“RuPaul’s Drag Race” is an Emmy-award winning series on MTV that pits drag queens from around the country against one another to become “America’s next drag superstar.” The cultural phenomenon is in its 15th season.
Previous to this season, there has never been a drag contestant from Connecticut. This season there are three: Amethyst is from West Hartford, Robin Fierce lives in Hartford and Loosey LaDuca hails from Ansonia (another contestant, Jax, is from Queens, New York, but was born in Connecticut).
Speaking on Connecticut Public’s “Where We Live,” LaDuca says she gets frustrated when people assume there isn’t much of a drag scene in Connecticut.
“What’s amazing about the Connecticut drag community is that it’s huge and thriving,” LaDuca said. “There are new drag performers every single week. The Connecticut drag scene is very eclectic. You can see every type of performer within our tiny little state, and I encourage everyone to do their own research and find shows because there are shows every single weekend.”
LaDuca has impressed the judges this season so far with her impersonations of Dolly Parton and Joan Rivers. She said throughout the run of the show, which taped last summer, she dealt with the pressure by keeping to the mantra “kindness is my armor."
“If I remained kind through the entire competition, it helped me to know that no matter what I see on TV, I can stand behind it, and I know ego didn’t get in the way,” LaDuca said. “I made all of my decisions based on that.”
LaDuca said one of the most rewarding aspects of being on the show is hearing from so many people who watch it.
“That’s really incredibly special to me, because I went in with the mentality of being extremely open, and I’ve gotten messages from people in so many different countries saying that they identify with me, and that makes me feel so good,” LaDuca said.
On last Friday’s episode of "RuPaul’s Drag Race," West Hartford drag queen Amethyst was eliminated from the competition. Loosey LaDuca and Robin Fierce are still in the running.
