Forget Marvel — the Drag Race franchise is the stuntiest. RuPaul's Drag Race and all of its international editions keep fans plucked via the gags built into the format. The Rusical, Snatch Game, the roast, the design challenge — every season is mapped out, and that map is of Rainbow Road.
The queens of Canada's Drag Race Season 5 felt the g-forces during their spin in RuPaul's centrifuge, particularly during their Snatch Game. For the first time in the entire franchise's herstory, host Brooke Lynn Hytes announced the actual winner of the challenge during the final sendoff, a spot always reserved for a joke.
"When they announced Xana as the winner on the spot, all of us were just like, 'What?' The reactions that the camera caught, like, that's literally us," said Minhi Wang in an interview with Pop Heist. "Our jaws were all dropped. That's a genuine 'what the fuck' moment."
But as Brooke Lynn Hytes later revealed to Pop Heist, that "WTF" moment was the latest in a long line of perfectly executed WTF moments: "That wasn't me just like, Let's call it.' That was all part of the the setup for the Wooden Beaver."
The Wooden Beaver.
Over the past few seasons, Drag Race's neighbor to the north has been quietly reinventing the wheel — and that's why Canada's Drag Race is the only spinoff with a Wooden Beaver, which itself is a twist on The Golden Beaver — and the twists don't stop there.
So how does Canada's Drag Race — the most decorated Drag Race series after the original, BTW — keep the format fresh? This kind of behind-the-scenes tea is rarely spilled, especially from the production side. In exclusive Pop Heist interviews, Canada's Drag Race showrunner/executive producer Trevor Boris as well as Brooke Lynn Hytes revealed how these stunts are pulled. And since that's only half the story, the entire cast of Canada's Drag Race Season 5 also weighs in on how it felt peel out on Rainbow Road via their various Pop Heist exit — and finalist — interviews. And if you haven't yet, you can stream every episode of Canada's Drag Race on WOW Presents Plus.
These interviews has been combined and edited for length and clarity.
Brooke Lynn Hytes (host/judge): [Canada's Drag Race is] taking its own wings, and that's due to our amazing showrunners and challenge producers who've come up with some incredible, different ideas.
Trevor Boris (showrunner/executive producer): We're kind of still new and we've been trying to find our own voice. World of Wonder are the best partners, and they really encourage us to do our own thing and have fun with it. And then Crave, our broadcasters, are really supportive as well. [The twists] always comes from a place of how to stay true to the format, don't venture too far but also let's keep the queens on their toes. We're not trying to come up with things that are just messing with them. The whole point is we only win if they win, right? We want to set them up for success on the show.
The moment when Canada's Drag Race really set itself apart could be seen as the opening of Season 3, Episode 5. For the first time ever, an episode opened with a "previously on" montage dedicated to just one queen: Miss Fiercalicious.
Boris: We knew that episode, it was coming to a head and there had been all these moments. It came from us chatting about, "We need to recap some of this." And we were like, what if we just really leaned in? That is a testament to everyone on the show, queens and crew, feeling really supported and comfortable. That's the environment you hope to create, where everyone feels they can throw out an idea because our motto is that the best idea wins.
In the following season, the series debuted perhaps its greatest contribution to the Drag Race format: The Golden Beaver. This twist allows the winner of the week's Maxi Challenge to gift a beaver statue to one of the bottom three queens, thus saving her from lip syncing for her life. The two remaining queens are therefore in the lip sync, and eligible for elimination.
Boris: The Golden Beaver is a perfect example. It’s one of my little babies, and we're really happy with how it's helped us be a little different. We did a lot of that stuff on Big Brother — that's what I used to work on for, like, 10 years. It's a little social gameplay, but it doesn't mess with it too much. It gave them a little agency in the game. And then in Untucked, they really have something to do rather than just wait for what the judges will decide.
Brooke Lynn: That was such an ingenious twist to spice things up. We saw that in Season 4. We saw a lot more conflict between the queens, which really made for great TV, and some really, really iconic moments. I was very upset that they made the beaver actually golden, because that was the funniest part for me, that the beaver wasn't even golden.
The Golden Beaver, which was brought back for Canada vs. the World Season 2 and Canada's Drag Race Season 5, introduces a strategy component to the game ... that is if the queens wanted to add "strategy" to the list of million things they need to worry about on Drag Race.
Perla (5th place): I wish that I came into this game calculated! I really walked into that room and said, "I'm happy to be here," and that was the extent of it. But I knew saving Xana [in Episode 2] — I was like, "This diva, this crazy little bitch right here, she is fighting for this." Regardless of if she ever saved me later down the line, I knew that she was fighting for this.
The Virgo Queen (winner): I remember that I was like, "I'll just let them all fight each other [for the Beaver] and I'll be the last one standing." That was my original plan. When you spend so much time with people, then your emotions and your connections and all of that comes into play. So I know when the Wooden Beaver came around and it was my first time to be in the bottom, I wasn't very happy. I said, "Well, I guess I'm going." I already knew what was good.
To back up a bit: When do the producers come up with twists like The Golden and/or Wooden Beaver? And how far are the producers willing to push the individual challenges and the format?
Boris: We go into every season like, "Okay, this is the way we expect to do things, but do we have to do it that way? And what if we did it a different way?" Obviously the format is such a perfect format. We're not gonna think, "there's no critiques anymore, and there's no judges, and there's no lips syncs."
Brooke Lynn: I definitely find out [about challenges] a couple months in advance if it requires my involvement. Some of the challenges, though, I find out when I get there if it doesn't have anything to do with me. I'm a "yes and" person when it comes to the show. I want it to be as best it can possibly be. I'm like, "Use me in whatever way you see fit."
Boris: One of the things I'm most proud of this last year: the "Design for Brooke Lynn" challenge [Episode 7].
Boris: Design challenges, it's safe to say, are a part of Drag Race — and they should be. It's hard to come up with new design stuff because everything has been done, and that was one idea I'd had last year. At first we were like, "Maybe that's too wild and too hard." And it's risky, because it's one thing to design for yourself, but to design for another person is a big ask. But we thought it was the perfect amount of "out there."
Brooke Lynn: When I was on my season of Drag Race, my favorite part of the whole show was walking the runway. I was so in my element. I love stomping a runway. It's one of my favorite things to do, so with that I was like, "Oh, I gotta do it six times in a row?" I was like, "Absolutely." I was so down.
Boris: The queens had no idea [they would design for Brooke Lynn]. They found out in that moment, and you could see it on their faces. They were gooped, gagged, scared, all the things.
Xana (6th place): As soon as I heard that, I was like, "Good job, whoever created this. Y'all knew what you were doing. This is incredible." I was excited to do that for Brooke Lynn. It was such an innovative idea
Brooke Lynn: Any chance I get to spend more time with the queens and be more involved in their journey, I jump at. If I could be in that Werk Room every day, I would be. I always have to bite my tongue, because you can't interfere, obviously, as a judge, but there's so much I want to say that it's not my place to say. So getting to be in that Werk Room with them and seeing their excitement was really, really cool.
Boris: We set them up for success. We offered them some time with Suki Doll, and that was because we knew it was a big ask.
Brooke Lynn: It's so cool now that we're in Season 5 and we have all these incredible queens that have come before, that are making music that we can include in the show, like Priyanka [in Episode 3], or our successful designers like Suki, that we can bring and include in the franchise. And I love that Canada does that. We bring back our own to help out in challenges.
Perla: I was one of the only people in the room that actually knew how to really sew, besides Helena Poison. I know how to manipulate a pattern. Luckily Brooke and I somehow have the same size waist, so I was like, "Oh well, pop off. We got this going, diva. I now know that I just need to extend my patterns." I was having a great time. I finished almost an hour and a half early compared to everyone else and I was like, "I did that!" And this hand stitch popped and then sabotaged me.
Brooke Lynn: When I did walk the runway, they would bring each queen back and they would actually put me in the outfit. They styled me with the jewelry, the shoes, everything was all them. They really styled the outfit from head to toe, so it was really their own creation.
Boris: Brooke Lynn is such a star on the runway and you could see it on their faces sitting side stage. They loved it. They were giddy, each of them.
Xana: Watching Brooke Lynn walk down the runway, I was like, "Girl, I've never walked a day in my life, watching this woman walk down this runway right now."
Brooke Lynn: It was one of my favorite memories of doing Canada's Drag Race.
No season of Drag Race is complete without the queens themselves — and (to quote a Season 5 guest judge) this cast did not come to play, they came to slay.
Boris: It's all about the queens, truly. The cast is everything.
Tiffany Ann Co. (10th place): We went in, Episode 1, guns blazing. This cast is so stacked.
Xana: Every year that I didn't get onto Drag Race, I set a little bit more money aside. I'm like, "Okay, next year I'm going to have this much, it's going to be great."
Tara Nova (11th place): The East Coast of Canada, unfortunately, is very, very, very restricted in resources. I'm on an island specifically on the East Coast, as far east as you can go in Canada. We have crazy import fees and there's so many limitations. That's why when I was getting these critiques, I'm like, "Okay, well, there's nothing that I can do to make this better. I worked the hardest I possibly could to get here."
Minhi Wang (3rd place, former Pit Crew member): People thought, "Oh, it's a bit of stunt casting. Let's bring her in for the storyline." And people didn't really think that she would last long. But lo and behold, she actually has some skills and talents. She's not an early out.
Uma Gahd (7th place): I knew that everyone was going to expect me to be this goofy old lady. I am a little bit too weird for the mainstream girls, and I'm a little bit too mainstream for the weird girls, but I find this really beautiful bridge in between and I love to run back and forth.
Minhi: I think [being underestimated has] actually been very much to my benefit, because I feel like I had to work hard to earn their respect. I didn't come in with people really knowing who I was. So if you didn't think that I was going to last, well, too bad. Now you love me.
Uma: I knew that when I went on the show, I wasn't going to try to tone myself down, to be more palatable, to be more accepted, to be more winning. I was going to be me, because what was important for me was that my people got to see me on screen.
Jaylene Tyme (Miss Congeniality, 8th place): I've been doing drag for over 32 years. I didn't think that [Drag Race] was for somebody like me. I thought it was going to be just the younger girls that were doing it right now. But I was like, I still have a weekly show. I'm still doing my thing, and you never know unless you try. I came close in Season 3, and then Season 5 was my time. I feel really honored that they chose me to be part of that amazing cast. I'm Indigenous, I'm a trans person, I'm an older queen — all these things that you think wouldn't fit in [Drag Race]. I was there.
The Virgo Queen: I saw this little montage clip of me and Sanjina seeing each other when we walked in the Werk Room. It literally makes me tear up.
Sanjina Dabish Queen (9th place): To have my [drag] mother there was — let me tell you something: us melanin people, when it comes to our family, we have their back. I knew that if anything happened, I would have Virgo in my corner 100% and the same thing with her. She knows that she would have me in her corner as well.
Virgo: It was such a moment, a magical, and special thing that I could never compare to anything else. Just watching all the queens live for [Sanjina].
Helena Poison (3rd place): When Sanjina asked [Makayla] if you had cancer? And also Sanjina thinking that I didn't know how to lip sync and called me a "bingo bitch sitting on a chair"? That took me out. I almost fell off my stool laughing at the bar. Everyone was so mad about it, but I was like, "Y'all, this is the funniest thing I've ever heard."
The first twist of Season 5 took place when the queens arrived at the hotel. The queens had to write and record their own verses — a challenge usually reserved for mid-season or the finale — before even entering the Werk Room.
Tiffany: I got to the hotel, and they were 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."
Uma: The only episode that you're guaranteed to be on on Drag Race is the first one. They really gave us every opportunity to tell the audience, "This is who I am."
Tiffany: We got the challenge, we wrote the song, and then we recorded it the next day or the day after, so we hadn't even done any drag at that point yet.
Tara: We did it without anybody around us, so we had nobody to bounce these things off of. It was strictly by ourselves, like completely, before we even met people.
Boris: With the songs, it's hard for the queens. You hear a lot of, "I'm here for the crown" and things like that. Sometimes it's because they don't have a lot of time. Like, how much could Nicki Minaj do with eight bars? The extra bars, it lets them stand out more, good or bad. It maybe shows you're struggling because you have so much more to fill. There's nowhere to hide. But for the people who are really good, having those extra bars, it gives them that extra opportunity to change their flow and to really showcase themselves.
Makayla Couture (runner-up): Like I said on the show, I hadn't written music in a while, but I knew that coming into the show that was going to be the one thing that would definitely separate me from a lot of the girls. I loved that. I was obsessed with it
Boris: Brooke Lynn falling [during the finished music video] — obviously that happened in real life, and she just slipped and fell off. It wasn't in the first cut and I was like, "Oh no, you have to put her falling." And they were like, "That's too weird." I'm like, "No, no, it's perfect." And then I checked with Brooke to make sure this was fine and she was like, "Oh yeah."
Brooke Lynn: I can't believe they kept that in. That was so shady and so funny.
Boris: And that's a great thing about Brooke Lynn, she's so not precious.
Season 5's lip sync tournament, the Slayoffs, introduced a new teams-based format. Not only were queens were lip syncing for their life, but the lives of four other girls. This challenge, Episode 3, also showcased one of Canada's Drag Race's quietest but most important innovation: the uninterrupted lip sync.
Boris: The lip syncs for me, I like to treat them like a live sporting event. So we don't cut to interviews anymore. That's since Season 2. [Cutting to interviews] takes me out a little bit, so we live in it live. There's nothing I love more than going to a viewing party for Drag Race because what other show has that? It is gay sports.
The episode gave us a showdown for the ages between Perla and Sanjina Dabish Queen to Season 1 winner Priyanka's "Bad Bitches Don't Cry."
Perla: I consider myself a mid-tempo diva. Give me my Ariana Grande, something that's fun, something that's hot — but not I'm gonna pop off and dance for you. So even doing "Bad Bitches Don't Cry," I'm like, "This song is out of my element." I'm not this pop off girl that I need to be in this moment. And somehow I held my own.
Sanjina: I work with Perla. I've seen how Perla performs. Perla is puss, Perla is polished, Perla does the hair flips. Perla moves with how the song flows. But then when Perla was matching my energy, that's when the fight began! My energy told me, "Oh, girl, she's trying. She's coming." It was a really good lip sync.
Sanjina: [Guest judge] Shea [Couleé] said, "Follow that camera." I followed it. The stage becomes my bitch, and so does the camera. And people forget: This is a lip sync for your life. I was the last person to bring a point home for my team. I'm gonna fight hard.
Brooke Lynn: I think that's probably the longest deliberation we've had because they both did such an incredible job. It was like fire and ice. Perla is such a beautiful performer, but she's very in control, almost restrained. She doesn't give it all to you. And Sanjina was lip syncing for her life from the second that song started.
Boris: The camera operators are really great. In the edit, I go through every single shot and I look for every cool little moment and that was the shot I found. It was 17 seconds long on that jib.
Boris: Each song has its own thing, so these camera people are really amazing and they dance with the song as well. It was a 17 second shot, which is kind of against the rules in TV, to hang on a shot that long. But it was so dynamic. I had a similar moment with the Makayla backbend [in Episode 8]. There was that one shot and it stuck on her, and it was so compelling. We stayed on it so long, and then it pulled out and you saw Perla walk by. That's a testament to the camera operator and we have an amazing director, Shelagh [O'Brien].
As Sanjina mentioned, the Slayoffs episode included the winner of RuPaul's Drag Race All Stars Season 5, Shea Couleé. Including franchise alumni on the judges' panel also sets Canada apart from other franchises.
Brooke Lynn: That was my suggestion, that we start bringing Drag Race queens to the panel for Canada. Nobody knows better what these queens are going through. Nobody can judge better and the fan base will lose their mind. So whenever I get to have a Drag Race sister up there with me, that's always my favorite.
Aside from lip syncing, the runway is another essential element of the Drag Race format, and the queens brought some iconic and deeply personal looks to the Main Stage.
Tara: I liked all my looks. I step on that runway [for critiques] and literally was like, "What are they saying to me? I do not agree." I am self-aware enough that I could look at myself in the mirror and be like, "Okay, girl, that's fucking ugly," but I think that there was definitely way worse looks beside me — so we'll keep it at that.
Sanjina: There's always moments in Bollywood movies when everything becomes slow mo, dramatic. Usually when the guy sees a girl. So I was giving you the effect of a Bollywood goddess, if she came into your dreams.
Xana: That ['90s Buffy the Vampire Slayer] look, in so many ways, encompasses my journey. I really relate to that Slayer prophecy where there's only one girl in the world — and that's always been me — who has the power to defeat the forces of bad drag.
Helena: I made everything except for two looks on the runway. I'm your stereotypical moody artist, so I'm never happy with what I do. The only one I'm like, "This is perfection," was my statuesque runway. It was the epitome of what Helena Poison is. It was creepy and cool and sexy and completely hand-crafted and made from junk that you usually don't see on a runway. I was really, really, proud of that one — and I've loved watching everyone else get to love it as well.
Makayla: Getting to wear my '90s runway onstage. It honestly is the look that I had to wear, or I would have screamed and burned the building down.
Jaylene: I recently have been registered with my reservation, my native land, so I have my status card. I previously have felt like a bird flying with nowhere to land, so when I went to a powwow on my land, I was so impacted by being there and realizing that the blood that flows through me is my ancestors. And in the Time and Place [category] for me, I wanted to honor the Matriarch. I bought a big piece of hide and connected with some other people from my nation, and we created that in under six weeks. It's so beautiful and it is actual regalia. Just to walk that stage — it lifted so many people
Throughout the season, the Season 5 cast met twist after twist: recording a verse on Day 1, lip syncing for a team, designing for Brooke Lynn Hytes, and dealing with consistent Beaver drama. The emotions had to run hot, and the steam had to be let off.
Uma: On day one, I feel like Xana walked in and she said, "This goofy clown made of couch cushions over here is going to be a pushover." And I said, "Oh, I don't think so."
Xana: I was pushing her buttons all season. I was waiting for her to get evilI was like, "I'm gonna keep pushing you until you get there."
Makayla: When you're in that competition, it really is a pressure cooker. So at that point in the competition [Episode 7], we all were pretty tense. If Xana came for me one more time, I definitely was going to snap — and I wasn't expecting her to come at me in that moment. But when she did, I had to let her know, "My name is Makayla mother fuckin' Couture. I will not take this from you." And you know what? We dealt with the issue after, we had our kumbaya moment — and to this day, she's probably one of my best friends from the cast.
Xana: Who am I to stop Makayla from feeling her emotions? All of us, in some ways, have had our emotions suppressed, whether it was family members, whether it was at school, whether it was friends just being like, "Oh, don't feel that way." Feel your emotions. You should be upset. I was like, "Say what you need to say, baby, let's get through this together." And she turned out, came back in, said more. And then sitting there, I'm like, " ... This is going to be great. They're going to eat this up. The audience is going to live for this." So it was something that I'm glad that we got to experience together. We did a viewing party together and we got to giggle through the whole scene.
You put eleven drag queens in a competition, clashes are to be expected. But production also had their fingers crossed for heartfelt moments — moments that come from casting multiple queens from marginalized communities in one season.
Boris: We had three indigenous queens that season [Jaylene, Xana, Virgo]. We also had three trans queens that season [Jaylene, Sanjina, Makayla]. And there is a tipping point when you have so many in a room like that. It becomes really powerful.
Jaylene: When I walked in the Werk Room and saw them, I knew right away that there was a shift happening. We experienced that with production. They really took care of our stories. It's probably one of the best experiences of my life, to be able to be there and know that we're making a show that's celebrating the art. We created a space that was brave.
Xana: It was always the thought in the back of my mind that Jaylene and I would have a moment together on this show, especially being from Vancouver, both being Indigenous there. It had to happen, and I'm so thankful that it did in that way.
Jaylene: It was myself, Xana and Virgo, and that whole moment was something. We were just talking, and the Spirit just came over. When you think about it, a lot of people didn't know about the Sixties Scoop worldwide. And so when we talk about truth and reconciliation, it's about education. It's about having accurate history, that people know how we navigate as queer people, but also as Two-Spirit people, and the complexities of being displaced, of what that truly looks like.
Boris: We had no idea that was going to happen. When Jaylene said, "Give me a moment", and she went to go get her Métis sash, we didn't know that was happening. You try to follow it as best you can because I will say, in that moment, there were tears in the [production] truck. Everyone on set was crying because it was a moment that was bigger than the show.
Jaylene: It went viral, like 6 million views. I have so many messages from young Indigenous people, young trans people, people that are like, "Oh, it's so good to see somebody like me on Drag Race, and the stories that you're talking about are so important." It's allowing a bunch of people to realize that, as we learn who we are, it's important to see the different stories, the diverse identities in that journey.
Boris: I always tell the queens, I know it's your dream to be on the show. It's our dream to work on this show. We all love it so much, the editors and everyone. So a moment like that, we knew how important it was. There was a lot of care that went into it and you're trying to do justice to the moment.
And that is the legacy of Canada's Drag Race Season 5. The success of the season is the result of a mutually beneficial relationship between the queens and the producers who give the queens extra bars, let lip syncs play out uninterrupted and in full, and create a space where the cast can be brave enough to be vulnerable.
Brooke Lynn: The success is due to a lot of people, but it's mainly due to our queens who put themselves out there and are not afraid to be themselves and showcase their true personality
Boris: We love seeing our queens go on and break beyond Canada. That's the thing we're most proud of, like when we saw Jimbo win US All Stars. That is the coolest thing ever.
Brooke Lynn: It honestly makes me so proud, and you have to give credit where credit is due: Priyanka and Jimbo both work so incredibly hard. They hustle like nobody else's business and they're so passionate about what they do, and it shows in their work, which is incredible.
Boris: Seeing the love for Melinda [Verga], and Priyanka is in Europe right now touring, Pythia on Global All Stars — that was so cool. Some of them have gone on to things like Traitors Canada and Amazing Race and obviously vs. the World. I think it empowers the queens in a way, where they see that obviously Canada's Drag Race is a great goal, but hopefully it's just a step to the next thing, whether that's like a Slaycation or something not on TV. We're really proud of the people that come from this country, and it's really cool to see them shining on the world stage.
Brooke Lynn: I think it's time for a Canadian All Stars. That's what I'm hoping for next, because we've had five seasons now of incredible queens, so we have such an arsenal to choose from.
Boris: I hope we're just getting started.
You can stream every episode of Canada's Drag Race on WOW Presents Plus worldwide, and exclusively on Crave in Canada.
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