Angeria Paris VanMicheals on What Shocked Her About the Non-Elim Season and Her Snatch Match with Marla Gibbs

Angeria Paris VanMicheals continues to introduce the world to Sparta, GA as she returns to the studio in RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars Season 9.

VanMicheals spoke with Shadow and Act about how she went from her original Season 14 run to All-Star status.

“This has been the wildest, most upsetting thing ever,” she said. “I couldn’t have imagined coming home and having not only the full support of my family, but the full support of my entire small town. I always grew up in Sparta among the most popular kids in high school, everyone knew my family, everyone knew me, I was like a little social butterfly. So, during season 14 of the show, everyone was so supportive…so to come home and receive so much love, especially being one of maybe two people that this happens to where from I’m coming, it’s been incredible.

“Going out into the world and being recognized in airports and everywhere I am by people I don’t even know is crazy,” she continued. “It’s really crazy, but it’s also incredible.”

This time, the queens are playing for charity, and VanMicheals’ charity is the National Black Justice Coalition.

“It’s a civil rights organization that basically fights for the rights of black and LGBTQ+ people, and that means a lot to me because… I completely feel like it represents everything that I am , who is black (and) very proud to be queer,” she said. “I feel like there are a lot of organizations geared toward black civil rights, (but) I haven’t seen a lot of organizations geared toward black gay civil rights. So I think it’s really cool and awesome. There is no other charity I would want to be a part of.

Since this season is all about charity and no eliminations, you’d think the season would be full of intricacies and charm – which it is, to an extent, since most of the queens know each other well and are friends apart. from the Serie. However, the nefarious minds at World of Wonder have figured out how to make the season as dramatic as any regular season. Drag racing season by introducing the Ruby Snippers. Each week, one of the two winning queens earns the right to take the pair of ruby ​​scissors and knock one of their fellow queens out of the running to win a beautiful benefactor badge the following week.

VanMicheals said this season’s twist was “crazy at first.”

“You know, we all watched All stars 7 with the platinum piston and I like that there’s some sort of stake in it, something other than making money for charity. There’s something about it that makes you say, ‘Oh my God,'” she said. “You know, you always want to do good because you definitely don’t want to be interrupted.”

“At first I didn’t think it was going to be this scary. At first I was like, ‘It’s okay, we’re not going home,'” she continued. “But when I tell you that you get into the competition and it just starts to settle in and you really take it seriously, you really start to feel like you’re coming home because the goal is to win and you won’t win if you’re cut… you might as well feel like you’re going home or something because if you’re cut enough you probably won’t win. So it’s still very scary.

The third episode had the queens playing The Snatch Game of Love. VanMicheals wowed RuPaul and viewers with his southern fried version of Marla Gibbs. Van Michaels said her version of Gibbs was supposed to look like the actress mixed with a southern aunt.

“Snatch Game[means]bringing in a kind of drag parody in my opinion, so I’m like, ‘I’m going to take what we know about his character,'” she said. “You know, RuPaul always says do it whoever you can and whatever it means to you. So my way of making her depressed was literally channeling one of my aunts from back home and putting that into Marla Gibbs.

VanMicheals also said she chose Gibbs because she wanted to follow some advice RuPaul gave her during season 14.

“On my season, I did Tammie Brown, and then RuPaul told me I should do Marla Gibbs, and she literally said it twice,” she said. “I was like, ‘Oh my God, she really likes me doing Marla Gibbs.’ So I told myself deep down that if I ever did All the stars, I would go back and do Marla Gibbs. And I’m also a really big fan of shows like 227 And The Jeffersons And Good time, all that. I grew up watching these shows with my parents. So I already knew the character, Florence the maid and all that.

“I had so much more fun this time than the first time, because you know, they said our Snatch Game was the worst Snatch Game ever,” she said, referring to the fact that her season was the first to introduce the Lip. Sync LaLaPaRuza Smackdown as punishment for the queens’ performance at the Snatch Game. “It felt great at that time to not only play a character that I knew she was a fan of, but also something that I could play with and have fun with as well.”

After All the starsVanMicheals said fans will be able to see her again on tour.

“I’m going to do the All the stars 9 tour (and) I’m also going to be doing the Christmas tour, which is later this year, so lots and lots of touring and meeting opportunities,” she said. “Hopefully there will be more television and music and, you know, I’ll dive more fully into my career than ever before.”

RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars 9 is streaming on Paramount+.