I won Drag Race and there’s a seriously dark side to BBC show you never see on screens
RUPAUL's Drag Race UK winner Krystal Versace has spilled the beans on her experience on the BBC show - from bad run-ins with celebrities, to coping with online hate and navigating a "fake" showbiz industry.
Since winning the hit competition series back in 2021, the bold and glamorous drag queen's life has been a wild roller coaster.
Krystal Versace, originally from Kent, made history as the youngest champion of RuPaul's Drag Race at the age of 19.
She recently finished an impressive run of tour dates in the United States and the United Kingdom and even landed her own reality TV show on BBC Three.
Keeping Up With Krystal Versace, follows the singer as she gets ready for her debut solo performance at the renowned Palladium.
The access all areas series let fans into every aspect of Krystal's life and showed just what goes in to being one of the country's premiere drag acts.
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So, although it's all lights, camera, action for the fierce drag queen, after the show's departure Krystal has revealed what it's like to be on the TV series, admitting it's not all glitz and glam.
Being on a show like Drag Race has its perks, and you get to build a strong fan base.
But the showbiz industry has its highs and lows, and Krystal says she "just does her thing" and doesn't care what anyone else does, although it is challenging.
She shared that being in the limelight means you sometimes have to mingle with other celebrities at events and red carpets, but sometimes you run into people who aren't so nice.
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In an exclusive interview, Krystal said: "We all have our opinions on people we meet in the industry, so I guess yes I’ve had a few bad run-ins, we are all human and we are not all going to get on and I also just don’t care.”
Krystal also touched on how the showbiz industry can be "fake" at times - and that she tries her best to focus on herself and what she "brings to the table" rather than "looking over her shoulder" at other people.
She added: "It is, you know everybody wants what they want, some people have different strategies to getting to where they want and that’s fine."
"But that’s the thing it’s like I’ve never looked over my shoulder, so whatever someone else is doing, if they want to go about something a different way, maybe it’s not the, you know best way of going about it then I’m just like, do what you need to do girl. I’m just doing my own thing. I don’t care what you are doing.”
There's also the online hate that many reality TV show contestants get once they come off the screen - and Krystal admits to getting her fair share of trolling online.
She said: "Yeah, I mean you really have to deal with it all, and thankfully I've got a thick skin, you know I've had to earn my armour through my growing up and at school and so I try not to let it affect me."
The super glam drag queen says she doesn't allow the trolls to get the best of her and tries not to listen to their comments because they're just "noise".
Krystal added: "I know that at the end of the day they're the ones looking at my post and I'm the one posting, you know they're the ones viewing my s**t, I'm the creative so I'm like it never matters to me because I'm always doing my thing, and people who have stuff to say it only speaks on them so, you know it's always just been noise."
She continued: "I just do my thing, and I learn from all my mistakes that I've made and all the stuff that I've done well, and I'm always learning and always going forward and just living my life and now teaching the next generation and the next girls coming along."
Krystal also revealed that the legendary American drag queen RuPaul “warmed” to her “very quickly”.
Krystal continued: “I went in there to do my thing, and I didn’t expect for her to love me, to be the one who’s you know on the top of her list."
She also said, RuPaul “scanned” her “up and down” when she first walked in and she looked at her for a “good minute”.
She added: “She took a liking to me and was interested and invested in what I had to bring, that was a shock to me.”
Krystal added that viewers will never get to understand the amount of work it takes to make the BBC show happen, and how much is "cut out of it".
She revealed: ";The time it takes to do it all, and the amount that is cut out probably people, will just never understand the reality of it, you know.
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"Don't take it to so literal, it's not that literal."
With season five of Drag Race around the corner, Krystal is excited to see what the latest set of hopefuls have to offer.
