Aja calls “Drag Race All Stars 10” premiere drama ‘light work’ compared to next episodes, reveals life-changing RuPaul advice

Key Points

• All Stars 10 queen Aja explains her fight with Irene the Alien in the RuPaul’s Drag Race Werk Room.

• She also breaks down her turbulent journey to returning to the show.

• Aja says RuPaul previously gave her life-changing advice on the set of All Stars 8.

RuPaul’s Drag Race queen Aja is back for All Stars 10 in more ways than one, with Friday’s premiere proving that she’s not only perfect, beautiful, and looks like Linda Evangelista, but she’s also hitting the Main Stage with her competitive fire fully reignited.

In a post-show interview with Entertainment Weekly, the New York City queen discusses her reaction to returning after a tumultuous period of personal evolution amid three seasons of competition, which also included a pair of Pokémon-inspired runway looks and a dazzling lip-sync against season 15’s Irene the Alien

Aja also dishes on her post-All Stars 3 transformation, that episode 1 Werk Room clash between herself and Irene, and what exactly she meant when she referred to AS10 sister Lydia Butthole Kollins as “Lydia Backdoor Kollins” and “Lydia Backyardigans De La Cruz.”

RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars 10 continues Fridays on Paramount+. Read on for EW’s full interview with Aja after her first challenge win.

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: You hinted at drama with Irene in our group interview, and you fought with her on this episode. Was this fight real or dramatized?

AJA: The world may never know. Bosco was clearly confused as well. I think we were just joking around. One thing I love is a real drag queen, someone you know has been in a lot of dressing rooms, talks a lot of s—, and doesn’t hold back or filter themselves. I had so much fun bantering with Irene. It made me like her, like, you look like a lesbian out of drag and have a nasty mouth. We should be besties!

Do you think the fandom is too sensitive with their reactions to clashes?

If the fandom is too sensitive, they might want to be careful how they tread the rest of the season. That was light work compared to some stuff that happens later. We shall see!

At the top of the season, you posted an emotional statement revealing that you “lost everything.” What did you mean?

I made the decision to stop referring to myself as a drag artist because I had a hard time navigating my gender identity. I needed to see what was a performance and what was really me…. In that process [of discovering I was trans], people spread rumors. People said that Aja hates Drag Race and Aja quit drag to become a rapper. None of that was right. That news spread like wildfire. Next thing, nobody wanted to book me. Everybody had the idea that I was a difficult, bitchy monster. I lost a lot of people in my life. Work dwindled, and I came to a point where I was unable to take care of myself financially. I went days without eating, I couldn’t pay rent, I was almost homeless. It was bad. In the middle of that, All Stars 6 happened, and Kylie Sonique Love won. Something clicked. I could be a trans woman and do drag. That could be me.

News of me starting drag again didn’t spread like wildfire. It spread like cold butter. When I got called to be a lip-sync assassin on All Stars 8, I said yes. I’d said no to being an assassin for other seasons, but there was something RuPaul said to me while I was there. It was so genuine: “No matter what you do, whether you do drag or not, this is your home, and this is where you should be. When the time is right, you’ll be here.” That touched me. I needed to hear it in that moment, and it helped set the tone for what I wanted to do.

Fans also love that you speak up, and before this interview you tweeted, “Nothing makes me lol more than a bitch with no fashion sense trying to talk about my fashion.” Who were you talking about?

You’re so messy and I live. The fans get so carried away, saying stuff. I stumbled across a thread, they were talking about my looks, saying I had no fashion sense, and my looks are bad this season. I go on their page and they’re literally wearing polyester. Everything I brought to All Stars 10 was a direct fashion reference off the runway. I wasn’t playing with anything. I don’t care who likes it or not, it’s about me knowing I came effected, and whether that affected you in a good or bad way is none of my concern. I’m going to let you know: If you’re a tacky bitch and have no fashion sense, that has nothing to do with my fashion sense.

Irene also said in our group interview that you love Anetra now. Is that true?

It’s true. My problem was the fan reaction. The iconic Leiomy Maldonado had mentioned the duck walk. It wasn’t really in my taste, but what upset me is that the fans attacked Leiomy, one of my sisters. I was defending her, and in turn I kind of started snatching up Anetra by accident. She caught a few strays. I acknowledge that the way I went about it was a little ghetto. I spoke to her, I apologized, and she was very gracious. She told me it was okay and understood where I was coming from. That made me feel good, but I felt like an a–hole afterward.

There was a lot of talk of alliances on this episode. Did you know your sister Olivia Lux already made an alliance with DeJa Skye before you proposed Operation MiMu?

I’ve got my compass on 24/7 and my third eye on. I sensed it from miles away. She told me her and DeJa were talking. They’re in cahoots, bitch.

You had a hunch?

I have eyes. I also have good deduction skills. If this was Death Note, I would’ve stopped the murders! But, bitch, this was not Death Note, and nobody was getting murdered. People were being messy with the points. There’s more on that later. It’s MVQs, but it should’ve been MQPs. Messy Queen Points. These girls aren’t giving them to who they think deserves it, they’re giving them to who they like.

You recently called Lydia B Kollins “Lydia Backdoor Kollins” and “Lydia Backyardigans De La Cruz” — which Kori King reposted to her followers. Can you please explain what that meant? Did you hear from Kori?

I didn’t hear from Kori Backyardigans De La Cruz. They’re married, they have the same last name. Lydia is one of the girls that I like…. I have an inside joke with her because her name is Butthole, so I say, “What the f— is going on in that back f—ing door?”

Where did De La Cruz come from?

That’s spicy Lydia, feeling a little Puerto Rican. She has to change her name to Lydia Backyardigans De La Cruz when she’s a spicy girl in that moment.

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