For four glorious weeks in April and May, Fridays on VH1 belonged to “RuPaul’s Drag Race.” First, viewers could watch the 90-minute episodes of the Emmy-winning reality show’…
, the “Drag Race” production company he runs with his longtime business partner Randy Barbato, is currently developing seven — yep,“We’re excited,” Bailey says. “None of them can be announced yet, but there is more on the way.”
“It is a 1,000% commitment at total transformation and reinventing themselves on a daily basis,” says Barbato. “That’s the exciting vitality and DNA of our show and that’s why I think people are still discovering why it’s endlessly satisfying.” Then this year, one queen’s demons threatened to topple the whole season before it had even really started.
The entire ordeal flew in the face of everything “RuPaul’s Drag Race” stands for and presented an unprecedented dilemma for the show’s producers. Every episode of Season 12, save for the reunion episode and the live season finale, had already been filmed months earlier in 2019, and Sherry was a standout contestant, earning the top prize in two episodes and ultimately earning a spot among the top 4 in the finale.
If the episodes aired unaltered, it could appear as though the show condoned Gugliemelli’s behavior and cast an unintentional pall over the season — and the “Drag Race” brand itself. So instead, the producers elected to reedit the episodes that had already been locked and, in Campbell’s words, “minimize Sherry’s performance.”
“Everything was changing on a daily basis, because we were holding out hope that there might be some version where we might even be able to have a camera person in the space [with the contestant],” Barbato says. When it became clear that wasn’t possible, the producers say they did discuss with VH1 about the possibility delaying the finale until the fall when it might be safe to shoot it live — but that idea was ultimately scrapped.
Even though “RuPaul’s Drag Race” has successfully aired abroad for much of its run, for years, World of Wonder sought to produce a homegrown UK version of the show, only to keep hearing variations on the same refrain: Will anyone actually watch it? World of Wonder also produced two seasons of “Drag Race Thailand,” which isn’t hosted by RuPaul, in 2018 and 2019. But while “there are other Asian territories that are coming on board,” says Bailey, “it’s still a question mark about season three of ‘Thailand.'”ITV Studios Australia had obtained the rights for an Australian version of the show, Bailey says, “It’s very much our intention to bring ‘Drag Race’ to Australia, and we would be very much involved.
McCarthy’s yes to “Celebrity Drag Race,” however, came with a tight schedule, with only “a month or so,” says Campbell, between the greenlight and starting production on the four-episode season.
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