'Drag Race UK's' Le Fil Felt 'Disheartened' By Judges Amid Snatch Game Exit

Snatch Game can either make or break a queen on RuPaul's Drag Race, and for Le Fil it proved to be the challenge that led to his exit from Season 4 of the U.K. edition of the program.

While Le Fil speaks fondly of his time on the show, he reflected on feeling "disheartened" by some of the criticism he received from the judges for things that felt like they wouldn't have been picked up on in previous seasons.

'RuPaul's Drag Race UK' Star Le Fil Felt 'Disheartened' Amid Snatch Game Exit

Le Fil explained how challenges like the Girl Group challenge or the Rusical, an amalgamation of RuPaul's name and musical, felt like they would be ones he'd succeed in, but ended up not panning out how he wanted.

In the Rusical, for example, Le Fil portrayed Mary Poppins in a parody musical, but even though he had the title role and gave it his all he felt the critiques were "harsh" compared to previous seasons.

"I love that people on this show come from such different viewpoints and from different types of drag. I don't even think of myself as a traditional drag queen, I still use he/him/they pronouns when I'm in full glam, I'm all about finding new ways of representing masculinity, gender expression, and twisting some of the things on their head," Le Fil shared.

"And, so, I always like to think out of the box, that's my avenue, and when I went on there was specific challenges that I love to do, the music challenge, as a musician I loved the girl band challenge and stuff like that. They were my forte.

"What was hard was things that I love doing and then getting critiques for things which I didn't fully understand [...] and seeing that other people didn't get as harsh critiques as I did for things which might have slipped up on previous seasons.

"So I think that I started to feel a bit disheartened, especially after the Rusical episode where I really tried to knock every[thing out the park], every second that I was on stage I made sure it was stellar, because based on the week before, I was like, I cannot give them any footage that is going to be bad.

"I made sure to give a great performance and then still to be like put in the bottom for some of the judgments which I didn't really get, I was a bit disheartened by it, but it's been really nice then coming out and actually seeing the response on social media from fans going 'oh no we see that too' because I was thinking I was being delusional!"

Won't Be 'Sidelined'

One remark that was made in an earlier episode was a joke that Le Fil was "fading into the background," and this has made the drag queen even more adamant that he wouldn't let himself be "sidelined" any longer.

"I'm not quiet as you can see, but I'm quite humble, I try not to talk over people and I'm very like, WWKD which is 'what would Kylie do?' Kylie Minogue," Le Fil said. "So a lot of times I'll just let people talk because people keep interrupting me and are like talking over me, so it's not 'I'm fading into the background,' you keep standing in front of me."

"So by the time the Rusical came around I was like I'm tired of being assigned a side character to someone else.

"I felt sidelined a bit, in general not from my castmates or anything, but just as a general thing, as an Asian person in culture, being cast in different things. I was like,' I'm tired of being assigned a side role, I want the lead, like I've deserve the lead.' I've got the skills to do it so let me have my moment!

"That was sort of my sort of statement in a way, that feeling of 'absolutely not. Out my way, stop stepping in my light.'"

On Playing Marie Kondo in Snatch Game

Unfortunately for Le Fil, the Snatch Game proved too much as his impersonation of Japanese cleaning expert Marie Kondo failed to garner many laughs from RuPaul and guest judges Strictly Come Dancing co-host Tess Daley and contestant AJ Odudu.

Le Fil did have Victoria Beckham as a back-up character to play on the game show, which is a parody of the Match Game, however because Spice Girls star Mel B was going to be on the show he felt it wouldn't have been a good choice.

"I'd love performing as Posh [Spice], until I found out Mel B was judging and I was like, 'Oh, I can't do it in front of her, she's her best friend," Le Fil reflected. "Literally she knows her to a T so if I get anything wrong that'll be picked up. And then, also, I wanted to represent an Asian character, there's very few Asian figures in the media and popular culture and it was very hard to try and find someone to do that would translate in Snatch Game.

"Marie Kondo was the one I thought I could go for and try different things out, but what I didn't anticipate was the fact that it was going to be Strictly Come Dancing themed, like how does the world of tidying meet the world of Cha Cha? The Venn Diagram does not exist. So it definitely was a challenge."

Le Fil added: "I definitely like to spark joy and so that resonated with me, that's the whole thing I want the representation there. Like, every Snatch Game an Asian person that's left, this is wild, this is crazy. So I was like I definitely want Asian representation in that episode."

Reflecting on how difficult it was to make RuPaul laugh during the Snatch Game, Le Fil said it simply came down to them having different senses of humor.

"She has a very specific sense of humour, mine is a bit more quirky, off-beat, and not the same essentially. So it's about a case of translating," Le Fil said.

"If Ru didn't get it then that's fine, Ru is the boss, Ru is the big boss. So I'm like 'oh well I didn't do my job well, but never mind.' [...] As long as we have fun that's all we can do. No regrets."

Challenging Gender Norms

Le Fil is now focusing on the future, on projects like his new album "Le Filosophical" but he is grateful for having the chance to challenge gender norms on the show by using he/him/they pronouns in and out of drag, and he hopes to continue to do so in the future.

"There's not one way at all to do drag and I think that was what was so beautiful about this season's casting, was that we all have such different viewpoints about things. And to me it has always been about reinventing what it means to be a man or gender expression," Le Fil said of how he could represent himself truthfully on the show.

"I think like if we maintain a certain stereotype then by default the other ones are maintained and I think the sooner you can smash them that's the time when you can have equality and have daily experiences that aren't c*** and rubbish.

"The amount of times I've been physically stopped going into toilets and stuff even when I'm just in my day to day clothes, like what gives you the right? You need to reframe what you think is your idea of gender, your archaic views of gender.

"So to bring us on and be able to talk about stuff like that, for me to be able to share my experiences as well, it's really good. I think with each season there's gonna be like different types of casts which is great because the LGBTQ+ community is so diverse. [There's] so much show and I think there's enough people to propel Drag Race forward even more."

RuPaul's Drag Race UK airs every Thursday at 1 p.m. PT / 4 p.m. ET in the U.S. and in select territories exclusively on WOW Presents Plus, on the same day as its local airing on BBC3 in the U.K.