This Week's 'Drag Race' Eliminee Thinks Her Tantrum Was Funny

Brooklyn drag queen Aja hasn't gotten the best edit on this season of RuPaul's Drag Race. After an appearance in the bottom two early in the season, she attacked fan favorite Valentina for her always-positive critiques from the judges; this episode, Aja flipped her wig when she wasn't assigned the part she wanted in the episode's Beverly Hills 90210 parody 9021-Ho. Eventually, the other queens relented and she got to play the part of a bitch, but the judges didn't think she brought the same shady energy she showed other contestants in the work room to the role.

She faced off in the bottom two against Nina Bo'nina Brown in a lip sync of the CeCe Peniston classic "Finally," and they both brought their A game. But sadly it was Aja's time to go, and RuPaul sent her packing. Still, she doesn't have any regrets about her performance and told VICE she's the nicest drag queen around. The editors might beg to differ.

VICE: How do you feel about the temper tantrum you threw over your part in 9021-Ho?
Aja: I haven't seen it yet, but I think it's going to be pretty funny to watch it and be like, Oops.

Do you think that had any affect on you going home?
Of course. I feel like it's part of the challenge itself to take the challenging role. I don't think it's the deciding factor, but it plays into it.

So what would you do differently if you had a chance to do it all over again?
If I were to do the entire show over again, I would just follow my gut instead of overthinking a lot of things. But if I could do that one episode I would have just stayed with the grandma role.

I will say that you and Nina both slayed during the lip sync. That was one of the best I've ever seen. How were you feeling while you were doing it?
I was shook. I was just sitting there like, "I don't know what's going to happen". Part of me was just like, okay, this can go really well and I can just be a lip sync assassin right now and send her home and I will try to fix myself up by the next episode. But then, part of me was also like, this could go really terribly and she could send my ass home, and that's what happened.

I mean, you put up a real good fight though, girl.
I was like, can't we just both stay? I was literally waiting for Ru to go, You know what girl? You can stay too. When she told me to sashay away I was like, Nooo!

I was thinking the same thing! I thought, "She can't go home after this!"
Oh my god, I was gagged. I really was. But everything happens for a reason, and I don't regret anything in that moment or feel like I would change anything about that moment because getting eliminated there and then just helped shape me up to be a better drag queen and person anyways. So I took a lot from that experience.

So now we need to talk about Facetune. You took a lot of heat from some of the girls and the viewers for using Facetune to edit your Instagram pictures. How do you feel about all that criticism?
I don't really care, but honestly, every girl that came at me for using Facetune uses Facetune too. If you're doing drag and you're not using Facetune, then, girl, you're not doing drag. Everyone uses it. It's a common thing that in the drag community, sometimes drag queens want to throw shade or people want to throw shade at drag queens like, "You edit your photos! This is Photoshop!" Like, yeah girl. Some of us are men! We don't have flawless little porcelain skin and tiny noses, you know. We want to have that effect though. Honestly, the only reason I Facetune my photos is cause I have burns on my face. If I didn't have burns, I wouldn't really do it. And I don't even Facetune my photos that much.

Have you changed the way you do your makeup after seeing it on television?
I changed my makeup on the show, I changed my makeup right after the show, my makeup is still changing. I think it's just one of those important things of being a dynamic artist, that there's always room for improvement and to grow. Nowadays, I really love where my makeup has gone and I still think it can be better. I think that applies to everybody. I don't think there's such a thing as a drag queen with flawless makeup. Every time you accomplish your face, just realize that a new trend is going to come out right after and you're going to want to try it out. Sometimes you just get bored and you're doing your thing. I think my makeup has changed a lot and it's going to continue to change.

You were giving some shade to Valentina early on in the season because the judges thought she was perfect. How do you feel about her now?
I love her. I think that she's one of the craziest people I have ever met, in a good way. She's really kooky, and my thing was just that I didn't really understand where the judges were coming from at that time, because I thought before Drag Race, I didn't really get the whole being fishy and pretty thing. I just didn't care about that type of stuff. My goal in drag before Drag Race wasn't really to look like a woman. I was just kind of Janice from the Muppets of drag. I wasn't necessarily mad or bitter about her being praised for being pretty, I just didn't get it. After kind of going through those moments and finding that beauty in myself, I get it more now. I'm not saying that drag that's not fishy is lesser, but it does create a cleaner look. Especially after looking at how I looked on that episode on TV. I was like, Shit.

So who do you think is going to take it all the way to the end?
I have no clue to be honest. It could be anybody, it could have been anybody on our season because our season collectively made up one of the most talented casts I've ever seen on Drag Race. Every time we were about to hit that runway, I just thought, "Damn, everyone looks good." These fans will read a bitch for anything. As a fellow drag queen, I thought everyone on the show looked consistently great.

That was the least shady thing I've ever heard a drag queen say, and now you need to say something shady.
You have to give me more than that. Who should I be shady about?

Say something shady about Michelle Visage.
I actually like her! I'm like the friendliest drag queen you've ever met.

Interview has been condensed and edited. Follow Brian Moylan on Twitter.