She’s able to strum a guitar and express an opinion both with ease, but Acacia Forgot has plans to showcase her musical abilities post-RuPaul’s Drag Race elimination. During her Drag Race Season 17 run, Acacia showcased runway looks steeped in family history & had no problem battling it out with her Season 17 sisters for a role in the Rusical (and has a razor sharp confessional tongue as well)! I caught up with this California girl to dish about her Drag Race run, that Rusical performance, and weaving the legacy of her family into her drag.
Michael Cook: First up; Do you stand by your assertion that Suzie Toot is a “ninety eight year old washed up theater nerd” like you proclaimed her to be during your confessional last week?
Acacia Forgot: Yes (laughs)! One thousand percent. I mean she’s ninety nine now…just look at her!
MC: Tell me about your RuPaul’s Drag Race experience all the way around…
AF: All the way around, it has been such an amazing experience. It has been not what I expected, but even better than I could have expected. It has completely changed my life in the best way.
MC: Every season when the Rusical is announced, queens are eager to grab the roles that they want the most, and sometimes it can get a bit dicey when two queens want the same role. This year though, several battles broke out in the Werk Room including one between you and Suzie Toot for the role of The Green Witch! Looking back, would you do it all over again?
AF: Looking back, I have no regrets. I know that looking back if I had taken The Green Witch, I would have really bombed because that was so out of my wheelhouse. If anything if I were to redo it, I would try to go for a group role like the Tin Man to try to just skate by. Because it was a music thing, I was taking it so seriously like “This is my moment, a ballad is what I sing, it’s what I do, let’s get into it”.
MC: Your performance in the Rusical is actually earnest and is an emotional performance on the runway, so fans clearly were surprised that you were eliminated after this challenge.
AF: Thank you! Yeah, I was surprised too, I’m not gonna lie.
MC: I guess what many of you said at the beginning of the episode is very true; once Crystal Envy was eliminated, it became a very real fact that truly anyone could go home at any time.
AF: Yeah, and once Crystal went home we all kind of were like “Okay, well I guess it could be any of us”.
MC: What I was surprised to hear was that between your talent show performance and now the Rusical, when the judges asked if you had music theater experience, you stated that you had none. You do however, have a stage presence and a presented true musical ability during the talent show. Do you think that your talents possibly got overshadowed by other people’s personalities this season?
AF: I do think that my talents got overshadowed. Some of these girls they talk a lot and are very loud, but with them it’s all hat and no cattle.
MC: Through some of your runways and specifically your final one, your family and your family’s lineage is something that is truly and literally, threaded through your drag.
AF: Yeah, my family has been so important to me through everything. Being home schooled my whole life, I was around my parents and my brother and everyone twenty four-seven; everything was family. My parents would cook for us every day and these were my great grandmother’s recipes. My grandparents taught me music and when we would be around my grandparents from the moment we woke up to the moment we went to sleep, it would be just music and laughter and family time. It really has been truly woven into every part of who I am.
MC: What are the rose and thorn of your RuPaul’s Drag Race journey?
AF: I would say that my rose is being able to play an original song on the main stage with my guitar. That is what I do for all of my shows, that is my passion and I am so glad that I got to show that. My thorn would be seeing myself get in my head. I could tell when we were there that I was really in my head and trying to get out of it, but I didn’t really realize how bad it was. Watching it back I could see my gears turning amd me kind of floundering at some points; I wish I could have gotten myself out of that.
MC: It’s so ironic how a constant takeaway queens have from the show is how they consistently tried to stay out of their own head, yet and still it does continue to be a struggle to avoid exactly that
AF: Yeah it’s a lot. When you have cameras and all of these big personalities…I am in the country music scene where I’m the big personality and you’re around very different types of people. When you’re in a room with thirteen other young drag queens with a lot of energy and they’re all jacked up on Red Bull, it’s so much more intense to get a word in and take everything in.
MC: This season’s group of competitors truly seems that, despite the minor scuffles you may have, this is a season of true sisterhood; is that fair to say?
AF: Yeah I think so. I think that there are little groups within the family and that there are some people who have a bit more tension than others, but I think that if I needed anything I could text any of these girls and say “I need you for this” and they would be there.
MC: Well with this level of sisterhood, the girls are probably going to be hitting you up for wigs from your line post Drag Race! Any friends and family discounts for your Season 17 sisters?
AF: Oh absolutely not. I told Kori (King) when we were in the bottom “If you throw the lip sync, I will do twenty wigs for you for free” (laughs). So now I charge double!
MC: What do you think is next for you post Drag Race?
AF: I have already released a full version of my talent show song and I also have a lot of music already recorded. While I was preparing for Drag Race, I was actually at the same time recording an EP. I’ve released a couple of songs from that, so the rest of the songs will be coming from that. Hopefully soon a full length album, touring with a band, I just want to do the music!
MC: I could see a Ginger Minj-duet in there somewhere…
AF: Ooooh I do love Ginger Minj…
MC: What was the best piece of advice that your grandmother ever gave you?
AF: My grandma always said to laugh a lot, love often, play music, and sparkle.
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