RuPaul's Drag Race is Back, Squirrelfriends
Tuesday, February 2, 2016 at 8:00AM 
The wait is over, chickadees! Rupaul's Drag Race returns for its eighth season on March 7. Also the show is celebrating in centennial fashion: not only has it hit 100 episodes, but now the show has now ushered 100 drag queens to our tv screens
After an underwhelming seventh season that nevertheless brought new fan favorites like Katya, Trixie Mattel, and winner Violet Chachki, our favorite not-so-guilty pleasure is back with a new batch of queens to adore. And the new crew looks promising, from big names like Derrick Barry (the Britney Spears impersonator) to new blood like Naomi Smalls. Expect the hilarious Bob the Drag Queen to give good quote, with Robbie Turner (part of the same Seattle gang as Jinkx Monsoon and BenDeLaCreme) the frontrunner for the all-important Snatch Game.
The brief glimpse so far is already more enticing than the drab presentation Logo gave the contestants last year - hopefully we have a true return to form.
This season's queens, from left to right:
- Dax Exclamationpoint (Savannah, GA)
- Acid Betty (New York, NY)
- Kim Chi (Chicago, IL)
- Thorgy Thor (Brooklyn, NY)
- Naomi Smalls (Redlands, CA)
- Derrick Barry (Las Vegas, NV)
- Robbie Turner (Seattle, WA)
- Cynthia Lee Fontaine (Austin, TX)
- Naysha Lopez (Chicago, IL)
- Laila McQueen (seated) (Gloucester, NH)
- Chi Chi DeVayne (Shreveport, LA)
- Bob the Drag Queen (New York, NY)
Check out the first look below! Has anyone seen any of these gals live?
Reader Comments (14)
Yassssss etc etc.
Team Robbie! As a Seattleite who's seen her perform time and time again, super excited to see her perform on the show and she's such a sweerheart. Her Liza is legendary
Also excited for BTDQ, Thorgy Thor and Kim Chi.
What Rami said.
I've never heard of any of these queens (which is fairly common at this point in the proceedings unless they're from NYC... ) except Acid Betty but i'm not really all that familiar. And I didn't know there was a "Bob the Drag Queen" since they're also "The World Famous BOB" though the latter is a woman who is basically a drag queen. (and awesome)
Kim Chi has some stunning looks on her Instagram. She's the only one I was familiar with
Acid Betty was on an episode of Project Runway!! I love when my queens overlap tv shows :-)
I remember instantly recognizing RAJA when she was Sutan the makeup artist on America's Next Top Model :-)
I'm with Andrew - Robbie is fantastic. I also saw Bob the Drag Queen in LA last year with a bunch of the former Ru girls and she stole the show. Great performer. Also enjoyed Derrick, who I believe is most famous as a Britney impersonator.
Still can't figure out why San Francisco can't get anyone on this show outside of one time.
Why you think Season 7 was poor.I am half way through.
I've watched since season 4, but I've gotten so into Drag Race in the past year that I already knew Kim Chi and Derrick Barry were going to be on the show simply because hardcore fans would mention little things even in non-spoiler zones (and I knew who Derrick was, not Kim Chi haha).
I'm super excited.
The ones I'm most intrigued by thus far (without having seen any videos aside from Bob's interview) and have my eye on for now are...
Kim Chi
Derrick Barry
Bob the Drag Queen
Naomi Smalls
Laila McQueen
hopefully we'll finally get a liza on snatch game
Two episodes into Series 7 (which is underwhelming me, comforting to know that other fans feel the same way) and am bemused that no one seems to like or mention Pearl - she's the first Drag Race contestant to be on the cover of Dazed magazine in the UK. Sharon and Alaska (and now Milk with the Marc Jacobs campaign) have featured previously, though not cover stars.
Anyway, my favourite Series are 3-4 and 6 (with shout-outs to 1 & 2). Didn't much care for 5 (any series where I found myself rooting for Alyssa is a bit worrying).
mark - S7 lacks momementum and is repetitive with the challenges. You really don't get to know the queens and their talents like in previous seasons.
par - Robbie Turner performs Liza on the regular. So I'd expect that to be her Snatch Game go to.
I am excited for this season! This is consistently the most entertaining reality competition show on tv (yes even season 7) I am liking almost all the queens and I communicate with Cynthia Lee fontaine quite regularly on Facebook and she is super sweet and really talented. I like Laila McQueen and Robbie Turner the most but I am also intrigued by Naysha Lopez and Derrick Barry. This season is certainly going to be more competitive than season 7 was and will probably be just as good as season 6 was.
Nice ideas , Just to add my thoughts , if somebody is searching for a service to merge some PDF files , my wife encountered text here
http://goo.gl/azS2uQ