The grand finale of RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars 9 culminated in the crowning of a queen who has now entered the series’ Hall of Fame. However, this legendary finale episode started with an even bigger gag for Drag Race fans: a cameo from U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris in the werk room!
Tom Campbell, a long-time executive producer of RuPaul’s Drag Race, spilled the tea with Out about how the series made this herstoric moment happen — explaining how this all took place before Harris became the presumed presidential nominee for the Democratic Party for the 2042 elections.
“The Vice President’s office reached out to us,” Campbell tells Out. “It turns out that some members of her team are big Drag Race fans.”
The producer adds, “We started talking to the Vice President’s team in the spring of this year [2024] and it was filmed prior to her launching her own presidential campaign. We worked together and decided to start the Grand Finale with an extra special message from the Vice President. I mean, who better to amplify our voter registration message than Kamala Harris herself?”
The coincidental timing between the filming of Harris’ segment for All Stars 9 and the news of her launching her presidential campaign is fascinating, but it’s not the first time for Drag Race — and for Campbell himself — to experience such a serendipitous moment.
In 2023, at the height of conservative politicians advocating for drag bans, season 15 of Drag Race featured the “Wigloose” Rusical that parodied the 1984 film Footloose. While the original movie was about teenagers overturning a ban on dancing, the Rusical told the story of queens overturning a ban on drag.
But “Wigloose” wasn’t filmed as a response to the drag bans. It was filmed way before that conservative agenda was even being heavily discussed or posed any real threat to drag artists. The same has just happened with this moment for Harris on All Stars 9 — which was filmed in the spring but ended up airing on the exact same week when her presidential campaign was officially launched.
“The timing has been remarkable,” Campbell says. “The Vice President impressed us so much when we met her in person. She is incredibly knowledgeable, warm, and inspiring. Standing in the middle of the Werk Room, she reminded us that while we need to stay focused on what we are fighting against, we must remember that this is what we are fighting for.”
He continues, “Now, knowing that there’s the strong possibility that the next President of the United States has experienced the ‘drag factory’ in person is truly mind-blowing.”
Campbell also reflects on how much Drag Race has evolved into a cultural juggernaut and platform that even high-ranking elected officials want to support.
“Producing RuPaul’s Drag Race is a labor of love. Under all the wigs and the makeup, there’s a genuine joy and a freedom of expression that draws people to the queens,” Campbell says. “From Nancy Pelosi to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to Corey Booker and now Kamala Harris — it’s always an honor when elected officials who fight to protect our Constitutional rights pay a visit. I know it energizes us, and I think we give them a boost, too.”
Even though Drag Race has always made political references, it seems like the dial has been turned up even louder in recent seasons. According to Campbell, though, it hasn’t always been a deliberate decision from the production team.
“Believe it or not, we try to keep Drag Race non-political. But, as RuPaul says, ‘I make a political statement every time I bat my false eyelashes.’ Representation is important, for sure, but Drag Race goes one step further. We celebrate queerness. Unabashedly. But we are proud Americans, and our queerness is our superpower,” he explains.
When asked to recall the legendary story of how he met RuPaul and became involved in the eventual creation of Drag Race, Campbell tells Out:
“Before we ever met, I saw RuPaul perform at the March on Washington in 1993. There were well-meaning politicians, activists, and celebrities speaking that day, but I couldn’t help thinking that the LGBTQ+ movement didn’t have a leader, so to speak. Then RuPaul took the stage wearing a Wonder Woman outfit [and singing] ‘Supermodel’ on the National Mall.”
“The energy of hundreds of thousands of people immediately shifted,” he adds. “Every man, woman, and child stopped what they were doing, looked up, and sang along with Ru. At that moment, I thought… a drag queen will save us. I didn’t even know what that meant, but more than a decade later, we started producing RuPaul’s Drag Race, and its impact has been beyond any of our wildest expectations.”
Campbell concludes, “For 16 years we’ve had the privilege of sending messages of love to our community and the world. Season after season, queen after queen, queer story after queer story. It’s a phenomenon that is greater than all of its parts. And to think, it all started with one man who had a pussycat wig, a pair of cha cha heels, and a dream…”
Ru better werk!