Latest RuPaul's Drag Race eliminee on bougie financial standards: 'Bitch, that's not my life'

Warning! This article contains major spoilers regarding the most recent episode of RuPaul’s Drag Race. Read at your own risk!

She might not have had the most polished outfits, a firm grasp on Maxine Waters’ treasure trove of Snatch Game-ready catchphrases, or even all the words to beloved gay anthem “Cut to the Feeling” by Carly Rae Jepsen etched in her memory, but Monique Heart — the latest casualty of RuPaul’s Drag Race season 10 — wants you to know she “didn’t just stand there” and give up. Instead, the ousted lady fought flipper-and-nail (while dressed as a mermaid) in a lip-sync battle against The Vixen for her well-earned spot among the Drag Race cast. Following her elimination, however, Heart caught up with EW to discuss her time on the show, failing to memorize her lyrics, shading season 9’s Valentina in her glorious Untucked exit, and the realities of her financial struggles that ultimately led to her demise on the runway. Read on for the full interview.

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: Since last night I’ve just been walking around my apartment saying “the bitch didn’t stand there!” It’s such a shady and empowering phrase.
MONIQUE HEART: I knew that I was wrecked because I didn’t know my words! But you have to at least try, you know? That’s all I did the whole season. I was trying; I was fighting!

… and totally shading the hell out of Valentina.
Oh, for sure. To be the second queen — the season right after her — [to not know the lyrics]… that’s not even shade, honey! It’s a fact. You can’t throw shade at something that’s a fact.

Yes, a fact is a fact! But in a way, you were still kind of Valentina because you didn’t know the words.
Very true, but I had to work on my costume. It was either stay up and finish the costume or learn the song!

I heard someone say that’s a betrayal of gays, though, not knowing the lyrics to a Carly Rae Jepsen song of all things!
That’s true for gays that like her, but I don’t listen to Carly Rae Jepsen… I don’t follow her! I guess it’s part of the competition to be ready for every category of the competition, and clearly I wasn’t ready… they caught me on a weak day!

If you would’ve learned the lyrics, I totally think you would’ve stayed.
Oh for sure! That’s the only reason why: I didn’t know the words… it was the longest four minutes of my life.

I’m still trying to wrap my head around what you were trying to do with that, like, half cartwheel that almost knocked Vixen over.
I started to do a cartwheel and I saw that she was coming, so I brought my legs back down so I didn’t kick her. I didn’t want to kick her in the face…

So she can’t say you weren’t looking out for her like she did later on Untucked!
I mean, basically… I probably would have sent her home had I known the lyrics. I personally think it should have been Asia in the bottom… but they didn’t [want that].

I do want to ask you about what put you in the bottom in the first place: your Maxine Waters impersonation played a big part.
I might’ve been bottom three, but what put me in the bottom two was my costume. It’s the one look that I didn’t make. I had a friend make it… I thought it would work out, it didn’t, I had to do all the embellishments on it, and it was a lot.

I know that Snatch Game and the show itself are such high-pressure situations, but I think a lot of fans are frustrated because everyone knows Snatch Game is coming, so it’s a bit frustrating when a queen isn’t prepared.
Yes, but just because you know that Snatch Game is coming does not mean that you comprehend what Snatch Game is until you actually do it. You either get it or you don’t… you know it’s coming, that’s fine, but you have to be in character the whole time. That’s hard when you have to juggle the people around you… that’s something you need to get to know before you do Snatch Game… I didn’t get it until after it was over. I don’t care what fans say… it’s like, are you doing it? No, you’re not, so that’s not my problem.

So it’s way more difficult than just showing up in character?
I get it now. Even during the episode, I was just lost. It wasn’t until I went home and thought about it and I was like, oh [when everybody was acting out] it would have been a good time to say, “Reclaiming my time!” I could have reclaimed Blue Ivy from Beyoncé because she was a horrible mother. It’s those things that you kind of have to get to really play the game… it’s a bitch and it’s a beast.

That speaks to how powerful a competitor you really are, though, that it took the Snatch Game to take you out.
But the Snatch Game didn’t take me out! It was my runway that took me out. I would have been fine on Snatch Game. Beyoncé was way worse than me and Blue Ivy was way worse!

That was something the other girls did talk about a lot, how your outfits you were subpar and you were stitching at the last second and still gluing things on before the runway.
I didn’t have the outfits ready like everyone else did. They had more money, point blank. Period. Miz Cracker said she spent more money on Drag Race than she spent on college? Well, bitch, she went to college. She actually paid for college. That’s not my life. Kameron said she spent more on Drag Race than what she put into buying her house. Who has finances to buy a house? That’s not my life… bitch you had some extra resources that I did not have. These hoes are in cities where they have thousands of drag queens, fashion designers; I didn’t have all of that… I didn’t have access to borrow… I came to the competition not having the money. I just got the fabric and hopped on the plane… I would stay up in my room, and that’s what I’d do. So, even if I did get to the runway gluing sh— on, at the end of the day, Monét X Change, you were still in the bottom two way before they said anything about my motherf—ing clothes.

Michelle particularly critiqued you on the runway throughout your time on the show. And it looks like it finally got to you in your responses this week.
That was all lies and fairy tales. I don’t know how I was combative. I just said, “Boom”… I wasn’t loud.

I don’t think you were disrespectful; it just read to me like it had maybe gotten to you a little bit.
It for sure did. Am I supposed to just sit there and take it?

RuPaul’s Drag Race airs Thursdays at 8 p.m. ET on VH1.