On Friday, June 7, Vanessa Vanjie Mateo and Mrs. Kasha Davis appeared as special guests alongside hosts Naysha Lopez and Kara Mel D'Ville for the Roscoe's Tavern viewing party of RuPaul's Drag Race All Stars 9 episode 5.
Within the first few minutes of the live-stream, Vanjie brought up the alleged "stipend" (word used for the money paid as an "appearance fee" for reality TV stars to show up and compete on a new season) received by the All Stars 9 queens.
Vanjie said, "I want y'all to know (…) they did give us some money or whatever, but basically we didn't get the money until like halfway through or whatever."
Naysha asked Vanjie to clarify if the queens were paid an amount of money just to show up as well as a sum of money to prepare their runway looks for the season. "Now, I don't remember the number," Vanjie replied. "[But] the one that y'all are calculating together, the one y'all putting together, is the total of all of it, I think."
Vanjie then reiterated her claim that the All Stars 9 queens only received "half" of that money prior to the season, adding: "Because some of the girls won't show up. They'll be like, 'Girl, I got the check. Bye!'"
"It's true. It happened. You know about that one," Naysha said. Vanjie reacted like she knew exactly who Naysha was talking about.
Naysha continued, "I'm not gonna say who. [But] somebody got cast. They gave [her] the stipend. They called her and were like, 'How's everything going? We haven't heard from you in a while.' And they were like, 'Well, they stole the stipend. I don't have it anymore.' And then stole the stipend."
Paramount+ via Tenor
Kasha seemed completely taken aback upon hearing this story. "Stole the stipend?" she asked.
"Yeah, allegedly," Naysha responded. "And then, allegedly, I got cast after that."
Vanjie reacted, "I didn't even know it was yours."
Naysha, who competed on All Stars 8 last year, alleged that "yeah, it was my season."
A video clip of this moment was shared by a Drag Race fan on X (formerly Twitter), and it's already going viral.
Later, during the Q&A portion of the viewing party, an audience member asked Naysha if the queen she was referring to was Lineysha Sparx.
"Oh, yeah, I've never talked about who it was, and I never will, because it's not my story," Naysha responded, immediately shutting down the idea that she would reveal this queen's identity to the public. "That's not for me to tell. I can only tell, from my experience, what happens. But I won't ever say who that person was. Sorry."
Out has contacted Paramount+ and World of Wonder for comment.
There are a few things to unpack here. First and foremost, there's obviously a chance that this story is completely false. This could've been a complete misunderstanding that's been going around between Drag Race queens but never actually happened — which would explain why Kasha had no idea about any of this.
A few people who replied to this X post are questioning the veracity of this story. "Okay but I have a [little] trouble believing that. I mean, certainly that queen would get sued?? Like there is no way you can just steal that stipend and ignore your contract like that??" @mascarayde wrote. "Here comes the random theories and rumors in the replies from random accounts making up stuff about random queens for no reason," @jusdaydreamin replied.
Secondly, one can argue that Naysha didn't clearly specify if this happened in season 8 of Drag Race or season 8 of All Stars, which are the two seasons Naysha competed in. This story does come across as something that happened recently, and also that it would've happened with a returning queen who was cast on All Stars. Moreover, when Naysha shut down the question about whether this story pertained to Lineysha Sparx (who originally competed in season 5), it felt like even more confirmation that this was, indeed, a cast member who was meant to compete on All Stars 8.
Thirdly, generally speaking, Vanjie and Naysha did not give any specific clues regarding who this queen could have been. But if we are to assume that this happened to someone cast on All Stars 8 — adding in the fact that Vanjie didn't know that it took place as recently as last year — it's plausible to speculate that this is a queen who could've been cast in various other seasons.
You can watch the full live-stream of this viewing party for the fifth episode of All Stars 9 if you subscribe to the Roscoe's Tavern "VIP" membership on YouTube for $1.99 per month (as indicated in the video below). Otherwise, this live-stream will be available for free on Monday, June 10.
New episodes of RuPaul's Drag Race All Stars 9 are streaming every Friday on Paramount+.
