Cheryl and Lemon’s drag journey together has come down to this moment–making it to the top four of Canada’s Drag Race: Canada vs. the World Season 2.
Blavity’s Shadow and Act recently spoke with the two finalists, who said they are excited to have made it so close to winning the crown with their fellow finalists, American Drag Race stars Kennedy Davenport and Alexis Mateo.
“This season really just encapsulated everything that I just love about drag. And to be able to showcase myself where I am right here, right now, has filled me with such joy,” said Cheryl, who first made her mark on the inaugural season of RuPaul’s Drag Race UK. “I mean, you’ve seen, I’ve never had a good run on Drag Race. I’ve either been in the bottom or sent home. So this time around, getting to showcase what I do alongside Legends, icons, and Lemon,” she added, joking.
“To be there with all these divas, but keeping up with them, finally, meant the world to me, because it meant that I could finally clear my head of those doubts and negativity about my talents, and really just say, ‘Whatever happens, let’s just have some fun,’” she said.
Lemon, who became known to the international world through the inaugural season of Canada’s Drag Race, also talked about she had been “dying” for another moment to prove herself in the Drag Race franchise. She said making it to the finale “doesn’t feel real.”
“It’s like a literal dream come true. And, you know, on season one of Canada’s Drag Race, I was really hoping to make it to the finale. And I felt like I was so close and I made top five and then going back on [RuPaul’s Drag Race] UK vs. the World and being eliminated for the final,” she said. “First, I kind of thought like, Oh, maybe I’ll never get another chance and I’ll never have the moment that I’ve been dying for and then waiting for my whole life. So to just get another shot at this, I was already so grateful because I knew how to compete and I knew how to come back and play it right this time.”
She added, jokingly, “..I feel like I’m going to wake up tomorrow and be in my bed at the UK vs. the World hotel, [and] we don’t need that.”
Cheryl and Lemon are the first two contestants on Canada vs. the World to have participated on a previous vs. The World franchise–the two were both on the first season of RuPaul’s Drag Race: UK Vs. the World. But Cheryl and Lemon’s friendship goes back further than Drag Race.
“We met in 2018 when she [Lemon] was living in New York. I was there on holiday and I called up some divas and I said, ‘Anybody got a gig? I’ve got some drag in my suitcase. Let’s have some fun.’ And so we have been in this together,” said Cheryl. “And I feel like we’ve been through this through our first original seasons because we filmed in airs around the same time. Then we did UK vs. The World. So it’s like, We’ve been through every chapter in our Drag Race journey together, so it only feels correct to be going through this again, together, and we just pick up where we left off. That’s how you know you’ve got a good friend and a good sister–that years could pass, but it’s like it was yesterday.”
“Yeah, I feel like having a sister on the season with you and getting to make it all the way to the end with someone who is such a good close friend for so many years has been just really, really rewarding,” added Lemon. “You know, this is an overwhelmingly emotional experience, and it’s one of those things that most of the world doesn’t understand and frankly, can’t understand, and that’s okay. But to have someone with me there who has been through this, has seen me before I started drag, has seen me when I was a baby queen , has seen me on my first season, has been with me on my second season, and now is with me on my third season– it felt just like you had a little bit of home there, even though she’s from all the way across the ocean.”
The finale, a lip-sync battle for the crown, is set up to be one for the ages with all four finalists being powerhouse performers. Cheryl said that she couldn’t have imagined being in a finale with legends like Davenport and Mateo.
“I think it’s quite funny that we did like an AI-themed runway because in this finale, if you didn’t know anything about the season or anything about us and you just typed in nine rounds of drag queens and the AI Generator said that I would be in a finale with Kennedy Davenport and Alexis Mateo, I would be like, ‘What the world is going on?’” she said. “My first ever season I watched of Drag Race was Season 3 and then I went back to [Season 1] and watched it through. So Alexis Mateo was at the beginning of my drag journey, really.”
“Then when I started doing drag myself, Season Seven was airing and I looked up to Kennedy so much as not only a dancer, but as a performer and entertainer, how she carries herself, her professionalism,” she continued. “I’m just in awe of Kennedy Davenport. So the minute we had that chance in that first challenge to do a girl group, I went, ‘Kennedy, we’re gonna do this.’ It’s wild to think that we are in a finale with such legends, but we keep having to remind ourselves [that] we are legends, we’re doing the damn thing, and I need to be my own hype girl and not be hyping up everybody else.”
“I had been on tour with Kennedy for quite a long tour, it was like three months. And when we first met, I was so intimidated by Kennedy because, as Cheryl said, she’s just so professional and she’s so there to work. When she’s at work, she is working,” Lemon added. “And you know, in the early moments of the tour, we were talking about things we didn’t like in drag, and she said, ‘I hate when I girl I don’t know calls me her sister.’ And I was like, ‘Oh s**t, don’t call her sister, don’t call her sister.’ And then maybe two weeks in, she pulled over and said, ‘Hey, sister, come here.’ And I [thought], ‘Oh my God, Kennedy Davenport likes me!’”
“To have that moment prior to arriving [for Canada vs. the World] really did calm my nerves because I know Kennedy was already my sister and Alexis and I had our booths beside each other at DragCon, so we knew each other too and we had kiki’d and it was great,” she continued. “We have to enter this competition knowing that whatever happened outside of these four walls doesn’t exist. Whatever happened to you on your last season doesn’t exist. None of that matters. All we can focus on is this moment right here, this competition…and so as much as it was overwhelming to see big names like that, it was also like, ‘I’m cast on the same f*****g season, so I got to focus on me right now and not worry about these legacies and these incredible careers, but just focus on what I can do in this moment.”
What’s next for Cheryl and Lemon? According to Cheryl, “World domination.”
To that, Lemon responded, “Oh girl, we already have that.”
On a more serious note, Cheryl said that she’s been putting “feelers out into the world and things came into fruition.” She said she’s “ready to be receptive to whatever the world wants to present to me.”
“I think I’ve done such incredible things and incredible opportunities that I’m ready for something that I’m not even thinking about presented to me, and I’m just ready to go, let’s try that. Let’s have a go at that,” she said.
Lemon said she’s already at work on her second EP, which will feature collaborations with Drag Race alums Marina Summers, Shea Couleé and another collab with Lemon’s Canada’s Drag Race sister (and Season One winner) Priyanka. In fact, her song with Priyanka has already dropped.
“So, I’m honored to be working with such incredible queens…music is really a big focus for me. And I’m really happy and it brings me so much joy,” she said. “I listen to music constantly day in and day out. So music is already such a big part of my life that to have it be part of my artistic output is also really beautiful.”
She also hinted at future projects in TV and film, adding, “As Cheryl said, world domination is important. I’m just hoping after the season that I have a crown.”
The Season 2 finale of Canada’s Drag Race: Canada vs. the World drops Friday on WOW Presents Plus.
