Yahoo News Who will be crowned the RuPaul's Drag Race season 15 winner?
It's time for RuPaul's Drag Race to launch one queen into her Winner Era.
Since RuPaul can't crown Princess Poppy for attending the reunion while dressed as Rebecca Glasscock (we kid, we kid), Friday night's grand finale will end with the coronation of one queen to preside over the delightful, iconic chaos that was season 15.
Top-four finalists Anetra, Luxx Noir London, Mistress Isabelle Brooks, and Sasha Colby have duck-walked, gagged us a bit, diagnosed drag delusion, or neck-cracked their way to the last round of the world's premier drag pageant. But, who will win season 15? Below, EW predicts which contestant we think will take the crown — based on an objective analysis of the competition — as the show enters its Conclusion Era with a new ruler on the throne.
MTV/World of Wonder Sasha Colby, Luxx Noir London, Anetra, Mistress Isabelle Brooks on 'RuPaul's Drag Race' season 15.
Track records for the season 15 finalists in the running for the crown:
Anetra: 3 wins, 2 bottoms
Luxx Noir London: 2 wins, 1 bottom
Mistress Isabelle Brooks: 1 win, 1 bottom
Sasha Colby: 4 wins, 0 bottoms
The case for each queen to win season 15
Vijat Mohindra Luxx Noir London on the 'RuPaul's Drag Race' season 15 cast.
The case for Luxx Noir London
She might not possess a 40-inch wig (still under review), but Luxx Noir London makes up for the alleged missing length in unfiltered nerve. If ever there were a queen to embody the third element of RuPaul's beloved virtues of success (and naughty acronym), it's the New Jersey native, who entered the competition as one of the youngest (23) yet most unabashedly confident queens the show has ever seen, and season 15 was better (and more electrically entertaining) for it. Also working in her favor: She comfortably sat pretty next to Sasha Colby as the undisputed fashion queen of the season. Luxx's penchant for clothes that work — and werk — placed her neck-and-neck with the former Miss Continental winner on the world's foremost stage, and her talent never felt out of place under that spotlight for a second. Her Crystal Ball look? Gagged. That zebra-pants-and-purple-cape stunner? Gagged...a bit (for sure). End of story. She effortlessly, comfortably fits in among veterans of the business, just a few short years into her budding career.
Luxx might also deserve an Emmy (or, at least, a story producing credit shared with Mistress), but her weakness heading into Drag Race's final episode might be the very thing that's so endearing about her. The way Luxx harnesses her inherent coolness is what will make or break her. She's undeniably laser-focused on excellence, which means her individual performance could end up somewhere along the lines of Naomi Smalls' "Pose" — a fitting, cocky anthem for a seasoned queen, but square in line with what Luxx has served on the show all season. She'll need to pull something unexpected out from under that wig of a certain length (still, TBD!) to keep the judges invested. If she doesn't, we'll gladly accept if Drag Race would "let us see" her in a future All Stars season.
Vijat Mohindra Mistress Isabelle Brooks on the 'RuPaul's Drag Race' season 15 cast.
The case for Mistress Isabelle Brooks
Regardless of her placement on Friday's finale, Mistress Isabelle Brooks' run on RuPaul's Drag Race is the stuff of legends, okay? From meddling with the group's collective psyche to the Great Loosey LaDuca Prison Experiment of 2023, Mistress has concocted (or complemented) the biggest dramatic storylines of the season, and she backed it all up with a package of jaw-on-the-floor fashions, hilarious performances in the acting challenges, the best confessional narration of the season (next to Salina EsTitties, of course), and the introduction of at least 12* (*we lost count seven episodes ago) "eras" to textbooks nationwide that are now, frankly, far more important to world history than the Renaissance. Mistress is great TV personified. She orchestrated the overall production just as well as she navigated the challenges on the Main Stage, and kept fans engaged even after the cameras cut. She's also an industry unicorn, with an aesthetic firmly rooted in big, bold, old-school glamour of the South — which is probably why people are so surprised to find out she's only 24 years old, because her polish, poise, and material repertoire respectfully showcase drag of a dying era amid the rise of Instagram queens and TikTok stars. Mistress is doing it for the OGs as much as she's entertaining the children.
While RuPaul clearly loves her, one thing standing in Mistress' way is, unfortunately, the same thing that makes her so appealing. This is TV and we know not all television drama carries over into real life (none of you better send Mistress hate, we mean it), but "producers" like Mistress rarely win Drag Race. Still, season 8 winner Bob the Drag Queen suggested on her Sibling Rivalry podcast that Drag Race as a franchise stands to get more mileage out of Mistress by eliminating her on the finale and bringing her back for a pumped-up run on All Stars, and, even if that's true and the Houston diva sashays away on Friday night, let it be known that MIB is permanently in her Victory Era, whether she has a Drag Race crown or not.
Vijat Mohindra Sasha Colby on the 'RuPaul's Drag Race' season 15 cast.
The case for Sasha Colby
Sasha Colby runs on winner energy. She entered the competition as a multi-hyphenate from the jump, a generation-spanning titan of the drag industry known around the globe for hairography, lip-sync prowess, screen presence on Sasha Velour's Nightgowns series, and as a winner of the internationally esteemed Miss Continental pageant. She even told EW at the top of the season that she had to pause filming the premiere episode because her season 15 sisters treated her Werk Room entrance like the "Sasha Colby meet-and-greet." So, how does one overcome a stigma of excellence in the context of a televised drag competition, where the only direction to go from the peak of one's career is down? You don't. And, well, Sasha didn't. She breezed through Drag Race from episode 1, and amassed four challenge wins by the time the competition wrapped — the most of any season 15 queen — and each was for a performance as iconic as the last, from acting to the ball to a celebrity interview to the fan-favorite RuPaul music video challenge. Sasha dominated all corners of Drag Race, just like she did with her career before boarding the cast.
The only thing working against Sasha isn't entirely her fault: her edit, or lack thereof. The Hawaiian goddess shared a few powerful stories about her life as a trans woman with family trauma, but Sasha hasn't had much of a narrative arc on the show. We've gotten her in full quality when it comes to the challenges, but, from a story perspective, season 15 has been a little light in quantity of Sasha screen time. We also need to consider the status she built up on her own, without the help of the show. As season 14 alum Bosco once tweeted, "Sasha Colby being on Drag Race is like Beyoncé being on American Idol," and she wasn't kidding. Sasha already established a foundation that the show complemented. "I'm your favorite drag queen's favorite drag queen," she memorably said in her Meet the Queens video, and it's a half-joking sentiment that originated before Drag Race, endured through the season, and will sustain with or without the crown. Mama Colby doesn't need Drag Race's validation — she is already the drag standard, while the show might prefer to anoint one of the talents it molded right in front of us, who could benefit from the exposure the title affords, instead of someone whose Drag Race stint is just another feather in a glorious cap she created on her own.
Vijat Mohindra Anetra on the 'RuPaul's Drag Race' season 15 cast.
Projected RuPaul's Drag Race season 15 winner: Anetra
Season 15's goose might be cooked, but this year's resident duck-walking woman is — much like her p---y — about to be permanently burned... into Drag Race her-story. If we consider track record, Anetra's victory isn't unjustified, even if Sasha has one more maxi challenge triumph (and two less bottom placements) than the Vegas showgirl. Historically, that hasn't mattered for Willow Pill (1 win, 2 bottoms vs. Lady Camden's 3 victories) or Yvie Oddly (1 win, 1 bottom vs. Brooke Lynn Hytes' triple-win finish) in the past, and statistics have meant less and less as Drag Race carries on, with each finalist seemingly hitting the finale with a blank slate. That doesn't appear to be the case for Anetra, who's received the clearest storyline arc and edit of the four finalists, beginning with her discussion of family trauma that came to a head in her challenge-winning Rusical performance. Anetra has the emotional fuel bolstering her bid for the crown, and that clearly translated into fan affection as well, seeing as she has the most engagement on her #Team post on the @RuPaulsDragRace Instagram page: 215,000 and counting, followed by Sasha's 180,000, Mistress' 83,000, and Luxx's 71,000. Those numbers differ slightly on Twitter (a platform with a wider, slightly older demographic), as the show's #TeamSasha post received 32,900 likes so far, followed by #TeamAnetra's 18,200, #TeamMistress' 17,400, and #TeamLuxx's 12,000. Those statistics matter to Drag Race. More often than not, the queen leading the show's public voting system ends up winning the season.
But, Anetra's rise isn't a manufactured one. Anetra has broiled, steamed, seared, slapped, and smacked her p---y all over the Main Stage, leaving us all gasping for air as she regularly held her own (and sometimes surpassed) the legendary skills of Sasha — especially when she took the voguing mini challenge win over the pageant icon. She also helped the show launch one of its most-viewed videos of all time, with her epic, top-tier "Boss Bitch" lip-sync against Marcia Marcia Marcia (which Michelle Visage recently revealed to be her favorite Drag Race lip-sync) pushing past 2.2 million views over a month after its debut. The entire season has been structured around building credibility (and storylines) for Anetra's talents to go heel-to-heel against Sasha at the finale. After they both produced fireworks during the LaLaPaRuza, which ultimately went in Sasha's favor, fans are eager for a rematch, which the show would be wise to do for Friday's final lip-sync. And we know Anetra has it in her to give Sasha a hell of a fight to the finish.
Anetra's wisest move of all was immediately branding herself with a catchy, signature move from the get-go, after walking that f---ing duck toward her first maxi challenge win on the January premiere. From episode 1, she built an addictive aesthetic on the back of a single moment, and has since flexed that move in lip-syncs, mini challenges, on social media, on stages around the country, and will continue to do so as she carries the Drag Race torch. In the eyes of the RuPaul Dynasty™, Anetra is no longer a singular entity, she's a brand, she's a mood, and she's a winner, baby. So, it feels like Drag Race might break with tradition like Anetra can snap a board and forego the obvious choice: Mama Ru is ready to crown that f---ing duck!
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