Drag Race fans can’t get over Anetra’s stunts in the season 15 premiere: ‘She f**king devoured!’
Fans have been gooped by Anetra’s iconic performance. (World of Wonder)
RuPaul’s Drag Race season 15 is officially underway – and one queen has already “walked her f**king duck” all the way to icon status.
In what’s now a time-honoured tradition for the Emmy-winning series, the first episode of a new season sees the cast demonstrate their charisma, uniqueness, nerve and talent. This time around, though, the super-sized premiere saw sixteen queens compete in the largest-ever talent show challenge in a bid to impress the judges.
The show included multiple lip-sync numbers to original songs, including one each by the show’s first twins Sugar & Spice, as well as dancing, comedy and one queen making a glass of ice water. Yes, really.
What really had fans gagging, though, was Anetra’s performance – a mix of duck-walking, lip-syncing and karate-chopping her way through solid planks of wood in six-inch heels. We simply can’t.
Despite tight competition from competitors Jax (who used her wig as a skipping rope and did backflips before “landing on her titties ever so gently”) and Marcia Marcia Marcia (who performed an epic ballet routine to Boyz II Men’s “I’ll Make Love To You” dedicated to Ross Matthews), Anetra deservedly snagged the win.
Fans of the performance have taken to Twitter in their droves to express how the performance left them gooped and gagged, with one declaring it’s “absolutely one of my FAVOURITE talent shows ever, Anetra f**king DEVOURED”.
Fans – and RuPaul himself – have particularly taken to the phrase “walk that f**king duck”, which is now set to be the catchphrase that will define season 15.
A duckwalk is a move that involves squatting on your heels and kicking your feet out as you move forward on a beat, something that Anetra not only executed spectacularly well but riffed on at the same time.
The real gag of the performance – not that the whole thing wasn’t a gag, mind – was Anetra’s reveal that she used to be a competitive Judo fighter, after she split two planks of wood held by Pit Stop member Bryce with a chop and then a spinning kick.
As Marcia Marcia Marcia quite aptly says in the episode: “Shut up!”
The premiere also featured the ru-turn of Ariana Grande as extra-special guest judge, who surprised the first batch of queens in the werk room dressed as legendary season 6 queen Vivacious and bestowed some kind words for the dynasty’s newest additions.
“I think drag is the most infectious and joyous art form that there is,” Grande told the queens after her entrance. “Thank you guys for bringing so much joy to the lives of the Drag Race fans and to everyone.”
The 15th and “biggest” season of RuPaul’s Drag Race premiered on Friday 6 January at 8/7c on its new MTV home in the US and will be available to watch weekly on WOW Presents Plus on Saturdays from 2am in the UK.
