We’re being drip-fed deets about Graham Norton’s new reality drag singing competition, Queen of the Universe, but finally, a trailer has landed revealing some familiar faces among the lineup.
Fourteen queens including Drag Race and All Stars’ Jujubee, American Idol’s Ada Vox and The X-Factor’s Gingzilla, will compete with live vocals (“There will be no lip-syncing!” Graham Norton tell us in the trailer) for a cash prize of $250,000. Also competing from the Drag Race family will be Leona Winter, who won the second season of the Chilean reality show, The Switch Drag Race.
“This is it!” Norton proclaims. “The first all-drag, all-singing competition that is truly out of this world.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gmXQlnty7U4
Brought to us by the producers of RuPaul’s Drag Race and executive producer RuPaul himself, this Paramount+ original will showcase fourteen singing queens representing ten countries including the US, Mexico, Brazil, Denmark, Australia, Canada, England, France, China and India.
Each episode will see the talented drag artists debuting original musical performances in front of a live audience and a “pop diva panel”, as declared by Norton. The panel, which will determine who is eliminated at the end of each episode, is composed of Drag Race judge and Seduction singer, Michelle Visage; Drag Race contestant and All Stars 3 winner with three folk-pop albums to her name, Trixie Mattel; X-Factor winner and pop singer, Leona Lewis, and recording artist and RuPaul’s Secret Celebrity Drag Race contestant, Vanessa Williams.
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“It’s a singing competition first, it’s a drag competition second,” Michelle Visage said to Entertainment Weekly. “What you think you know is going to be out the door because, yes, it’s singing, but it’s definitely different.”
“It’s a global aspect that we’ve never seen before, and it’s a singing competition,” said Vanessa Williams. “No one is lip-syncing, they’re all singing their own tunes. We’ll be judging them not only on the quality of their talent and musicianship but also their star quality.”
Queen of the Universe streams on December 2, 2021, but you can watch the trailer above to get your drag fix until then.
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