Drag Race Down Under S4’s First Eliminated Queen On Going Home First, Michelle Visage And Finding Her Place

After a fantastic start to Drag Race Down Under Season 4, the first queen eliminated, Olivia Dreams, joined Michael James to share her thoughts on being part of this landmark season where, for the first time, Michelle Visage took over the host’s seat from RuPaul.

While leaving early can be disheartening, Olivia has found strength and purpose in her brief time on the show, embracing her title as the “Pork Chop” queen and making a mark for Wellington, New Zealand on the Drag Race map.

Welcome, Olivia, to the Drag Race “Pork Chop” club!

“Look, look, people keep thinking that’s a bad thing, but I’m taking it in my stride. The era of Amyl is over! I promise a prosperous Pork Chop season from here on out, everybody!”

“I’d rather be the first one out than the second one out because, yeah, who remembers the second one out? No one.”

“Who remembers the first one out? Everybody. We’ve even got our own fan club, the Pork Chop Fan club.”

One of the biggest things this season was that Michelle Visage, not RuPaul, was hosting. What was it like for you knowing Michelle was the head judge this season?

“Ohh, it was really, really nice. Like, really great, really magical. Michelle just gets us in Australasia, right?”

“She understands our weird, twisted humour, our references, our nuances. I think it was a really good decision to have her slip into the hosting seat because she just exudes this motherly love.”

“Not to discredit Ru or anything, but Michelle just gets us. She gets us. We’re weird, we’re depraved. But she likes that. She understands that.”

Michelle does have this unique, nurturing vibe. How was it being in the same room with her? Did she make you feel at ease?

“Motherhood. Mothering. Mother is mothering.”

“Stepping into a room with Michelle, she exudes this aura of confidence and this aura of safety. Like she doesn’t even have to speak. Just being in the same room as her instantly uplifted you, and you’re like, oh my God. You were always on the edge of your seat waiting for her to say something or do something.”

Walking into that Drag Race workroom for the first time, you’re suddenly face-to-face with queens you’ve heard of and maybe some you haven’t. Did you know any of the other queens before the show?

“I’ve known Lucina for quite a while. She did a lot of my wigs, actually, and I’d heard of a few others, like Max and Nikita, but all the others were absolutely new to me. Brand new to me, hadn’t heard of them, not even a whisper. So it was really interesting, yeah, going into the room and meeting such a diverse range of individuals.”

It probably means you were less likely to shit yourself when you realised you were paired with Lazy Susan?

“Yeah, absolutely. Like, honestly, my first impression of lazy, and there’s this, audio clip in Episode one, and it’s me going ‘I really underestimated Lazy Susan’ because I did, because she’s just got such a weird and depraved mind and I absolutely love, love her like the creativity that flows from Lazy is just mind boggling. Like awesome but, yeah it was nice not having that existing pressure until that first run away.”

Sounds like it was a very exciting first day and the cast really was an eclectic mix this season! Anyone you spotted right away as your biggest competition?

“When I walked into the workroom, did my little eye, did my little posing, out of the corner of my eye I caught Max’s long blonde wig, and I was like, ohh shit. I was so tempted, like Lazy Susan did, just to turn around and be like, well, I’m going.”

“I remember hearing whispers she was on prior to going to filming, and I turned to my partner and I said, ‘If she’s on, I’m just leaving.’ Clocking Max here, I was like, oh my God. This is the season. This is the season to watch because there’s so many talented queens there.”

Clearly you’re a fan of Max’s legendary skills, especially as a performer. What’s so formidable about her reputation?

“She’s just such a powerhouse performer. We’ve all seen that video of her where she did the cartwheel into the splits. She just knows how to command a stage. So, like Vibe said, we hope all the songs are ballads because she can lip sync the house down, no sweat.”

With queens like Max in the competition, did you have a unique strength you wanted to showcase on the show?

“I kind of wanted to come into the competition as that dark horse.”

“I assumed people wouldn’t know who I am, wouldn’t have come across me before, so they wouldn’t know what to expect and kind of leave them guessing as to, OK, so what is Olivia bringing?”

“My strength is in hosting or improv. I think I’m naturally very comedic, and I think doing a roast or an improv challenge would have really been my bread and butter.”

“I came across as quite shy and reserved on camera because I like to take a back seat when meeting new people, just to really understand how they function, how they work, and I think that really, started my downfall a little bit cause I got shoved into this corner of being a quiet girl or one of the quiet ones and overlooked.”

“But in all reality, I was literally just sizing the other girls up and saying, OK, so this is how you are. This is how I can talk to you. Like, I didn’t want to go out there and, you know, be 100% and rub people the wrong way.”

“I just really wanted to understand the dynamic of the the group before I unleashed the inner Olivia.”

And there’s also some big personalities in that room. I mean, anybody that’s going exist in a room with Vybe is is going to be competing.

“Ohh honestly she is like, We I think I’m very loud in terms of New Zealand drag but Australian drag is so much louder and then you’ve got vybe who is just on another level herself, like she you could probably hear her from down the road.”

“That’s how loud her and some of the other girls were!”

“It was just literally I remember walking over to the table after doing my little intro and then just getting peppered by all of them, like loud as bells. Where are you from? What’s your name? What’s your drag? And I was like. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Like one at a time. Please, but yeah, having 5-6 Australian drag Queens scream at you at one time, I don’t know how you do it. I really don’t know how you do it over there.”

How did it feel to represent Wellington as the first queen from your city?

“Yeah, this is Wellington’s first chance on the main stage of Drag Race Down Under, and I think there was that subconscious pressure. This is also the first time the world’s seeing what Wellington drag is like. I wanted to make sure I was doing a service to my community. In my anxious state, I kind of overplayed that, you know? You’ve got to do them proud. To the point where I was just afraid—I kind of shell-shocked myself into this mindset of, ‘I can’t do anything; how will that be perceived?’ I think if I could go back and change anything, that’s probably the one thing I’d change: just be me, like be authentically me, without fear of repercussion or judgment from others, because I think looking back at it now I’m happy with what I did. I’m proud of what I did.”

That’s a big weight to carry. It’s hard to stay true to yourself when you’re constantly being watched and judged. Was it overwhelming?

“Yeah, like it was just, it was overwhelming. And I just wanted to do a service to our Wellington community because this is the first chance we’ve had to be on the stage. I think in that process I sort of got out of touch as to why I wanted to be there, which was to showcase who I am and to have fun. But I think I just tripped up along the way.”

It looked like you had fun. I think it’s easy to be self critical, But you were still there and you were having your fun and doing your thing. 

Yeah I had a lot of fun during this challenge. Like I really thought I was keeping up with everyone else in my group, I was really happy by doing something different, I was rapping instead of singing like everybody else, I was pushing myself out of my comfort zone on purpose.”

“I had the mindset of like, aim high because at least if you don’t get high you’ll end up safe. So I was having a lot of fun with everything and I was really enjoying myself in that moment and I was coming out of my shell a little bit more because I was starting to ease into how things were working and how things were and how everybody was.”

“So a little bit of advice for to past me from future me would have been like just lean into it. Just lean into it and just who cares what everyone else thinks.”

“Cause at the end of the day I’m here and they’re not.”

It was a really enjoyable challenge to watch, I’m not always a fan of girl group challenges, may we never see some of those back again, but..

“You just named BMX Bandits!, It’s OK, we’ve all been there.”

“Honestly, I actually clocked the BMX Bandit bikes backstage, they still have them!

“I’m like, don’t you get rid of them? A Little PTSD trauma came back, like, we’re not doing a BMX challenge!”

Following the challenge there was an interesting dynamic in the work room. We all loved Mandy’s moment, “that’s not sheer. It’s fucking translucent”

“Yeah, we still quote that to this day [laughs].”

Despite that it really feels like this group of girls have got a really strong dynamic where you are actually all got along and and came out as friends. Am I reading that right?

“Absolutely. I think at the end of the day, we’re all professionals, right? We all knew coming into the show that we’re all here to have fun.”

“We’re all here to showcase who we are, and I think we all just wanted each other to have such an enjoyable experience and there was no friction in the work room. There may have been in confessionals, but I think we all just were on the same page and we want this to be as much fun as we can for everybody involved because it’s already a traumatic experience in itself, there’s no need to add an extra layer of this, you know.”

“I think that’s a great thing about us as well, is we weren’t afraid to tell each other how it was to our faces like. We’re just a close, tight knit family at the end of the day.”

“And even post filming, we all stayed in touch. We’re all supporting each other, rooting for each other. We’ve done so many little collaborative things together as well, which has been fun because we really want the season to succeed.”

“We really want this season to be like a a refresh or a a rebrand for Drag Race Down Under. So it’s a really good time to refresh and reset everybody’s expectations of Drag Race Down Under.”

Having previous Queens both internationally and locally on the panel, how did that change the dynamic for you? Did it put you more at ease or more heightened?

I think it was a bit of both. I think it was more heightened because it was like, ‘Oh my God, I’m being judged, judged by other Drag Race contestants. But in the same breath it was, ‘I’m being judged by other Drag Race contestants. They know how I’m feeling. They know the environment. They know what we’re feeling or have an idea of what we’re going through.”

Now speaking of that final lip sync…

“I mean, just between us girlfriends, I don’t think. I should have gone home but. Not my decision to make!”

“I went into final flight mode and I was there to fight. So I just tapped into this inner peace and I was like, I’m going to give them a show. I’m going to give them an absolute show.

“I just gave everything that I had and so to be sent home I was just crushed.”

“But I held together on the stage. But as soon as I was side stage, you know, I just crumbled down into this little pile of tissues and tears because it was just heartbreaking because I just thought to myself, I’ve let myself down.”

“More than anything, I’ve let myself down. I could have done so much more, but I’ve just let myself get into my own way.”

It was very memorable, now speaking of memorable, one of my favourite things that we love is the Snatch Game! Who were you going to play?

“I was actually going to go in as Miss Lana Del Rey.“

“I thought she’s such a weird character that there’s so much you could play with with her and you could make her as weird or kooky or not even. You could just take her in any direction.”

Was Snatch Game something you actively try and prepare for. Do you sit with someone at home or some friends at the club and and try and do your own trial run?

“No, there was definitely a lot of prep.”

“Snatch game was probably one of the only challenges that I was like, I don’t want to do this. Like part of me was like I just wanna go. Home before Snatch Game and look that came true!

“But no, there were many, many nights here at home where I would get my partner to sit down and then would do a faux Snatch Game and just practice and practice and practice and practice.”

“He’d just be throwing random things at me and I’d be doing my best to, you know, rebuttal, try to make it as funny as possible. So there was a lot of prep that went into that.”

At the end of the day, you’ve made history by representing Wellington and by being part of this refreshing new season. What’s next for Olivia Dreams?

“I will be kicking it around in Wellington for a little bit longer, doing shows here show for new performers, mainly a few other gigs here and there, but the big plan for me after being on Drag Race is international baby, going international.!

“I’m gonna hit up Australia a little bit more often. See my season four sisters, Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, Gold Coast. Maybe even go over to SA and Perth. But I’ve also got friends over in the UK and the US and I really want to go over there and just try it, see how the scenes different over there in person.”

You can watch the full interview with Olivia Dreams from Drag Race Down Under season four on Youtube below.