All Stars 6 winner

All Stars 6 crowned the perfect winner after a season that always kept us guessing

Reflecting back on an unexpectedly iconic season where it was anyone’s game


I will never forget the social media reaction to the cast announcement of All Stars 6. Eyes were rolled, laughs were chuckled and groans were, well, groaned. A cast hardly filled with queens you could brand as fan favourites, when the previous season of All Stars had been rammed with the queens fans have been begging to get a crown. There was no clear frontrunner. But that unpredictability and lack of expectation has made All Stars 6 the most enigmatic and iconic season of the franchise in a long time, and the crowning of Kylie Sonique Love as its winner made the pay off even sweeter.

Here’s a look back on what made this season so special.

It was a season of RuDemption

All Stars is always about a second chance, but this time it felt different. There were queens in this cast like Silky Nutmeg Ganache and Eureka that were mostly disliked by a lot of Drag Race fans. There were queens like Scarlet Envy and Ra’jah O’Hara who left early in their season and barely had any fanbase. There were queens from the early days of RuPaul’s Drag Race like Kylie Sonique Love and Yara Sofia, legends to long time viewers but not well known to a lot of younger Drag Race viewers who got on board once the show became such a huge cultural phenomenon. So many people here came with something to prove, but without the mounting pressure of already being a Drag Race powerhouse.

All Stars 6 winner

Did anyone predict the top four we ended up with? No. It was a season of queens you never expected to make it to the top proving exactly why they should be there, and it made for thrilling and satisfying television. Even when your favourite went home, they never truly felt robbed – because the queens advancing had really made their mark.

Silky! Nutmeg! Ganache!

Silky’s dedicated hour of lip sync television should probably win an Emmy award. She was a top four queen from season 11 who didn’t end up well received by the fans. She left early on All Stars 6 and felt like a failure and not a winner. Then she came back for the twist of the game within a game, and in the space of one hour became a beloved Drag Race legend. And that’s what you call a rudemption of the highest order.

The stunts Silky pulled in them lip syncs and the immortal utterance of “Jan, Jan, she’s a man” will live on in Drag Race history for all eternity.

The entirety of the Super Bowl performance, but mostly Trinity K Bonet

Probably the highlight of the entire season for me was seeing the queens absolutely slay the performance challenge of the Super Bowl week. Everyone excelled and played to their strengths, and even the weaker queens didn’t completely bomb if you ask me. But the star, of course, was Trinity K Bonet. With her iconic and mesmerising Beyoncé, she instantly went into the All Stars 6 hall of fame no matter if she ended up the winner of the season or not.

Trinity was a force to be reckoned with on All Stars 6, and I’d have loved to see her in that top four. But it doesn’t matter, because she proved any naysayers wrong who didn’t see her as an icon with her wit, humour, heart and talent. An icon who pushed herself through her insecurities and out of her comfort zone. A great All Stars run.

Ra’Jah O’Hara becoming one of the most loved queens… ever

Ra’Jah was funny on season 11, mostly because she seemed so furious all the time. Her drag just wasn’t really there, and she didn’t seem to be in the right place to compete. With her return to All Stars 6, she had everything to gain. And from that talent show one minute dress, she proved she wasn’t here to fuck about. She was here to create her legacy.

Ra’Jah really brought it in so many ways, but I will remember her the most for how much she made me laugh, how much she made me wow and how many times she stepped on the runway looking so beautiful that I would literally gasp. And that’s before she did her model walk. Who is doing it like her? A legend.

All hail Kylie Sonique Love

I’ve been team Kylie from the moment she said “Ginger Minj, you are shaped like a deep breath” in the first reading challenge. It was a nonsensical read that managed to make perfect sense at the same time. It wasn’t even a fat joke, because Eureka and Silky could not be described as deep breaths, but Ginger Minj just… is? It was genius. Gone was the Sonique of season two – a shy queen who was a great performer but lacked star power and charisma, and here was Kylie Sonique Love. Trans excellence that could serve it up on the runway but never lacked in performance or comedy either.

Kylie’s crowning is historic. She’s the first trans winner of any Ru-fronted season of the franchise. She’s a beacon of light and inspiration to so many trans youth that you can be trans and win RuPaul’s Drag Race, and that trans and cis women have a vitally important place in drag culture and will always deserve to be there and excel. She was a frontrunner, but I never truly believed Ru would crown Kylie. It felt like a win was coming for Ginger or Eureka – queens who’ve excelled so much in Drag Race in the past and have been getting a lot of wins that felt production favoured. But when Ru said Kylie’s name, I felt emotional. She nailed her journey, she deserved her crown and she is unquestionably a superstar. All hail our All Stars 6 winner, and another excellent season.

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