In the words of Alaska, 'I invented that.' Welcome back to my channel. In today's video,
we're going to be breaking down the past week's online Drag Race drama, primarily involving
Aja and some queens from Drag Race España, namely Sagittaria and Dovima from Season 1
and Drag Sethlas from Season 2, but this was a feud that got queens involved around the globe.
We've also got Choriza from UK Season 3, a handful of Canada's Drag Race girls, like Lemon and Eve,
and we even saw a response from our Queen of the Mother-Tucking World!: Blu Hydrangea. But what was
all the hoopla about? A box. Yes, an international Drag Race feud over a box. I love drag.
A quick disclaimer before we get started: I just want to say while the nature of
platforms like Twitter do encourage Drag Race fan interaction with Drag Race queens,
I think it's usually best to watch this drama from the sidelines. Because as we will see,
there were many times throughout box-gate where I think fans unnecessarily fanned the flames of
drama they didn't fully understand. With that said, let's get started.
If you weren't aware, Drag Race España 2 is off to a great start and they had their talent show
episode on April 3rd, in which one of the contestants, Drag Sethlas, jumped off of
a box in a fashion that was yes, reminiscent of what we have seen in prior Drag Race talent shows
from the likes of Lemon and Aja. The day after that episode, Aja took to Twitter writing this:
"Can't wait to do some thing else on television so people can make 100 more
bad copies of it 😩. Also jk before I offend someone, but kind of not kidding. I just want
to see so much more originality. 😭 please ban the box already. Also I don't like this to be
shady lol I just want to see something new, and also I get tagged in hundreds of videos
a month of people jumping off of random stuff, and rather unsafely into splits,
broken dips and sometimes just plain falling saying that they outdid me lol"
And in that thread someone tweeted at Aja with a clip of Drag Sethlas' performance from
2017 where she did a similar box jump-style performance. Aja quickly replied to that fan
and wrote "Congrats wasn't talking about her. Anyways I just saw the
clip that y'all are going off about right now I'm my mentions. The number was cute,
didn't need the dancers, I've seen the car thing done already. It was an amazing performance,
still not super impressed by the box. But she did great! I love her look most."
And the timeline between these original tweets from Aja that set the fandom ablaze
gets a little murky between what we'll see next, because these original tweets from Aja were
deleted. Several hours after Aja's tweet, we see Sagittaria from Drag Race España 1 saying this:
"Los americanos pensando que Aja inventó el tirarse de una
plataforma? Amor conocéis el drag Canario? Ahahahah."
I might be reading some of these tweets in Spanish and some in English,
but the translation will be up on the screen from the Twitter translate feature,
where I do read them in Spanish, so pay attention. And she clarified after that writing:
"Obviamente me refiero a los estadounidenses 💕" which is her saying she is specifically
talking about citizens of the United States and not, for example, people also from like,
the South Americas. And to this threat shortly after we see a reply from Drag Sethlas writing:
"Gracias! Para muestra un botón! Jajaja."
This is kind of like her saying thanks for making this point.
We then see later in the late evening of April 4th/early morning of April 5th,
Aja talking about what inspired her performances and the video she attached to that tweet is
showing a ball performer doing vogue dancing. I'm so into voguing right now *gay giggle*
She then ends in her thoughts for the evening writing
"Just want to site my inspirations. Since the new narrative is that I said I invented jumping from
a box lol. I never said that so I'm taking the opportunity to educate you on my inspirations
and a couple hours later Lemon from Canada's Drag Race apparently woke up to Twitter and wrote this:
"I don't know about u but something about a girl jumping off a huge box into a split
that gags me every time 🤷🏼‍♀️✨," paying Drag Sethlas a compliment
on her performance and referencing that she got read by the judges for
jumping off of a box in her talent show performance in UK vs The World which
just aired. Fans though apparently weren't sure of the context and some of them decided
to use this opportunity to draw comparisons between Lemon and Sethlas, writing stuff like
"You are mad because you were in the bottom for jumping off into a split baby..."
"I think this version is more phenomenal. Sowry."
So Lemon of course clarified what she said:
"...this was a compliment."
And so did Choriza May from UK Season 3 who chimed in writing:
"people CHILL! This is literally a compliment,
we've been talking about how much we loved the episode since it aired!"
Again, fans were going off the mentions of these queen's Twitters about who originated the box
performance and who invented boxes and jumping off of boxes and jumping in general, I suppose. Fans
were apparently not letting up on Aja on Twitter though, so the next morning she tweeted this:
"So please, I deleted the damn tweets that had nothing to do with your girl,
so just leave me the [__] alone. Thank you for the flood of positive DMs that just came
in I really appreciate you. For a minute I was really starting to regret becoming a part of
the Drag Race community again. But I'm glad to see that some people have common sense 💗😩"
Several hours later, Sagittaria jumped on Twitter again writing:
"A certain American–"
And Google Translate here does make travesty look strange,
but it's really just another term for drag queen in Spain.
"–has skated, but so much that she has arrived in Spain with scooters."
Basically she's just saying that the queen who she's not naming here,
has overstepped her boundaries(?) And in a follow-up tweet she continues to clarify:
"No voy a decir nombre pero hay capturas de cierta señora acusando a Sethlas de hacer
el show que ella hizo, cuando ella lo hizo dos años antes en la gala de gran canarias."
And for context there, Aja's All Stars 3 box jump performance was back in 2018,
and that the show Sethlas did was a year or two prior to that. And
here we see Dovima jump in for the first time quote tweeting writing:
"Como son las feas xd."
She's basically just calling the queen as Sagittarius not
naming ugly. At the same time Sagittaria started another Twitter thread writing:
"Leave @thatbitchlemon alone ...if she, and the translation does their say 'he,'
but that is because of how the Spanish language works, hasn't said anything,
the one who speaks badly is someone else, literally Lemon has said that she loves it."
And Sethlas has chimed into this tweet writing:
"But what is happening that I am missing hahahaha."
Aja replied to Saggitaria here later that afternoon writing:
"I never spoke bad about it. Can y'all leave me alone. Y'all are making it worse."
To which Sagittaria responded:
"I really admire u Aja, but a lot of spanish people got offended cause in
Canary Island this has been doing since 1998 and we felt like u were
saying that the performance was... "cute and not impressed by the box,"
To which Aja responded in a thread writing:
"I understand your frustration, however none of the initial things that I first
wrote were about the performance, I actually discovered the performance
through the response that garnered. I admire all of you obviously as artists
and the new girls – already people were attacking me before I even saw the video which didn't make
sense. I didn't even know about it. Making false narratives and such. I appreciate what she was
doing on the show and on the stage and I think she's very talented and I was very entertained
by the performance and everything I saw. My intention was never to bring anyone down or
be negative so if I did that I do truly apologize. I hope that we can move forward and be in peace.
Because I really would like to support you guys and the entire franchise in Spain."
And Sagittaria finally responded writing:
"Babe i'm really sorry people is attacking u like that, thank u for the your apologies
i don't want to get this further cause we everybody make mistakes and we as
queer ppl we need to collaborate and not instigate, u are right and i'm sorry too💕"
Aww.
And while that Sagittaria thread was brewing, Sethlas did take to Twitter writing this:
Año 2016, sí han leído bien🤭," translating to 2016, yes you read
that correctly. And in this thread we see a fan chime in tagging Aja writing:
"we love you but please dont be delusional, you didn't open these doors."
And Aja replied to that fan in Sethlas' thread writing:
"I never said I did, you guys said that lol."
The fan wrote again:
"Baby, I'm not going to come for you because I appreciate you as a performer, but you referred to
drag Sethlas' Talent Show as a cheap copy of what you did on All Stars. –Just apologize for that."
Aja wrote:
"I never did that. I wrote a tweet and you guys decided that's what it was about. But
it wasn't. So I'm not going to apologize for some thing that I didn't do. The tweet was very vague.
And had a secondary tweet that spoke about my DM's in the videos people were sending me.
And around the same time we start to see Dovima chiming in again where she quote
tweets Drag Sethlas' little post we just read about 2016, you read that correctly, writing:
"Edque ya me joderia ser la cara paella y intentarme
comparar con sethlas UBICAINA CARIÑOOOOOOOO."
And this translation has a couple of layers, but she's basically in one tweet saying that
Aja's face looks like paella, the food, and that what she did is incomparable
to Sethlas' performance jumping off boxes, and UBICAINA is a pill name so she's using
that here to say 'take your little pill and stay in your own lane sweetheart.'
Also while trying my best to hear on some of these pronunciations, I know a little bit of Spanish,
but I am also consulting with a friend that knows Spanish to help with some of these
more slang terms. And Aja continued to address fans in various ways, both in
these threads like this, and directly on her timeline. In this instance somebody wrote:
"@ajaoxum don't mess with spanish queens babe!"
And she wrote:
"I never did. Yah are crazy."
She also sent out another tweet showing her performance from 2000,
again referencing her sources that she tweeted out earlier that morning.
And then that afternoon we see Choriza May chime in on her timeline writing:
"So what's happened is, the best episode of drag race history aired the other day
and irrelevant queens are trying to tag along by being messy in Twitter, is that correct?
Support your international sisters and get your head out of your own ass hermana ☺️"
To which Blu Hydrangea responded:
"Why can't people support each other 😫 especially the queens
that complained about hate on their own season!"
To which Choriza said:
"EXACTLY."
And to this tweet from Miss Choriza, we see reply from Kandy Muse,
who if you'll remember, is in the house of Aja:
"watch your mouth."
And Choriza responded to that with a GIF of what I think is a housewife saying 'or what?'
We also saw Eve6000 from Canada's Drag Race Season 2 chime in here writing:
"Love you girl but this is not itttt... People have their own
feelings towards the platform based on their own experiences and nobody
was attacking the Spanish girls... You know how people twist things."
And finally we catch back up with Sagittaria, who later that afternoon tweeted this out after her
conversation with Aja and their Twitter thread where Sagittaria did end up saying that she was
sorry for what was going on. And here I'll read the Google translation since it's pretty good.
"Aja has understood where Sethlas is coming from, and I'm calling for a
little bit of cordiality and understanding, because what she has said is a lot, yes,
but she is human and she doesn't deserve to be insulted because of her race or because
she is trans. If you have any complaints, do not put the race or gender. Thanks."
To which Aja responded with a 💗 and Sagittaria responded with: "We love u💕"
And everything seemed to be coming to a calm later that evening when Aja retweeted Sethlas'
2016 performance from earlier that day with a little 👏😍 emoji. Aja even wrote in her timeline:
"Lol now that it's over, I have to say what a thrill that fake drama was! And
because of it I got to befriend 2 lovely stars from Drag Race España. I love it 💗"
To which Sagittaria responded:
"Luv u💕"
But it was not in fact the end of this feud, because the two friends that I think
she was referring to there were Sethlas and Sagittaria, which leaves out Dovima. And in
the next couple of days we see this feud go from a hot flame that was quickly put out,
with nice little love hearts and apologies, to a raging forest fire!
On April 7th around 8PM, Aja took to Twitter writing:
"Imagine calling me a paella face when you look like a hard rock with contour.
Looking like Geodude with Miss Fame's S7 paint. Self-insert yourself into made up fan antics,
go ahead. Being a part of this brand and openly making a skin insult about me?
Shame on you @dovimanurmi. And by the way. You do NOT have the qualifications to call me ugly. Be
upset about this drama like everyone else, but you did not have to attack my physical appearance. And
before anyone jumps in yes I know I just read her, when you post an insult about someone in
a public form you deserve to be read. It's no shade. Can this stupid drama be done already 😫"
And Dovima fired back writing:
"Solo tengo una cosa más que decir FEA. HAHAHAHAHAHA," saying, 'I only
one more thing to say: UGLY."
And we also see Aja to her timeline quote tweet Dovima's 'fea' tweet writing:
You're literally trash. A garbage racist. Please. You next to me??? You don't even
stand a chance dog. Sit. And stay. Also next time tag me. Scared ass."
She also tweeted an old GIF of Aja from her original season where she
was dressed as princess disaster writing:
"You looking like geodude with miss fame s7 paint.... hahahahahaha."
Quoting what Aja had said about her. Aja responded to that writing:
What did u do here? Nothing lmao weak ass."
She also quote tweeted a photo of Dovima writing:
"Her face looks hard as [__]. Like violet on testosterone pls."
Sorry, okay. Dovima also wrote on Twitter:
"Amores somos españolas no hay insultos peores que en España....–"
"There's no worse insults than in Spain."
"–tiene mucho que aprender–"
"You have a lot to learn."
"NADA me puede afectar viniendo de una persona con cara de cerdito vietnamita 🤣."
Meaning "Nothing bothers me when it comes from a person that has the face of a little pig."
And that phrase at the end there, "cerdito vietnamita," is actually
just a Spanish phrase referencing potbelly pig. She's not saying anything about the
literal translation that you'll get from Google translate if you click
translate on that tweet. Which again is a really rough insult to call somebody, but it
has nothing to do with the Vietnamese people, and only to do with like, the pig being from
there, and being the traditional breed of that country. Dovima also doubled down on the paella
comment, tweeting out a photo of paella to Aja. And Aja quote tweeted this writing:
"You ain't do nothing. I still look better than you. You are wack
and weak. Lacking talent. When I'm in Spain come see me. I'll fix your face for you 💗"
And Dovina replied to this, with something I
actually can't put on YouTube, community guidelines, she said:
"When you come to Spain I'm going to eat um ... oh your bussy my love 💖"
She also tweeted out to Aja 2 images of girls playing in the
in the mud and um ... on a couch saying 'come to Spain'
Aja also wrote a thread about Sethlas later on her timeline saying:
"Get this clear y'all. I never shaded @DSethlas. My original tweet was in reference to videos
people be sending me trying to recreate my talent show performance. I never claimed to
have invented this type of performance either. I really believe that people are trying to play
character assassination and make me look bad. But I really feel like this is just a lack of
communication or clarification and bad timing. As a trans woman, I have seen so many comments about
my skin and calling me ugly, which I dont because I know im beautiful. However its caused dysphoria.
Also the misgendering is unnecessary. Although I feel like I didn't do anything wrong I still
went ahead and apologized to the Sethlas. I NEVER SHADED SETHLAS OR ANYONE. Y'all
literally ran with this one and it's annoying me. With that said I'll walk FQ vs Drags face
with any [ __ ] who had something to say about my face. You will get processed."
And this was mostly the end of the interaction between the queens from España and Aja, but
Aja did continue to address fans tweeting at her
about this and talking about this on Twitter, the next couple of days writing:
"Still not understand where I ever said this but okay," in reference to a tweet that says
"Nobody would have ever said anything to Aja if she wasn't so self-centered to pretend
she invented jumping from a platform into a split
when she clearly didn't," where she also wrote, "Y'all are weird and love drama."
She also tweeted her original tweets back
out, because clearly the narrative had twisted on Twitter and other platforms,
because all these fans were basically playing telephone with deleted tweets. "Tell me where I
mention Drag Race Spain here. Was I being [__]. Absolutely. But where do you very reference to
DRES. Make it make sense. I hate when ppl put words in my mouth," following up with,
"This could have been about lemon. It could've been about a queen at a bar. It could have been
about anyone. I deleted the tweets because so many people assumed and I didn't want to cause any more
confusion because clearly it was bad timing, causing an issue and I wanted it to be over."
And I was glad to see her retweet out these old deleted tweets, because it I think helps to
give some of the fans that might be interested in fanning the flames of drama, that they're
not involved in in any way, understand what was originally said. Because in many instances
we did see them directly talking to Aja and these other Spanish queens putting words in Aja's mouth.
But that doesn't mean the original tweets that Aja just sent out weren't a little shady.
Anyway that's all I've got for you today in our Aja vs the España queens drama segment. Please
send all these queens some love and remember it's not that serious, and also it's not that personal!
It's drag. I also wanted to promote Aja's gofundme for her gender transition and journey
and the link to donate to that and support her is in the description of this video.
And finally I want to say thanks for watching today's video and give a special shout out to
Adrián Burwinkel, Angel, Cyrus, Daniel Drummond, Dark Sided Otter, David
Webb, Dicky, Felicia, Hector Simancas, JayBea, Jeffrey, Joseph, Josh Marchant, JPinDallas,
Laura, Lissette, Luis Labrador, Mark James, Matthew Burns, Matthew Bower,
Maxxie LaWow!, Michelle Your Belle! <3, Ms. F. Nealy, Ryan Bince, Sehler, Steven, Topher,
Triton, and Wealie, who are all supporting me at my Bussy Queen Collector tier. Love ya, bye.
Because when Charli XCX said "GAY RIGHTS," this is 100% what she meant.