I really hope all the other Drag Race statisticians haven't logged off for the holidays, because Canada's Drag Race just gave us a late-in-the-year contender for the best episode of the year with "The Slayoffs: Teams Editions." Y'all thought the queens were competitive and stunty in the past two weeks? It turns out that the stakes can go even higher — and yes, they are gonna jump from there.
Week 3 of Canada's Drag Race split the remaining 10 queens up into two teams and pit them against each other in a Slayoff lip sync tournament. And, as is too often the case in these lip sync smackdowns, a bona fide lip sync superstar ultimately sashayed away. The odds weren't oddsing in Tiffany Ann Co.'s favor, but no need to fret. Tiffany gave us plenty of life in her three-episode stint — and now she's got tea to spill.
Keep on reading to find out what Tiffany Ann Co. thinks of her hometown bestie Xana gently nudging her into the general direction of a parked bus, and which one of her "Go Off Queen" lyrics has become a fan favorite.
Brett White: Congratulations on being part of what might be the best season of Canada's Drag Race.
Tiffany Ann Co.: Thank you. I also think we went in, Episode 1, guns blazing. I think this cast is so stacked. It's going to be quite the season.
Have any of the Canada girls from the first four seasons said anything about Season 5 to you?
We've never really talked about it, me and the other girls. The previous season girls have been sending their love and everything. I chit chat with Melinda [Verga] here and there and she's like, "You'll never touch our season!" And I was like, "Just wait, girl." Like, that girl is so delulu. I was like, "We'll touch it. Don't worry. You set the bar and we know what we need to do."
You started off so strong with your verse in Episode 1. Were you expecting to get to do a verse so soon?
I wasn't expecting it, but I also came prepared. I was expecting to write a verse for the finale, because there's always that or the girl group [challenge]. That is something that I've always wanted to do, so them telling us in Episode 1 you're doing — I was like, "Okay." So I came prepared. I had a whole book of lyrics that I was ready to go with.
Tara Nova made it seem like y'all did that before even going into the Werk Room.
Yeah, we recorded that before we had even met the other girls. It was during sequester. And we got the challenge, we wrote the song, and then I think we recorded it the next day or the day after. So we hadn't even, like, done any drag at that point yet.
Your season really started before the season even started. They're like, "Oh, you just got to the hotel? Challenge number one —"
Yeah, very much. So it was like, I got to the hotel, and like, "You have meetings tomorrow this time, this time, this time." And then they're like, "Here's the first challenge." And you're like, "Oh, so we're not going to be hanging out. Okay, got it. It's go time."
You slayed your verse and then the judges weren't hot on your runway look. What was your take on their take on your runway?
I think from the critique they didn't hate my look. They just didn't like that it was another body suit — and I understand that critique. That's something that I was trying to watch for in my package. I was like, "We can't have too many body suits!" And then I was talking to my designers, I was like, "We need to do more gowns, different silhouettes." But somehow I had three body suits in episode one. Like, give me that critique in Episode 4. We just got here.
Gigi Goode ended up wearing like, three helmets in the Season 12 premiere, just because all those looks fell in that order.
It just happens! We also don't know the order of the runways each week. So it might be the odd chance where I have three back-to-back body suits, right? But this one, I knew what I was wearing for Episode 1 and I oversaw it and all of a sudden there were three body suits there.
For Episode 2, Tara was hoping it was gonna be a design challenge, but it was an acting challenge. What did you think Episode 2 was gonna be?
I honestly was prepared for anything. In my head I was like, it could be a design challenge because they usually do those quite early. I feel like I was expecting Episode 1 to be a full ball — and in a way, our Episode 1 was a ball. I thought Episode 2 could have been a design challenge, but I was really like, it could have just been anything.
And how could you have guessed that you would be writing, directing, and starring in a PSA for aliens?
I'm like —I don't even like... I — I feel like with our topic being sexuality, that was the hardest one. Family, manners, and then sexuality. Because sexuality is a construct, right? It's a spectrum.
How was it working with your team?
We did have a script. We worked really well together. The only thing is, we didn't write the script on the sheets that Brooke [Lynn Hytes] had, because we have them in our books. I basically wrote Virgo's jokes and everything, to my detriment. I didn't take time to work on my stuff because I was helping Virgo with hers. That's why you see it Untucked, when I was like, "I put people ahead of myself" and like, that's who I am as a leader. In order for me to shine, I need to make sure that everyone else is able to shine. And in doing that, it actually made my light a lot smaller.
You were kind of a confessional queen for the first three episodes. Have the fans gravitated towards any sayings or moments?
I think the one that really, really took off was my verse, that one line, like, "Who the fuck —" That is the line that everyone has really gravitated to. And then A bunch of the queens that are Porkchops from my franchise, they really latched on to, "They don't have VIP in the Porkchop lounge, so I can't go there."
How did you prepare for a lip sync against Tara to a Peaches song? Did you know Tara's lip sync style going into the battle?
Oh yeah. I've actually followed Tara for a few years, and that also goes back to when I said that her entrance look wasn't the one, because I knew what she was capable of and this wasn't it. So I knew what her lip sync style was going to be, to be a little bit more like camp and have fun with the lip sync. So there was one point I remember when I was on the floor shaking, throwing my ass back, and then I looked up and she's jumping around and the judges were laughing. There was for a split second where I was like, "Oh, maybe I'm doing it wrong."
That leads us to the Slayoffs episode, which is one of the best Drag Race episodes of the year. What was it like just watching that from the back of the stage?
For me, a lot of the girls, I know a lot of them through social media already, but I didn't ever see them perform live, so seeing them from the back didn't make sense. Like with Minhi [Wang], when she was performing against Makayla Couture, like we already knew that Makayla was gonna mop the floor with her. But now that I know Minhi and what her performance style is and I've seen the episode, I was like, "Okay, this makes sense. I get it." When you get to know each of us and you understand our performance style, everything starts to make sense.
Did you expect Xana to call you out like that, telling her team that Tate McRae's "Exes" was your song?
I knew Xana knew I would choose that song. I just didn't think she would throw me to the other team. Like, we're sisters! We hang out all the time back home! So I'm like, why would you do me like that? And like, if anything, I thought she would have taken it. I thought she would have done it. Let's go toe-to-toe to it. But maybe she didn't take it because she knew I was gonna beat her anyways.
When you saw it was The Virgo Queen doing it — you know how you do "Exes" at home, but then when you see you're doing it against Virgo Queen on Canada's Drag Race, did that change your approach?
Not so much, because I got the privilege of seeing her lip sync on Episode 1. So I really knew what she was capable of, and that was something that I was paying attention to. As much as I was cheering the girls on for that lip sync, I was also keeping track, because I know who Makayla is and I know what she's capable of. I didn't see Virgo perform before, so seeing her lip sync on Episode 1, I was like, "Okay, clock her," right? I know what she can do, but I have full trust and confidence in my abilities as a performer that I wasn't even worried going into it.
Then the elimination — what was it like watching Shea Couleé cry during your elimination?
I thought that was, like, pretty cool, because I didn't expect her to. I didn't expect the judges to cry and — I don't know. I think because she's a girl that went through the same process as us, she's also a Lip Sync Assassin, so she gets that. She knows what it's like to have your dream, to live your dream, and then she got to have it taken away from her as well. So she gets it. For me, to see her cry, it was very reassuring in a way, because I was like, "No, you did that. You've made an impact here."
Follow Tiffany Ann Co. on Instagram at @tiffanyannco.duh. New episodes of Canada's Drag Race Season 5 premiere on Thursdays on WOW Presents Plus.
