When Mystique Summers walked onto the set of RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars Season 11 last summer, it had been 16 years since she filmed her original season, the longest gap of any returning queen on the show ever.
“Because so much has changed since then, pretty much it’s like starting over,” she tells Gold Derby. “Now, [while filming, you can ask for supplies], and people will go get it for you. [On Season 2], they would just say, ‘Tough.’ ‘Can I go to the bathroom?’ ‘You gotta wait.’ ‘I’m hungry.’ ‘You gotta wait.’ They tried to kick some of us off because we were complaining about [the set] being too hot. They were tough back then. Now they’re nice.”
Mystique Summers, or Mystique Summers Madison as she was known in 2009 when she originally competed, is one of 18 drag queens returning to the (now friendlier) Werk Room for All Stars 11, which will premiere on Friday, May 8. Before the premiere, Gold Derby had the chance to chat with all 18 queens at Lawn Club in New York, where the cast played cornhole and lawn pong in stilettos and full glam.
As they did in All Stars 10, however, these queens will be competing in three separate preliminary brackets, each made up of six queens. Mystique, along with A’keria C. Davenport, Dawn, Lucky Starzzz, Morgan McMichaels, and Morphine Love Dion will duke it out in Bracket 1, with the first two of their three episodes airing as the premiere.
Longtime fans of Drag Race will, of course, remember Mystique’s iconic fight with Morgan McMichaels (who also competed on Season 2 before returning for All Stars 3) during the very first episode of Untucked. Mystique, wearing a dress made of curtains, shouts the oft-quoted line, “Bitch, I am from Chicago,” at Morgan (who is also wearing curtains).
While their placement in the same bracket is an obvious callback to the fight, Morgan is quick to point out that the beef was squashed long ago.
“Mystique and I have had a really long relationship,” Morgan says. “We’ve been together for 16 years. She comes to L.A. all the time to do my birthday parties. Every time I’m in Dallas, I see her ass. We’re friendly. Strong personalities just clash sometimes.”
“She’s in her 40s. I’m in my 40s. We’re grown. We’ve got bills,” echoes Mystique. “We are almost at the age of AARP.”
Mystique also had more important things to consider while filming than an ancient feud with Morgan. In the months before shooting All Stars 11, Mystique moved her mother from Georgia to Texas to care for her during her final months of life.
“My mom passed a month before I left for the show,” she says. “So when I was preparing for All Stars, I was going through that. Whenever you lose a parent, it’s different. The day after, you’re a totally different person.”
Mystique admits that she still hasn’t allowed herself to fully process her mom’s death, as she decided to push through and compete on the season. She also didn’t tell the other queens in her bracket about losing her mother, afraid it would impact the competition.
“During the first episode, they asked why I was in my head. No one knew what was going on, but I couldn’t find the necklace I was wearing. It was the necklace of my mom’s ashes. One of the PAs found it and brought it to me,” she remembers. “When you’re a person of color, if you bring that up, people will say I’m using it as a crutch, or I’m using it just to stay on.”
While she may not have felt comfortable discussing her mother’s passing with the other queens, that didn’t stop her from honoring her mother on the show. “Everything I wore was in dedication to my mom,” she says. “Everything I wore in drag that’s rhinestoned — she did all of that.”
Unlike Mystique, Morgan has returned to Drag Race once before, but the legendary staple of the LA drag scene is trying out a new strategy her third time around. “This time, I’m excited to show everyone the Morgan that has made me the icon I am,” she says. “In my previous seasons, I always tried to take risks and push myself. This time I’m coming in tried and true, doing what I do, no excuses, no questions.”
Part of the tried-and-true Morgan is her biting sense of humor, something she’s not trying to downplay despite the social strategy elements that come into play on All Stars. “I think there are a lot of people in Bracket 1 who have a lot to say in the confessionals, but not to our faces,” she says. “I don’t dim my light for anybody else. I’ll tell you how I feel to your face. I’m never afraid. I’m a tough love gal, brash. I’m Scottish. We don’t suffer fools gladly.”
On All Stars 11, the social strategy element will certainly be important, as only two queens in each sextet will be advancing as opposed to three last season, a change Morgan described as “a face crack.”
If Mystique and Morgan represent an old school duo, they’re balanced by Morphine Love Dion and Dawn, who placed fifth and sixth, respectively, on Season 16, with the former sending the latter home in a humiliating lip sync to “Body” by Megan Thee Stallion.
“We were close on our season,” Morphine says, despite the pairing getting off to a rocky start. “I didn’t like her for one episode. I hated that bitch. She had an evil aura, but later on, we became really good friends. This season just solidified our friendship even more. We’re besties now. That’s my girl. I love her, but I will send her home again.”
Dawn agrees with the sentiment, calling out her plans to strategize with her “kiki sister” to scoop up whatever points can be earned through a social game. “I definitely wanted to work with Morphine. There was no doubt in my mind that she’d be getting any points I had to give away, and I expected the same from her. how evil me and Morphine are when we get in a room together.”
Dawn, known for her ethereal elfin looks, is wearing a head-to-toe turquoise lace look during our interview, one that includes giant ears, a full face covering, and a tail. “God, it was so much easier,” she says of creating her runway looks for All Stars. “The first season, I didn’t have any connections designer-wise. This time, you can DM someone, and they’ll actually respond.”
Morphine, known as a lip-sync assassin, is excited to show new sides of herself. “The challenges really call for different aspects of talent this time around,” she says. “I have many talents, so I’m excited for them all to be showcased.”
Morphine and Dawn aren’t the only new school girls in Bracket 1, however, as the first boot (or “Porkchop”) of Season 17, Lucky Starzzz is also returning. The avant-garde queen, known for handcrafting extravagant, dream-like costumes, was an early fan favorite before being sent home.
“I was very surprised,” she says about getting the call to return so soon. “But it felt like RuPaul was giving me my flowers.”
Even on press day, Lucky is wearing an elaborate costume, one that includes a gigantic jellyfish headpiece that covers most of her face, and necessitates Morgan holding the recorder underneath a series of jeweled streamers to answer questions.”
“I’m excited to show the world my art and my creations,” she says from underneath her costume. “I’m excited to show more of my brain, where all of that creativity comes from, and what my story is. The universe definitely has more for me to show.”
The final queen from Bracket 1, and one situated evenly between the old school and new school blocks, is A’keria C. Davenport, who made it to the finale of Season 11 before a disappointing run on All Stars 6, where she chose not to compete for a chance to re-enter the season.
“Honestly, for me, it’s for redemption,” she says about returning for a third time. “I allowed myself to get my mental health together and fall back in love with drag. This is an evolution of my career.”
While she admits that returning to the Werk Room was “triggering” at first, she felt mentally prepared. “It’s OK to take a break sometimes. It’s OK to not be OK. I was so used to being the strong one for everyone and putting on a strong face, but now I’m badder, and I’m better.”
Coming in between two obvious sides, A’keria says she didn’t know what to expect. “You have the girls who haven’t been here in a while, so they have something to prove,” she says. “But then you have the newer girls, fresh off their season. They really want to show the world what they can do.”
To put her initial assessment of Bracket 1 a bit more bluntly, Dawn says, “I was shitting bricks a little bit. My bracket is really stacked.”
While plenty of strategy is sure to come into play, A’keria, at least, isn’t buying into the old school vs. new school alliances. “I don’t really look at the competition,” she says. “I focus on myself to be my best self, so I can knock out any competition. Whatever you girls brought, I brought better.”
