Drag Race’s Marcia Marcia Marcia slams anti-LGBTQ+ hate in the US: ‘People love queerness’

Marcia Marcia Marcia, star of RuPaul’s Drag Race season 15, has hit back at the rising tide of anti-drag hostility in the US.

In case you hadn’t heard the news, RuPaul’s Drag Race has just celebrated a major milestone after hitting 200 episodes – and when required to speak up for the LGBTQ+ community, the queens of season 15 can always be relied upon to serve a soundbite.

While appearing at an MTV party in honour of the Drag Race mega-machine, New York queen Marcia Marcia Marcia told E! News what 200 episodes of an explicitly queer show means to her in light of the rising tide of anti-LGBTQ+ hate in America.

“With everything going on politically right now, I think for a franchise like this to have reached a 200th episode is a really big deal,” she noted.

“It is tangible proof that people in this country love drag and that people love queerness. Anybody trying to silence that or negate that is blatantly incorrect.”

One of these efforts to silence queer joy is the anti-drag bill that has recently passed in Tennessee, which saw the state become the first in the US to ban drag performances in public places.

The southern state’s Senate passed the bill on Thursday 23 February, with the measure heading to the desk of Republican governor Bill Lee.

Tennessee’s Senate Bill 3, introduced in November by Republican state senate majority leader Jack Johnson, aims to update an existing state law preventing “adult-oriented businesses” from operating within 1,000 feet of schools, public parks or places of worship, including “adult cabaret performances”, which the legislation defines as performances that feature “male or female impersonators who provide entertainment that appeals to a prurient interest”, The Hill states. 

Sasha Colby, who is widely considered to be one of the frontrunners of season 15, also said at the event that she considered each episode of RuPaul’s Drag Race as “200 times that people could learn to not be ignorant”.

“Two hundred times where we got to finally be normalised, our art got to be celebrated, and people who are really hard-working drag queens get to have their flowers.”

Alongside Marcia Marcia Marcia, Colby also teased more dramatic moments when the show’s 90-minute episodes return on 11 March.

“It’s gonna get really good,” Colby confirmed. “The momentum’s gonna pick up. Hopefully, it’ll give old school Drag Race seasons – a lot of shade and a lot of fierce drag.”

Following the show’s move from VHI to MTV, weekly episodes were cut from 90 minutes to one hour (40 minutes without adverts), with fans complaining that the shorter edit didn’t give the queens the opportunity to shine.

On 9 February, it was announced the original 90-minute episodes would return, dropping on streamer WOW Presents Plus outside of the US, and on MTV in the US.

Marcia Marcia Marcia and Sasha Colby are two of the eight girls left vying for the crown in season 15.

RuPaul’s Drag Race season 15 airs on Fridays at 8pm ET on MTV in the US and is available to watch the following Saturday on WOW Presents Plus from 2am GMT in the UK.