I Have No Issues Standing Up For Myself, Says Drag Race Down Under Star Beverly Kills
Image: Beverly Kills. Image: Supplied
After last week’s girl group challenge, it was time for the queens of RuPaul’s Drag Race Down Under to show off their marketing skills. This week’s branding challenge required the five remaining queens to make infomercials for their hometowns.
Spoiler Alert: Spoilers for Episode 6 ahead.
Despite the fact that we are one episode away from the finale, it is pretty much anyone’s game at this point. The queens did their best to show off their personal brands and market their hometowns, before taking to the runway where the theme was ‘swimsuits’.
Brisbane-based Beverly Kills, who hasn’t had a single win this season, landed in the bottom for the third time.
“Drag Race is very much like baseball, three strikes and you are out. It is so hard to get past that third base,” Beverly tells Star Observer after her elimination. Beverly went up against Kween Kong, in what was dubbed on social media as the best lip sync in the Drag Race Down Under franchise yet.
“Out of anyone to kick me out, I am so glad it was Kween Kong,” says Beverly, adding, “Honestly, it was a privilege.”
Belts, Buckles and Chains
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Beverly was one of the youngest queens to be part of Drag Race Down Under and the first queen from Brisbane.
“I knew that I had to think of a way that I could represent Brisbane in the best way possible,” says Beverly, who paid tribute to her city in the ‘Belts, Buckles and Chains’ runway in episode five. Her runway showstopper was made with recycled fabrics, denim jeans and jackets donated by patrons at her local gay club.
“Brisbane is the third biggest city in Australia, but for some reason we’ve just had one queen in Drag Race. I’m really hoping that if and when the next season happens, we have someone else. I’ll sit them down and guide them – everything about how to do it, and what you need to do to win.”
Beverly started her drag journey when she turned 18. Three years later she got the call to be part of RuPaul’s Drag Race Down Under season two, when she was working as a customer services executive in Brisbane. By the end of the day, she had put in her papers and started packing her bags, not wanting to miss the opportunity of meeting Mama Ru in person.
‘You Cannot Pay For a Meet & Greet With RuPaul’
“You cannot pay for a meet and greet to see Ru,” says Beverly. “Ru is almost unattainable and I think that’s part of the reason why Ru is so fascinating and so amazing. When one of the world’s biggest drag queens walked into the workroom on the very first day, it was so past belief that I didn’t even know how to react. It was only by the third episode, which, ironically, is when I lip synced, that it registered. I was like, ‘oh shit, I’m on Drag Race. I need to start picking up the pace’.”
Beverly’s time on Drag Race Down Under, saw her getting into frequent bust ups with the other queens. We asked her whether the episodes were edited to highlight the conflict. Beverly is forthright about what happened.
“Obviously it happened. It’s not CGI muscle movement of the lips,” says Beverly. “Gosh, it’s hard to answer this succinctly but I think I have no issues standing up for myself.”
The Brisbane queen attributes the way things turned out to her age and lack of experience in handling conflicts.
On Minnie Cooper, Kween Kong And Hannah Conda
“When a person with not much experience does stand up for themselves, they might not have the skills to get their point across eloquently,” explains Beverly. “I was dealing with all of these emotions of feeling excluded or feeling picked on. And because of that, I obviously felt how I wanted to feel. But, essentially I didn’t have the experience in drag of conflict resolution.”
“In such a high pressure environment, you have no choice but to stand up for yourself. In that moment with Mini Cooper, she said, ‘own your shit’ and i was like ‘alright, you own your shit’. Same with Kween Kong. She was laughing at my group and I called her out on it.”
“Hannah was a different story. I don’t think Hannah entirely understood how I was feeling. At that point, she had three wins and no lip syncs. I had three lip syncs and no wins and obviously not feeling great. I just felt like this was not the time and place and I was so upset and frustrated that she didn’t understand what was happening,” says Beverly.
Since the shoot wrapped up, Beverly reveals she shares a very different equation with her fellow season 2 queens, including with Minnie Cooper.
“It’s funny how like the second the show finishes, I can call any of them on my phone. And they’ll pick up and we can talk. Today, Minnie is probably one of my closest friends outside of the show and we talk almost every day. Even this morning, she messaged me. She’s like, ‘good luck. You’ll be fine. Just be nice to the interviewers and they’ll be nice to you’.”
‘We Are Like Sisters’
Beverly has a message for Drag Race fans on social media, where feuds between followers can get pretty heated up. “I want fans to know that, we are like sisters. We are allowed to fight because everyone has an argument with their siblings and then make up.”
Beverly is looking forward to meet the other queens for the upcoming Drag Race Down Under tour and other scheduled events, including one with her lip sync nemesis Kween Kong. She is also open to future Drag Race outings, but will do things a bit differently the next time.
“The one thing I would definitely do is just to have more fun. I really feel like the pressure of being the youngest, being the first from my city and of not letting people down or disappointing people, really got to me” says Beverly.
“I wish I could just go back to that very first day, look at myself in the eye and be like you are going to do well if you have fun. But ultimately, at the end of the day, I had an amazing time. I made it to the top five. Considering, I have spent half of my drag career in Covid lockdowns, I think it’s an awesome achievement and I’m really, really proud of myself,” Beverly signs off.
