‘RuPaul’s Drag Race’: The Most Instantly Iconic Moments of 2021

Canada’s Drag Race // s02e02 // 10-21-21

Even after all these years, it’s still exciting to see new queens come alive on the main stage and show us their P.O.V. That’s precisely what Pythia did in the second week of Canada Season 2 when she took a challenge built around a circus theme and totally clowned the competition with this freak show eleganza. We’ve seen fake heads on the runway before, but Pythia’s conjoined twin realness makes everything else seem tame (sorry to Ornacia). The look is a sickening optical illusion as your brain takes a few seconds to figure out which of the two heads is real. This is the moment Pythia became the season’s freaky yet fashionable frontrunner.

Stream Canada's Drag Race "Under the Big Top" on WOW Presents Plus

Drag Race Down Under // s01e02 // 05-08-21

Plenty of queens went out in a blaze of glory in 2021, but few queens felt as fiery of a rage as Art Simone upon her shocking elimination. She was immediately pegged as final four material, which is why viewers around the world were gagged when Simone bombed Snatch Game so bad. And when the eliminated queen was sent back to the Werk Room to leave her lipstick message, she was rightly enraged. No amount of consoling, not even from an offscreen producer, could comfort her. In fact, it just stoked the fire! This moment was so iconic because it was so real—one of the realest moments in the franchise’s history… even if Art was brought back inexplicably an episode later.

Stream RuPaul's Drag Race Down Under "Snatch Game" on WOW Presents Plus

Drag Race Holland // s02e03 // 08-20-21

After watching what feels like thousands of episodes of Drag Race over the past decade, it’s easy to feel like you’ve seen it all. And then, without warning, a queen in full Gremlins drag starts lip syncing one of the most iconic power ballads of the ’90s. These are the moments Drag Race fans wait for and live for. Love Masisi interpreted the runway category Monster’s Ball into a sickening wedding gown fit for the gremlin queen of The New Batch. But this monstrous beauty wasn’t enough to make up for her repetitive performance as Grace Jones in Snatch Game, and thus we were given one of the weirdest and weirdly beautiful lip syncs in Drag Race herstory. How Love Masisi lost this lip sync is beyond me. The way she’s able to emote while wearing full gremlin mask is stunning and should have kept her in the competition.

Stream Drag Race Holland "Icons Only (Snatch Game)" on WOW Presents Plus

RuPaul’s Drag Race: Untucked! // s13e05 // 01-29-21

As Drag Race has found a larger audience, queens have become more aware of how they are perceived. The scrappiness and cattiness of the early seasons has dulled a bit now that competitors have an idea of the potential social media hellscape that awaits them after they film. That’s why the verbal fireworks between the Kandy Muse and Tamisha Iman felt like the return of old school Drag Race. Just watch the clip above to see the altercation that led to an entire year of major moments, from the launch of The Tamisha Iman Network to Untucked!’s first-ever Emmy win.

Drag Race España // s01e03 // 06-13-21

We saw five different ways to quit a Drag Race competition this year. There’s the Ginny Lemon, which is when a queen sashays away at the top of the lip sync. There’s the Dovima Nurmi, which is when a queen just stands still and doesn’t even try to perform the lip sync. There’s the A’keria Davenport, which is when a queen refuses an offer to compete to return to the competition. There’s the Kimora Amour, which is when a queen creepily stalks her competitor around the stage during the lip sync.

Then there’s the Inti, which is when a queen decides to leave before it’s even announced she’s up for elimination. Feeling that the judges just would never understand her drag, especially after they panned a look that was historically significant to Inti’s culture, Inti decided to take her fate into her own hands. Instead of making herself literally dance for judges who she knew would not keep her around, Inti left. In a year of Drag Race that’s felt a bit too micromanaged at times, this was a surprising moment of reality and honesty and strength.

Stream Drag Race España "Mocatriz" on WOW Presents Plus

RuPaul’s Drag Race // s13e04 // 01-22-21

Sometimes all it takes is a killer lip sync for a queen to forever be cemented as iconic. Denali had already stunted in Season 13; remember when she did a flip in ice skates on the main stage in the premiere episode? But after finding herself in the bottom for the season’s very first elimination lip sync, Denali vowed to turn it out. Denali delivered. Denali more than delivered. Everything about Denali’s “100% Pure Love” lip sync is perfection, from her physical interpretation of the lyrics to the conviction on her face to her expertly timed deployment of gaggy moves. The best moment of all, though, has to be when—while lip syncing for her life—Denali turns to the queens behind her and warns them all to not come for her during a lip sync moment, or else they’ll get cut.

RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars // s06e10 // 08-19-21

This is what All Stars is really all about: redemption. Even though Silky Nutmeg Ganache made it to the finale of Season 11, she did not emerge as the kind of fan favorite that producers surely thought she’d be. Silky had a rough time after Season 11 and her surprisingly short stay on All Stars 6 didn’t do much to change minds. And then came the Game Within a Game, wherein each eliminated queen would face off against each other in a tournament to see who would re-enter the competition. And, in one of the most mind-blowing twists in all of Drag Race herstory, Silky slayed. She won six lip syncs in a row, pulling out every last stunt and prop and trick in her arsenal. And just to be clear: whether or not Silky relied on reveals is irrelevant. What is relevant is what Silky prepared and performed on that stage. And so what if she left props on the stage? She also left her heart on the stage, and that’s what matters.

Stream RuPaul's Drag Race All Stars "Rudemption Lip-Sync Smackdown" on Paramount+

RuPaul’s Drag Race UK // s02e05 // 02-11-21

How the hell was any song going to top the phenomenon that was UK Season 1’s “Break Up (Bye Bye)”? The answer: do something dramatically different, camp, and straight-up dumb and bing, bang, bong—Drag Race UK launched another hit. By leaning into the EuroVision aesthetic, the Season 2 cast served hamminess. The United Kingdolls managed to spice up that ham with a whole lot of attitude, from the tongue-in-cheek camp of Lawrence Chaney’s verse to the badass snarl of Bimini Bon-Boulash’s. And now “UK Hun?” is stuck in your head, innit?

Stream RuPaul's Drag Race UK "The RuRuvision Song Contest" on WOW Presents Plus

RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars // s06e12 // 09-02-21

Thankfully every new year of Drag Race is more progressive than the last, and 2021 continued to broaden the franchise’s reach by expanding its spectrum. We saw our first trans man compete (Gottmik) and our first AFAB queen compete (Victoria Scone). The non-binary community got loads of new heroes, from Ginny Lemon and Bimini Bon-Boulash to Etcetera Etcetera and Pythia and so many more, with nearly every season of the franchise spotlighting the visibility of nonconforming queens. And on top of all that, the the Drag Race kingdom of America greeted its first ever trans queen when Kylie Sonique Love snatched the All Stars crown.

Kylie’s journey from being the first Ru girl to come out on the show as trans way back in 2010 to becoming the main franchise’s first out, trans winner was the storyline of the year. It was inspirational, sincere, unexpected, and well-deserved. And the moment Kylie Sonique Love really won it all? When she turned a potentially devastating trip during her finale lip sync to Lady Gaga’s “Stupid Love” into an acrobatic feat of sultriness. That is a recovery fit for a queen!

Stream RuPaul's Drag Race All Stars "This is Our Country" on Paramount+

RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars // s06e03 // 07-01-21

Oh, y’all wanted trans excellence, eh? C’mon, Laganja Estranja, let’s get chart-topping! There truly was no other moment that could top this list, no other moment in all 89 new episodes of Drag Race aired this year that comes close. Laganja Estranja and Trinity K. Bonet’s showdown to Dua Lipa’s high-octane “Physical” was the moment of the year. It’s just a serve on so many levels. There’s the objective truth of the matter, which is presented right there in moving pictures: this is one of the best performances of the year. I mean, Laganja’s death-defying entrance drop alone—!

But then there’s the other level, the longterm storytelling payoff that makes this moment of Drag Race so satisfying. Seven years prior, Laganja Estranja endured one of the most painful elimination episodes in the series. She was sent home after bombing the stand-up challenge and having all of the judges as well as all of her cast mates accuse her both onstage and in Untucked! of being fake (“I feel very attacked!”). And insult to injury, she had to sashay away in a ridiculous pink wig monstrosity. That’s why this moment felt so powerful—so rewarding! To see Laganja return to the stage and cut loose in a way that she wasn’t able to back in Season 6 of Drag Race? It was a thing of beauty and a moment of euphoric catharsis for longtime fans of the show—one we didn’t even know we needed, but one that we keep rewatching on YouTube all the time.

Stream RuPaul's Drag Race All Stars "Side Hustles" on Paramount+