Coco Jumbo says Drag Race Down Under lost footage of her and had to re-film three times
She had to return to redo the runway, judges’ critiques AND lip sync
Coco Jumbo, from season one of RuPaul’s Drag Race Down Under. has addressed the rumours that she had to reshoot her lip sync against Art Simone three times on a podcast appearance – confirming that the reshoots happened and that that wasn’t the only thing she had to come back and refilm.
Coco Jumbo says that not only did she have to redo the lip sync, she had to come back and walk the runway again and have to recite word for word her replies to judges’ critiques.
Appearing on the podcast Drag Tea Served With Matt, where the host asks Coco about the rumour that production lost the footage and that she had to come back and redo. Coco said: “Yeah we did have to redo it. They messaged me saying they lost the audio and that we had to re-film the whole thing together. They sent me a photo of my look and my outfit, got ready at five in the morning.
“I just thought it was the lip sync, but we had to walk the runway again, stand in a line and the producer was sat at the judges’ table saying everything the judges had said and if we said anything back they’d say ‘Okay this is what you said, say it again.’ It ended up being really long.
“We then had to do the lip sync a couple of times, but of course I knew that I had won so I wasn’t giving it 110 per cent like I did on the first one and then they were like ‘Coco, we need more energy.’ Because we’d done it a couple of times, on the last one I walked off and I went ‘Soz, bitch’ and kept on walking and then they kept that in! The lip sync you saw was our third time, us listening to the judges was our second time of doing it.”
Coco is then asked how she felt about Art’s controversial return to the competition – where after Coco had eliminated her, a few episodes later she returned to the competition for no apparent reason (ie, she didn’t have to win her place back) and then made it to the top four. Coco tweeted “Give the white girl another go, she deserves it.”
Coco said: “I was a little bit butt-hurt, of course. In my life as a person of colour, all I have ever seen is white people getting ahead easier, and it’s just the way things are and have been. Watching her get a second chance with no reason I was just like, alright, if that’s the way you want to play it.”
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