Gia Gunn finally shot off her boom-boom Gunn.
On the latest episode of Race Chaser, a RuPaul's Drag Race recap podcast hosted by series alums Willam and Alaska, the recently eliminated queen spilled a special brew of tea, one she had hinted at in our exit interview, telling us she was "a little upset" going into Snatch Game, but had declined to detail. Well now we know. And it's... whatever the queer version of a doozy is. (A douze?)
During the refreshingly candid interview, Gunn expressed a desire to quit the competition after a heated exchange with Ru. "Did you have a moment where you had any words with Ru about her past thoughts on having trans people on her show?" Willam asked Gia, referencing a controversial March 2018 interview with The Guardian in which Ru stated she would "probably not" accept a transgender queen who had undergone gender confirmation surgery. (Ru later apologized, tweeting: "In the 10 years we've been casting Drag Race, the only thing we've ever screened for is charisma uniqueness nerve and talent. And that will never change.")
"Well, I did," Gunn responded. "Of course it wasn't aired," she added, noting that none of Ru's walkthroughs appeared on the episode itself -- Ru has not done single workroom walk-through the entire season thus far. "I very well knew that none of that was going to air because the show is not about making her look anything but great."
She continued, expressing that the unaired exchange led to a breakdown in the lead-up to the Snatch Game challenge. "I felt completely disregarded," she said. "I didn't feel acknowledged. I didn't feel wanted, to be there in the competition. And truthfully it really hurt my feelings and I had a really big breakdown in between sets and I was just like, 'If I'm getting this feeling from her and I don't feel very welcome then what the fuck am I doing here?'"
Then she said the thing that many were thinking: "If we were going to bring somebody on the show to basically, y'know, clean up somebody's mess, obviously that fell on me, right? Because months before she had made a statement that was completely opposite of what they did. And I knew by being casted that I was going on there to basically show the world that this show does quote unquote support trans and that she does see trans people as drag queens. So for me to get there and for us to be on episode three, never have eye contact with her, never have any sort of acknowledgement of 'oh, you've come so far' or 'your journey has been so beautiful to watch' or anything of that sort, I just felt really hurt."
This tracks with a recent comment Gia made during a San Jose gig in which she told the crowd "fuck Miss RuPaul and her ignorant-ass comments."
But Gia isn't the only one who got a cold shoulder from Ru. Pearl shared her similar experience during an August sit-down on the YouTube web-series Hey Qween. "We were filming a segment, just kind of chatting, bantering together," Pearl told host Jonny McGovern. "Then the camera went down for a moment, and I turned to RuPaul and said, 'Oh my god, I just wanna say thank you so much, like, it's such an honor to be here, such a pleasure to meet you,' just giving her everything I ever wanted to say. She turned to me and said, 'Nothing you say matters unless that camera is rolling.'"
Gunn stated that she had "obvious thoughts" of quitting but didn't want to continue what she called the "season 6 quitters game" (perhaps a reference to Ben de la Creme, a fellow season 6 contestant, quitting All Stars 3 mid-season). "I didn't want people to see me as a quitter or see this trans person as weak or not able to get through the competition due to whatever people were going to assume and think I was going through knowing that this little part wasn't going to air and that people weren't going to know the backside so for me the storyline wasn't really going to make sense."
This really was the tea many were expecting from a December 28th YouTube video she posted titled "GIA GUNN SPILLS THE T ON HER ALL STARS 4 ELIMINATION." In that video, nothing of this incident was mentioned. Perhaps it was being in conversation with fellow Drag Race alum (one of whom has had their own words for Ru in the past) that brought this to light, or perhaps Gia hadn't been ready until now. What remains to be seen is if there will be a reunion (All Stars 2 had one, All Stars 3 did not) and if so, whether Gia attends and if we'll finally get to see a confrontation play out.