Southern drag queen Hormona Lisa was cast away in Friday’s nautical-themed episode of RuPaul’s Drag Race. She spoke to Newsweek‘s Parting Shot Podcast with H. Alan Scott about her departure from the show, her cartoon look-alike and the disrespectful treatment she experienced from her fellow contestants.
“I feel proud of doing it,” Hormona told Newsweek about the show and the most recent challenge. “I wish I would have gone home on a dancing thing or something because sewing is what I do, but I normally don’t work with garbage. So, I think that’s a little redeeming.”
In the episode, Hormona and the season 17 queens got their hands dirty with a design challenge centered around upcycling marine debris into a high-fashion couture look for the runway. Along with their “Sea Sickening Eleganza” outfit, the contestants also walked the runway in beachwear and sea creature-inspired fashion.
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Arrietty took home the top honors of the night, making waves with a series of undersea looks, while judges felt Hormona and Lana Ja’Rae sunk to the bottom. After a lip-sync battle to Olivia Rodrigo’s “get him back!”, Hormona was asked to sashay away—making her the third eliminated queen of this season’s competition.
Hormona, known as “Chattanooga’s Pastel Princess,” told Newsweek that her elimination this week was not anticipated by her friends and supporters back home. “I’ve already seen some of the watch parties back home. They’re like, ‘Oh, this is a sewing challenge, our girl’s got it!'” she said. “Well, news flash. I died this week, so.”
Though she’s sad to leave the stage, Hormona is no stranger to the feeling. Many fans of the series have commented on her drag persona’s striking resemblance to the character of Sadness from Pixar‘s Inside Out. As a testament to her self-confidence and sense of humor, she committed to the bit by cosplaying the character during day two of Drag Con UK in January. “It’s kind of crazy though. My mom was the first person to tell me that I look like Sadness,” Hormona said. “And she told me that—when did that come out—2015? So I’ve known that for a couple of years now.”
Despite her early departure, Hormona is proud of her performance on Drag Race. “Without thinking about the talent show, I think that the rest of the challenges, to be honest, I think there’s an argument that I could have been in the top for every week after the talent show,” she said. “I still don’t agree with being in the bottom for the Sea Sickening Ball, and my mind is not going to change on that.”
But the one thing that really bothers her was how some of the other queens treated her on the show. “We’re professionals in the same industry. There should be some kind of respect there,” she said. “And I have that respect for them, but I feel like a majority of them did not respect me as a drag performer. There should be some inherent respect there, and I didn’t get that and that kind of sucked.”
World of Wonder/MTV
Hormona said that fellow contestants like Arrietty and Kori King did not make her feel welcome, and that many of them even avoided sitting with her during lunch. “The only thing that surprised me was Lana calling me a c***, honestly,” she said. “That was the only confessional where I was like, ‘That’s crazy.’ But people change and grow,” she said.
“I don’t want to have a part in someone feeling excluded, even if I don’t like that person,” she continued. “If they’re feeling excluded, I’m going to do what I can to make them feel included because at the end of the day, that’s what all human beings want: to be included and feel they’re a part of something in some way.”
Now that she’s no longer in the running, Hormona says that she thinks Onya Nurve has a good chance to win the crown, with Suzie Toot and Lydia B Kollins close behind. But she hopes there will be a time when she can receive an apology from her fellow season 17 queens.
“I will say I don’t feel like it’s resolved because there hasn’t been a conversation about how some of them treated me, and I think there should be,” she continued. “So fingers crossed for a reunion.”
