Ginger Minj speaks with Gay Times about her long-awaited induction into the Drag Race Hall of Fame, the support she received from Trixie Mattel and Tia Kofi amid fan backlash, and her impending Broadway slayage.
After ten years, Ginger Minj finally got the crown, gal!
Following two runner-up stints on season seven and All Stars 6, plus a murky [redacted] placement on All Stars 2, the self-described “Glamour Toad” returned to the werkroom earlier this year with a drag vengeance. Throughout All Stars 10’s pageant-style tournament format, Ginger won four consecutive challenges — including a historic third Snatch Game victory, a first for any queen across the franchise — avoided any bottom or “low” placements, and was ranked the number-one lip-sync assassin by her peers.
Ultimately, she proved the legitimacy of the Rate-A-Queen system by defeating Kerri Colby, Bosco and lip-sync juggernaut Jorgeous in three electrifying smackdowns for the crown, culminating in RuPaul’s official declaration of her victory. “I’m in my winning era, and not just because of the crown,” Ginger tells Gay Times. “I just genuinely feel healthy, happy, well-adjusted, and ready to take on the world, which is definitely a first for me in my entire life.”
Read ahead for our full interview with the Minj, where she reflects on her long-awaited induction into the Drag Race Hall of Fame, how past champions like Trixie Mattel and Tia Kofi helped her amid fan backlash, and the well-deserved Broadway opportunities coming her way.
Thank you! It just took me 10 years…
You know what – I’ve never wanted anything that I didn’t have to earn. So I don’t think I would’ve been as excited or ready for the crown then as I am now.
It’s surreal. I don’t think it’s really sunk in yet. It happened, and then the weekend was so crazy and busy. It wasn’t until this morning — after I finally got to sleep in — that I woke up, saw the crown and sceptre on the shelf, and thought, ‘Oh my god. I did that. I finally did it. I won.’
Well, if I had won 10 years ago, I don’t think that I would’ve been able to deal with the backlash – I wasn’t mentally in the right state of mind to do that. But having been through it in the trenches with these fans for a decade now, I knew what to expect. I knew it was coming, and I knew that whether I won or lost, there were going to be people happy, people sad and people that are angry – because it’s happened every single time. I’ve sat back and watched over the years, queens like Trixie Mattel or Alyssa Edwards or Jinkx Monsoon – who are just so spectacular – win and deserve to win, and then get all this kind of weird double standard backlash thrown at them as well. So I knew it was coming, and I was fully prepared.
I was literally just talking to Tia maybe an hour ago, and I’m such a fan of hers anyway. Our paths have met a few times at DragCon or whatever, but she was the first one to reach out to me after my first bracket episode of the season, just to say, ‘There’s so many of us who respect you and love you and have been rooting for you for so long. I’ve been there — just focus on it.’ And then, of course, after I won, she sent me another message. I was sifting through everything late last night or this morning, and she’s like, ‘I just want to talk to you because I know exactly how you feel.’ Trixie Mattel called me yesterday and was saying, ‘I know exactly what you’re going through, but just know it’s so cool to win. It’s so cool, and nobody can ever take that from you.’
No, and I am in such a great space right now — personally, professionally, everything has just seemed to come together this past year. I know where I’m at and what I’m supposed to be doing, and it feels right. It really, truly feels right for the first time.
The only downside to winning — because I always said, ‘As long as I don’t win, I guess I can keep going back.’ And now that I’ve won I’m like, ‘Oh, well, hopefully there’s another All Winners sometime and I can go and do that.’ But I love competition. I love Drag Race, and I love creating queer art on a global platform — especially at a time right now where it’s not as protected or celebrated as it has been in the past. And it’s really such a shame that those of us in the community who actually need this outlet — I mean, I’m talking about the trolls and the toxic fanbase as well — we all need this, and we’re going to ruin it for ourselves.
