Sasha Colby has been crowned the winner of RuPaul’s Drag Race Season 15 and even days later, fans are still buzzing about that absolutely stunning lip sync performance at the finale. The impact of Colby’s win is not lost on her, who recently told Vogue “I Am The Embodiment of What They Want To Eradicate”. I sat down with Sasha Colby to discuss why she feels her win is so terribly important right now, why she waited until Season 15 to audition for Drag Race, and what she has planned post-Drag Race (EGOT anyone)?
Michael Cook: As you sit here speaking to me in this moment, how does it feel; you have won RuPaul’s Drag Race?
Sasha Colby: It feels surreal. It was a little dream that I had for myself that I got to achieve, so it feels very accomplishing. It feels surreal to see how happy everyone is that I got to achieve my dream, they all feel like they won. I’ve seen all over the world that everyone is just so happy, so that makes me feel great; I took one for ‘Team Sasha’ (laughs)!
MC: How do you look back on the Drag Race experience now that it’s in the rearview mirror? Do you feel accomplished that you finished what you went in to accomplish or are you simply glad it’s over?
SC: It’s a feeling of both for sure. I definitely felt the stress and tension that I put on myself getting ready, especially for the finale; it was like “let me film the finale, then I can relax”. Then getting ready for viewing, I thought it was going to be a lot easier. It was like, we just get to see it, I don’t have to do anything & the competition part is over. But then there was the anxiety of waiting for it (laughs); it was nerve wracking and it feels like a relief. I slept like a baby on Friday; the days before that, I was not sleeping (laughs)!
MC: So it has to be asked; who do you think the trade of the season is?
SC: Carl (laughs)!
MC: Absolutely; playing Carl in ‘Wigloose: The Rusical!’ was a stroke of brilliance for you. Did you have any apprehension or did you feel triggered in any way taking on a role like that?
SC: Actually, my other Snatch Game character was Robin Leach. So I was fully prepared to do male drag because as you said, there are a lot of trans women in drag that it is very triggering for them to do something like that. All we are trying to do it let you understand what we see ourselves as. Especially as trans drag, we put ourselves in this goddess energy as an affirmation exercise. I knew to win, you have to not be afraid to do anything. I literally thought “every time I go out on this stage, every time I turn this corner, every challenge that I do; you are going to see a different Sasha Colby. It’s never going to be the same girl, but that girl lives in all those places”. I knew that since I did Jan Crouch, I had to do something later. When Carl was there, I was like “let me just grab Carl real fast”!
MC: You are a former Miss Continental so competing is something that you know extremely well. To say that the Continental process is taxing is putting it mildly. What lessons from the Continental process and being Miss Continental did you take into RuPaul’s Drag Race?
SC: Everything. Because that was one thing that no one else could. This is knowledge that I have collected and catalogued from working at The Baton, working along the greatest like Chili Pepper and Mya Douglas. These are legends that have been doing it and making this craft something in the thick of it, in the sixties, seventies and eighties. When it wasn’t a fad. So I had that history, I had the shady fights. Not that I had them, but drag is rightness.
At Continental, there are crazy teams, crazy camps. If the girl doesn’t win honey, they are rioting girl, you’ve heard the stories; guns getting pulled out in the middle of the street girl, all of that!
Some things that I remember thinking about was some advice from Erica Andrews. She said the best thing you do as a drag queen is that you show up on time, so you get paid on time, and you’re professional. Mimi (Marks), Erika and Monica (Munro), they taught me that when you go to tour with your crown, always have some earrings and a stretch gown with your crown so if you’re bags get lost, you can go to CVS get a little makeup and you can still be Miss Continental. These are the things that I learned that I didn’t have to learn myself and fall. These are level-up tools and it allowed me to level up when it needed to.
MC: So many people have asked you why you waited to compete on RuPaul’s Drag Race, but I’m more curious; after seeing contestants like Monica Beverly Hillz and Kylie Sonique Love compete and win respectively, did you say to yourself “If I’m going to do it, now is the time I need to do it”?
SC: Yes. I have used the “catching a wave” metaphor, as kids we would just sit and watch the waves coming in. There would be guys on surfboards that would wait all day and not catch a wave, because it wasn’t there. You have to be right there in this moment in the world where it matches up, that is very specific. The first thing to know how to surf-or how to win-is to let other people win and let other people get their surf.
I definitely had that push after seeing Gottmik, she was like “you gotta audition”. Helping Kylie, because we were living together when she filmed, helping her and encouraging her, to go for it and to do Steven Tyler and to do these things, allowed me to do all of these things that I was helping her with. Those two things happening and honestly, Kerri (Colby) getting on..I wasn’t about to let her be the most famous Colby (laughs), I gotta audition now!
I now know after doing all of these months of press and using the wave metaphor, I realize that it is a lot bigger than that. After doing the finale and doing my last number and giving this ode to what is going on in the world, I realize that is why I am here and that is why I won; so I can combat the hate that is happening right now.If they are saying the narrative that “trans people are miserable”, than how do you explain someone like me? I am showing someone that is shining in spite of all of the hate. That is all that someone feeling oppressed needs.
MC: Speaking of your daughter Kerri Colby, we’ve spoken several times and she told me that for her to discover herself fully as a woman, she had to discover Kerri first. Do you feel the same way?
SC: Absolutely. You have to fall in love with yourself if anyone else is going to fall in love with you, Ru says it all the time. You have to know who you are and be happy, that way the growing pains don’t show in front of everyone, you know (laughs)?
MC: Your life is seemingly broken up into decade long increments. Ten years ago you were Miss Continental, now you have won Season 15 of RuPaul’s Drag Race. What do the next ten years have in store?
SC: You know it’s wild, I do work in decades. When I was eighteen I transitioned. When I was twenty eight I won Miss Continental. And now at thirty eight-thirty nine, I won RuPaul’s Drag Race. Maybe in ten years I’ll get the whole EGOT, but I am not waiting ten years for one of those. Let’s start making this EGOT…
MC: You have done a lot of work with acclaimed video producer/director Brad Hammer, and based on the work I’ve seen, you are well on your way to that EGOT!
SC: Thank you so much!
MC: You mentioned the amount of hate that our community and specifically our trans brothers and sisters are getting. How can we help each other and our trans brothers and sisters in combating this hate?
SC: To all the allies; we have to use their tactics a little bit. Like they like to talk about “grooming and indoctrinating” the younger ones, we kind of have to start raising allies. That is the only way that this is going to be generationally of use. I tell all of my cis/hetero friends, “you have two kids. It is your responsibility to push those two kids to be allies and to raise allies; that is all you have control of in the world”. You can picket, post, you can donate, yes. But it is about affecting, and especially if you know a trans person, to honor them and make them feel like they don’t have to feel alone. We shouldn’t have to be fighting so hard, it should also be our allies job.
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