‘Drag Race’ Star Manila Luzon Says She Wasn’t Allowed To Wear This Period Dress On The Runway
Apparently RuPaul herself said it was in "bad taste".
Current RuPaul’s Drag Race: All Stars contestant Manila Luzon says she was asked to change her runway outfit in the latest aired episode, after RuPaul called her original look — in which she dresses as a bloody sanitary pad — was in “bad taste”.
This week’s runway challenge was ‘curves & swerves’, aka padding: Luzon’s original dress was a left-centre take designed by The Lady Hyde. On Instagram, Luzon says production told her to wear her back-up outfit, a riff on an 18th century Versailles quilt, instead of the period piece. She expresses frustration at the censoring, saying her point was to de-stigmatise menstruation.
“I was really looking forward to wearing this gown that I think celebrates a perfectly normal human experience!,” she wrote. “Many of my fans are young women who may feel pressured by society to be embarrassed by periods. It’s empowering to teach young women about their bodies, encourage them to celebrate them AND to question people who tell them not to!”
“Instead, i decided to wear the beautiful quilted dress you saw in the episode because it is not my show, it’s Ru’s. But because of Ru, I have my very own platform to speak for myself and show you all my interpretation!”
Over on Twitter, Luzon’s language changed slightly, shifting the blame away from RuPaul by saying that it was “too risqué” for television codes. Which is a valid point: last year marked the first time an ad for a sanitary product used red liquid in an ad, thanks to Bodyform’s global campaign.
Its possible producers were worried the show would be censored, either in the US or internationally. This season, they’ve repeatedly blurred Valentina’s nipples when she’s in drag, suggesting an over-cautious edit.
I knew my ORIGINAL Curves & Swerves Period Gown may have been too risqué for television (maxi pad commercials use blue liquid after all) 💦 But that’s why I brought a sick’ning back-up look that I love just as much! pic.twitter.com/XSaAwKTFje
— Manila Luzon (@manilaluzon) January 7, 2019
Luzon’s reveal of her original dress follows another controversy surrounding this season of All Stars. Last week, eliminated contestant Gia Gunn alleged that the show had edited out a conversation she had with RuPaul which led to a breakdown before her disastrous performance in that episode’s Snatch Game, the main challenge.
As the show’s first publicly out-from-the-open trans queen, Gia Gunn says she asked RuPaul about her previous comments last year regarding trans contestants — namely, that being ‘post-op’ was an ‘unfair advantage’ against other queens, ignoring a long history of drag being led and defined by trans women. While RuPaul apologised, Gunn wanted to clear the air, feeling that her casting on All Stars might be purely a PR move.
“I very well knew that none of that was going to air because the show is not about making her look anything but great,” she told fellow Drag Race alums Willam and Alaska Thunderfuck on their RaceChaser podcast (via Out).
“If we were going to bring somebody on the show to basically, y’know, clean up somebody’s mess, obviously that fell on me, right? Because months before she had made a statement that was completely opposite of what they did. And I knew by being casted that I was going on there to basically show the world that this show does quote unquote support trans and that she does see trans people as drag queens…”
Stare into Luzon’s bloody masterpiece below. As of now, the show or RuPaul have not responded to either Gia Gunn or Manila Luzon’s comments.
RuPaul’s Drag Race: All Stars streams weekly on Stan, and you can refresh with a Nic Holas’ sickening recaps here.