You were the quintessential kind of drag performer that is perfect for RuPaul’s Drag Race, classic drag, but with a twist that is all your own, without a doubt. How did you enter the world of drag?
Loosey LaDuca: it was thirteen years ago now. I was working at the Downtown Cabaret Theater in Bridgeport, CT and I was in a production of Cinderella. Usually when they do Cinderella on stage, they cast men as the stepsisters because they’re supposed to be ugly. And it turned out, I was beautiful. That was my first foray into the world of drag and it has been non stop ever since.
MC: Being cast on RuPaul’s Drag Race is the pinnacle for so many performers in the art of drag. What was your own experience like?
LLD: It was a rollercoaster; they call it a race for a reason. As soon as you are there, it is work work work all the time. It’s incredibly difficult to process, but it is really fun to be able to look back and say “I created so much art in such a short amount of time”. And to be able to look at everything…it feels very empowering.
MC: For so many people watching, many fans fell in love with you because you seemed to be forced to go up against your competitors and defend yourself fairly consistently. Is that fair to say?
LLD: I think that sometimes people see kindness as a weakness and I think that maybe that is it? I can’t speak for them because I don’t have an experience like that, but that’s my guess. Everybody is on edge, we’re exhausted, and you’re ready to just be done, I get it.
MC: What was it like seeing Connecticut represented after seeing states like New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles represented so many times in past seasons?
LLD: It was incredible and I was incredibly honored to have been one of the people to represent the Connecticut drag community. There is a thriving drag community in Connecticut and people just didn’t now about it. Now, Connecticut is part of the conversation when it comes to drag and i am so happy about it.
MC: What do you think your rose and thorn was of your Drag Race experience?
LLD: My rose is probably Snatch Game because making RuPaul laugh so hard that she can’t breathe is something you cannot even describe. A thorn would probably be just maybe being misunderstood by one of the cast members, which was tough for me.
MC: You spoke on the EW Quick Drag podcast about the Lip Sync For Your Life that you did to Kate Bush’s “Running Up That Hill”against Salina EsTittites and you elaborated on how powerful that lip sync was for you and what you related it to. Can you elaborate on that a bit?
LLD: It felt really empowering. I think that when you are just sort of faking through something, people can really see through it. When you are pulling from your own experience, I think that really translates and you can see that someone is really feeling the emotions that they are trying to convey to the audience. That was really my goal and it was nice to be able to use that negative experience in a positive way, to create something that is artistic and emotional.
MC: Impersonation is truly a part of the drag art form that is not nearly as commonplace in today’s drag as it once was; hopefully you will help usher in a renaissance of that art form.
LLD: Yes! It’s so funny, when I started drag people would always say “well who do you do”? Now, nobody does impersonations and I wish that people would do more. I love doing impersonations and I think that it is such an amazing art form.
MC: What is your favorite impersonation to do?
LLD: it’s absolutely Joan Rivers. You can just say literally whatever you want, so that is really fun. Another one that I do that I actually didn’t get to show on the show is that I do Stevie Nicks. I love to sing as Stevie.
MC: Your Joan was very reminiscent of Margaret Josephs from “The Real Housewives of New Jersey” in so many ways.
LLD:Yes, I can totally see that!
MC: What do you think you want to do now in your post Drag Race life?
LLD: There are a lot of things that I want to do. I would love to really lean into the queer horror community, they have really supportive of me in the past several months. I would love do to shows that are specifically tailored to them. I would also love to tour as Joan Rivers and do a stand up tour as Joan. Of course, I want to be involved in more theater. Jinkx (Monsoon) has opened a lot of doors after her recent run in Chicago and I would love to be a part of something like that.
MC: Let’s manifest, what show would you most want to be a part of?
LLD: You know, I want to be Glinda in Wicked. Let’s put me in that bubble!
MC: Drag is suddenly extremely polarizing and is becoming a hot topic all over the country. With bills being passed and the LGBTQ community once again under attack, what do you say to people when they ask what we can do?
LLD: I think that the most powerful thing that we can do is to educate. I think that what happens when people are not educated about something, it is very easy to embolden them and get people afraid of something that they don’t understand. So they are getting this idea of drag purely from people that hate us for who we are. When you really get to know about it, it is a really loving art form. Drag is really being used as a scapegoat to distract from the biggest issues in the world.
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