Warning! Spoilers below for the season 11 premiere of “RuPaul’s Drag Race.” If you haven’t watched yet, fix that, then come back and read for more from this week’s eliminated queen!
Miley Cyrus joined the judges panel for the season 11 premiere of RuPaul’s Drag Race on Thursday, but she was far from the most dramatic personality in the room.
The all-new season features 14 fresh faces, as well as the return of fan favorite Vanessa Vanjie Mateo, aka Miss Vanjie. Ever the dramatic, Miss Vanjie hid in the work room as the new queens arrived. “Not everyone gets a chance to come back and redeem themselves,” she told the cameras. “So I feel like I’m lucky and I’m not gonna mess up this opportunity.”
For their first mini-challenge, the queens had to pose for a photo shoot paired with a Drag Race alum. Silky Nutmeg Ganache took home the first prize for her sickening pics with Mariah Balenciaga and got to take control heading into the maxi challenge, where the contestants were tasked with creating their own “legendary look” using only a trunk from a former Drag Race legend.
While some struggled in the werk room — and many were put off by Silky’s big personality — the queens got a fun surprise when Cyrus, dressed in drag as a male crew member, “B.J.,” surprised them before the runway. After she’d made only a couple audio tweaks to the contestants, however, Silky and A’Keria C. Davenport figured out exactly who was underneath that glued-on beard.
“Hannah Montana’s in the room? Are you kidding me?” Nina West exclaimed to the cameras in surprise, as all the queens fawned over the pop star and longtime Drag Race fan.
Cyrus later joined her fellow judges — Michelle Visage, Carson Kressley, Ross Mathews, and of course, Mama Ru — wearing an epic dress made of vinyl records to weigh in on the queens’ runway looks. Brooke Lynn Hytes was crowned the winner of the first challenge, for her superhero-inspired bodysuit, while Soju and Kahanna Montrese ended up on the bottom and were forced to lip sync for their lives.
This week’s lip sync song? “The Best of Both Worlds,” by Hannah Montana.
“Hey, whatever happened to her?” Ru asked. “A lot of drugs,” Cyrus shot back.
And the first queen to sashay away was…
Ultimately, Soju who was sent packing, after her bell-shaped, tulle-laden gown (paired with flats) — and her oversharing with the panel — had the judges gagging in all the wrong ways. The K-pop queen spoke with ET’s Brice Sander ahead of the season 11 premiere, where she said her time on the show was “exciting, emotional, dramatic and unexpected.”
“You can never be fully ready for it, you know… I thought I knew exactly what was going to happen, but it’s nothing like it,” she admitted. “It’s exciting, because it’s something new, and I thought I would be so ready for it, but there’s no really no getting ready for it. You just gotta live with the moment and be excited about it.”
When asked how she wants her time on the show to be remembered, Soju — who hosts her own Drag Race review series on YouTube, Shot With Soju — said, “I want people to think of me as a genuine queen.”
“I’m not really, like, the tongue-popping [type], because I can’t do it, and I’m not like ‘Oh, yes!’ You know what I mean? I’m not explosive like that, but at the same time, I keep it genuine,” she explained. “And I love the art, and I’m very passionate about it. I have a lot to give and I hope the fans can see that, too.”
RuPaul’s Drag Race airs Thursdays at 9 p.m. ET/PT on VH1.
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