RuPaul's Drag Race queen Amethyst gives elimination interview

The first RuPaul's Drag Race season 15 gem of a lip-sync assassin met her match in a dazzling duel on the Main Stage.

Amethyst — Connecticut queen, former lover of Robin Fierce, and unsung Snatch Game hero thanks to her hilarious Tan Mom impression — became the fourth queen to sashay away from the MTV competition series, after her performance in a design challenge found her struggling to put together a cohesive, leopard-lined look inspired by Drag Race judge Michelle Visage. But the presentation we saw wasn't her initial plan; Amethyst says a "spiraling downfall" triggered when she realized that another queen unintentionally came up with the same design as hers, prompting her to start over from scratch at the last minute.

Below, Amethyst gives a candid elimination interview discussing the high-pressure moment, the Snatch Game character she nearly chose, the story behind her Lady Gaga runway look, a revelation on who was the horniest queen in the Werk Room, and her thoughts on the toxic backlash plaguing her fellow season 15 contestants on social media. Read on for the full Q&A, and tune in to the next new episode of RuPaul's Drag Race season 15 Friday at 8 p.m. on MTV.

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: How are you feeling, reliving this elimination versus how you felt when you first left?

AMETHYST: I feel like I'm finally at a good place where I'm able to watch it and get through it. It's not so bad, because my drag has grown so quickly, and, looking back, no matter where I would've been today with my drag, it would've been embarrassing and cringey no matter what.

Let's start on a bright note: Snatch Game. You were one of the best of the challenge as Tan Mom. Who were some of your backups, and how did you land on Tan Mom?

I brought Judy Garland with me. Had I done Judy, can we just imagine the world we would've been living in, where Amethyst attempted to come for the Judy Garland Snatch Game after Jinkx Monsoon nailed it perfectly in All Stars? Luckily, I didn't. While we were filming, I had no idea she did that…. in my mind, I was just thinking, girl, you can't do Judy in front of RuPaul. That's too much. Your eyes are bigger than your brain at this point. I didn't want to fail Judy in front of RuPaul. Another backup was Sarah Paulson, which would've been one-note, a lot of jump-scares and stuff like that. I also brought Julia Fox, but I had no idea what I was going to do with that. I just brought the looks.

Can I put you on the spot and have you do Judy right now?

As Judy, I just talked like [her] and I did a lot of the pills talking. I had a joke, something about my pills and labeling them as M&Ms, and I put M's on them, "because they're for me." I don't know! In my mind, Tan Mom was the weirdest choice, but it made the most sense to me.

Have you heard from her?

I did. She tweeted about the show in general, just how great Drag Race is. She said that I did her justice or something. The tweets are a little hard to understand because she's Tan Mom, so after deciphering the tweets for about two hours, I sat there, like, did she like it? I really can't tell with this verbiage she's using. I was like, no, she liked it.

We saw Sugar getting in your space, and you told her to calm down. Was that part of the act or were you really telling her to back off? Was it Romper Room energy?

I think it came out. I don't think it was in Tan Mom's character at first, but after I said it, I was like, oh, we're angry, and I went with the angry attitude.

It worked with the character. Something else that worked and had people talking: Your Lady Gaga runway. Was that always the plan, or was it a backup?

That was the first runway prompt I conceptualized firmly. For me, the message is crystal clear when Gaga did it, the metaphor of the paparazzi killing her and not letting the fame take her life. That's so beautiful. The horror part, the nightmare part, is the blood, the gore, the theatrics. It's creating waves online, I've seen a lot of positive and I've also seen some negative, but I'd like to clear the air and say, yes, it was recreation. Could I have done something original? Yes, but I'm a firm believer that if something's not broken, don't fix it.

'RuPaul's Drag Race' star Amethyst reveals 'Snatch Game' tea in her elimination interview. MTV/World of Wonder

So much of drag is repurposing and tributing our divas.

Right. The double-meaning behind it was, yes, it's about the fame, but I wanted to send a message to the toxicity in the fandom and some recent hate we've gotten online. Hopefully it resonates with some people. That message is relevant — especially to the season 15 cast right now.

It's important to talk about the Marcia and Mistress thing. It led to craziness online, with Mistress being bullied and her Instagram getting reported and deactivated. Have you been in contact with her and the rest of the group about it, and what's the consensus on whole how to combat it?

We're over it. We have a group chat and talk daily, and do daily check-ins with everybody. I'm thankful for the sisterhood we've created. I don't know if it's so awful all of a sudden, or if we're just now realizing how toxic the fans can be, because we're in it now. When has it ever been this gross and this bad? It could be that we're mainstream now, on MTV, and having a wider audience could have a lot to do with it. It doesn't sit well with any of us, and a lot of people need to remind themselves, before they take to their keyboards, we filmed this show a good amount of time ago, and any issues you're seeing that might come up on the show, it's 99.9 percent resolved at this point. It's been talked about, it's history. For people to start picking it all back up and reminding us, that's no fun.

Let's move to this episode, speaking of things that are dead and gone and forgotten about, we have to talk about Salina's read about you and Robin in the library challenge. What were your reactions in the room?

I had a sense of shock on my face, but I also had a sigh of relief because I was like, where are all the nose jokes? I was ready for them. Pretty much all of the reads were about me and Robin. Like, alright, that's one route you can take.

What were some of the other jokes?

I remember it being a lot of like, "You were in the bottom and you're also a bottom." I was like, come on, originality!

Jax responded to Aura's read by saying, "You're the one trying to f--- me!" What's the tea there? Was there a secret crush in the Werk Room?

Maybe. Here's something you need to know, or you'll figure it out. Aura is very horny. We all felt it at one point or another. Like, what is this? Very that.

Aura's hitting on everyone in the cast?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Listen, it's a cute cast! We're pretty cute, so…

This week, we love to see a design challenge, it's fun to see the queens working. How different was the look that we saw on the runway from your original design?

It was so far from what I wanted to do — couldn't have been further. My original design was very similar to another girl's, and I felt the need to start from scratch, basically. We had the same concept and same kind of idea. As we know, I don't sew, and I was going to do the hot glue gun route, and what I'd do at home to make my own garments is literally hot-glue fabrics or in this case, unconventional materials, to pre-existing body pieces like bras or bottoms. When I saw that another queen would be doing that exactly, with pretty much the exact same design that I'd already drawn up, I don't think it was ill-intentioned, I don't think she saw my design, I just think we have very similar aesthetics…. I think it was another instance of me being out of my depth, trying to figure out a new concept that was over-the-top. I ended up scrapping what I had, and I went with what we saw on the show, which wasn't much.

You pulled something together under pressure.

Yep, in less than a day. That's my story, and I'm sticking to it.

The other person decided to keep going with their vision? Who was it?

Correct. I'm not going to say the name, but they were in my group.

It wasn't a contentious thing?

Absolutely not. It was an instance of me looking over, glanced at her sketchbook, saw it, and I covered my design with my hand, slowly, and I flipped the page and started over. That was my spiraling downfall.

It led to this fun lip-sync between you and Salina. Heading into the lip-sync, what was your headspace?

There was a saying looped in my head over and over, which was Mistress saying, "Three strikes and you're out, girl," so that was my mindset. I'm going to be honest; I didn't have good intentions going into it. I wasn't expecting a positive outcome. I went into it wanting to have fun, because it might've been my last time on that stage, and it was, and I'm glad that I did what I did.

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