Between the Olympic Games and a stunning opening ceremony (which showcased Drag Race France host Nicky Doll among others), the country of France has dominated the headlines recently. Now, Drag Race France has completed a sensational third season which culminated in Le Filip going head to head with Ruby On The Nail, with Le Filip ultimately taking Celine Dion’s “I’m Alive” and crafting it into a crown-winning masterpiece! I sat down to chat with Le Filip about the Drag Race France experience, their thoughts on their post Drag Race career, and how she realized that Drag Race “isn’t just a competition, it’s a competition for people’s hearts”.
Michael Cook: Condragulations, you are the winner of the third season of Drag Race France! At this very moment, how are you feeling?
Le Filip: Thank you so much! Right now, it is starting to settle in, but it is still a little strange for me to win. I am not a very competitive person, which is weird for someone who actually did a competition (laughs). I guess I was just crazy enough to throw myself into that and just so in love with drag where I wanted to do it. I don’t think I really saw it as a competition, but more of as an experience to have. Then when the challenges started rolling out and I saw the talent of the other girls, I thought “Oh this is really real, I actually have to do stuff”!
MC: Everything that you did throughout the competition truly shined, but you won the title this season without ever winning a maxi challenge at all during the competition! What does that feel like?
LF: I did have a quick second of imposter syndrome, but then I think it might have been RuPaul or someone else that said “It is a competition, but it is also a competition for people’s hearts”. You have to win over the public and that is the main goal at the end of the day. It’s not so much the path, but what you have to offer people and how many people are going to fall in love with what you have to offer. It is very much how my life is, in a weird way; it mimicked my life up until now. The struggles, huge highs, huge lows…in a weird way it was kind of perfect.
MC: Doing a Celine Dion themed Rusical was truly iconic for the Drag Race France cast. How did it feel for you to be able to pay homage to such a legend in this way?
LF: It was great. There is always a lot of discord on these types of challenges, and I was a little bit unsure and watching who feels what. I was very Buddhist at that moment, letting it all simmer down and I would take what is left. I knew that if I have a small role, I am going to make it big because something in me wants to do that. I was always like a little mouse, I will take whatever little thing and I would make something out of it. I think a lot of drag queens are like that as well, you don’t have nothing and you have to make something out of it. That kind of motivated me.
MC: Doing an original song during the finale was a tremendous risk, but it truly paid off…
LF: I do have a few professional singer friends who tour all over France and Europe and I have been around them, seen studios and I know that it is kind of “acting”. I had a bit of help through experience I guess, seeing them in studios it is weird, because it is a totally different thing to perform live then to perform in a studio, where you don’t have that energy and you have to conjure it up. I took it like an acting challenge, along with a good old bitch track!
MC: Who have you heard from online to congratulate you that has totally gagged you and stunned you?
LF: A lot of the fashion people, including Coperni, who did the technological dress with Bella Hadid, they just reached out. A lot of the fashion crowd, and that is a crowd that does not laugh easily. The fact that they enjoy me as a comedy queen and then to find out that they enjoy what I am presenting on the runway, it’s like “Wow, okay we can laugh”!
MC: When did you know that you would be following the art of drag as a career and it would truly become your passion in life?
LF: I went to art school so I always knew that I was going to do something artistic, but I was not studious; I was very “lazy” in a way. I got through school pretty painlessly, I always used to work not a lot but intelligently. I would do something in the very last minute, but still referenced and thought out. I was already doing drag at the time, I started right after high school. I was going to clubs, Instagram was not that big at that time yet. I think I was part of that last generation of queens who had to go out in clubs in order for people to see and book us.
I met this wonderful DJ and producer Dorian, which whom we created a fabulous disco party, that had a pretty good run. It ran for two or three years and was every Thursday from midnight to six am. We had Lenny Kravitz, Vanessa Paradis, and Timothy Chalamet come, huge A-Listers. We also had people from ballroom, random straight and gay people. It was a very eclectic party and that is basically how I started paying my rent. I thought “This is going to take me places”. One thing led to another, then Drag Race France came along. I knew that it would be a natural progression for me.
MC: What do you want to have accomplished a year from now if we talk then?
DRF: I want to survive the tour (laughs). Besides the tour, I have already written a one woman/drag queen show three years ago that I rewrote which I have to finish. I want to do some song parodies and I just want to make people laugh. I just to continue to making people laugh, I don’t want them to stop laughing at me or with me (laughs)!
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