For the first time in U.S. “RuPaul’s Drag Race” franchise history, RuPaul has crowned a transgender winner on the hit American TV show. In the grand finale of the sixth season of “RuPaul’s Drag Race: All Stars,” RuPaul crowned fan-favorite drag performer Kylie Sonique Love as the winner.
For the last twelve years, RuPaul has given the crown and title of “America’s Next Drag Superstar” to multiple winners of the fan-favorite, award-winning television series. As a result, most queens have become legendary superstars, with favorites like Bob the Drag Queen, Symone, Trixie Mattel and others making epic names for themselves outside of the show’s circuit.
Because so many contestants have won and competed, RuPaul has released a new variant of the series: “RuPaul’s Drag Race: All Stars.” In it, past contestants and fan-favorite queens have returned to take another stab at the crown and win a spot in the “Drag Race Hall of Fame.”
Recently, in the grand finale of the sixth season of “RuPaul’s Drag Race: All Stars,” the final four were forced to compete against each other in a lip sync smackdown. While fan favorites Eureka, Ra’Jah O’Hara and Ginger Minj held their own in the contest, RuPaul announced that the winner would be none other than the fourth contestant, Love.
Love, formerly known as Sonique, was a past contestant on the second season of the franchise’s main series, “RuPaul’s Drag Race,” back in February 2010. She placed ninth in the competition but would later return for the “RuPaul’s Drag Race Holi-Slay Spectacular” in 2018.
Her appearance in that holiday television special marked her return to the spotlight, with fans hoping that Love would show up in a future season of “All Stars.” A couple of years later, the drag queen’s fans’ wish was granted when it was announced that Love would be one of the 13 contestants of “RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars 6.”
Along with twelve other queens, Love competed for the chance to win $100,000, a crown, a one-year supply of Anastasia Beverly Hills Cosmetics and a spot in the “Drag Race Hall of Fame” alongside winners like Shea Couleé, Chad Michaels, Monét X Change and other winners.
Love’s iconic win makes her the first drag queen to win an American season of Drag Race.
While another transgender woman, Angele Anang, won the second season of “Drag Race Thailand,” Love is the first transgender winner of an American “Drag Race” contest.
Although there have been other contestants to compete who were transgender at the time of release, like ninth season runner-up Peppermint and thirteenth season icon Gottmik, and contestants who transitioned after the show, like Gigi Goode and Laganja Estranja, Love is the first-ever transgender winner.
Love placed high in the competition, with her doing well in the Acting Challenge, the Blue Ball challenge and her epic lip sync battle against past contestant Manila Luzon to “Dirrty” by Christina Aguilera.
No one would think that “RuPaul’s Drag Race” would produce a transgender winner, especially after RuPaul made comments about gender and transgender women back in 2018 in a report by NBC stating that he would not accept a transgender queen into the competition.
RuPaul has since apologized to the trans community for her comments, but it worried fans that they would never see a trans winner. So when Love was crowned, #TeamKylie fans were happy as could be for their winner.
Will there be more queens to follow in Love’s footsteps? Maybe so, but for right now, we have a new winner of “RuPaul’s Drag Race: All Stars,” and her name is Kylie Sonique Love.
