When IndieWire sat down with “RuPaul’s Drag Race” winner Onya Nurve and first runner-up Jewels Sparkles after that dazzling Season 17 finale this spring, we held our interview until after the 2025 Emmy nominees got announced. We were confident the five-time Outstanding Reality Competition winner would have another chance at more Emmys, and we were right! So, we’re running the conversation now.
But just because anyone who follows the unscripted category — which also includes “Survivor,” “The Traitors,” “The Amazing Race,” and “Top Chef” — had the MTV show’s nomination on their radar, that doesn’t mean the ongoing success of “Drag Race” isn’t real news. Since 2009, the legendary variety competition show hosted by RuPaul has put the formerly fringe art of drag on pop culture’s main stage. Audiences have spent not just hours and weeks but years asking, “Who will be America’s next drag super star?” And, for a select contingent, the obvious follow-up, “Is it me?”
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With more than a dozen spinoff series, many of them international, “Drag Race” remains an essential platform for LGBTQ+ artists and the adoring fans who worship them. Politicians are splitting hairs by trying to protect the human rights of gay, lesbian, and bisexual Americans while our trans and nonbinary brothers, sisters, and siblings continue to suffer. If you’ve ever been to Hamburger Mary’s — or you know how to “Sissy That Walk” — then the judges’ table on “Drag Race” remains a vital symbol of lost justice.
The show has 79 Emmy nominations and 29 wins to date. It’s produced hundreds of world-class performers, from Trixie Mattel and Bob the Drag Queen to Sasha Colby and Bianca del Rio. Sitting down with IndieWire, smack in the middle of their getting ready process for World of Wonder’s FYC Pride Event on June 6 in Los Angeles, California, Season 17 queens Onya Nurve and Jewels Sparkles said the key to harnessing that legacy was still having fun. Read on for more gracious insights, messy takes, and the secret to making a winning audition tape from the reigning queen and her glittery right-hand.
The following interview has been edited and condensed for length and clarity.
IndieWire: Have you been doing the entire promo tour together? Are you crazy bonded at this point?
Jewels Sparkles: Yeah! We’re lucky to get to do a lot of stuff together. Onya is someone who is so chill and it never feels like you have to be “on” all the time around her. There’s some people that you have to be “on” now 24/7 — but when it’s us two, we can just chill and relax.
So, it’s been chill.
Onya Nurve: No! [Laughter.] Chill internally. But it’s actually been really crazy since the finale. It’s been nonstop place after place with very little sleep. But honestly, I’m hella grateful. It’s a lot of work, but we signed up for this, so we’ve got to be happy and humble and gracious.
Sparkles: We’re living the dream. I would’ve never expected as a little baby queen — well, actually, I probably would have expected this — but other little baby queens doing local talent nights just cannot imagine doing this. I would’ve never thought that two years I would be here with you and Onya, and now I’m headlining tours. We’re going to Australia together, and we’re going to South America. We have major stages and I used to be fighting for dollar bills at gigs in my hometown. Everything’s changed, which is the craziest thing, and I’m having a blast now.
We’re 17 seasons into “Drag Race,” but if you were introducing someone to the show now, how would you explain the scope of it to them?
Nurve: Well, I would say that if they didn’t know what drag was at all — and those people are still out there! — I would say that it is a bunch of the people that come on a show and dress up in masculine and feminine ways, however they want. But the main focus of the show is a competition to overcome challenges and see how you overcome those challenges and wait to see who gets to the end of the race.
Sparkles: I always tell people it’s like the gay Super Bowl. It’s one of the few television shows that really celebrates everything that it is to be queer — the good parts, the artistic parts, the messy parts, the real parts. There’s not a lot of shows that really celebrate all aspects of queer humanity like that.
I am not exactly a sports girl, but does Super Bowl undersell it a bit because of that global community? Do any of us know nothing about the World Cup?
Nurve: [Laughter.] Honestly, it’s closer to the Olympics.
Sparkles: Or the gay Hunger Games. [Laughter.] You pick your favorites. You cry when someone goes home. 14 girls go in but only one comes out!
Walk me through your respective journeys, starting in your hometowns in Ohio and Florida and then taking us to this worldwide moment. What was your favorite memory from the start of Season 17 or before you began production?
Nurve: Finding out has to be the best part because you put so much work into those audition tapes, not knowing if you’re going to even get a call. And then even after the call, there’s so much work to get that final call. I think that first call was the biggest moment for me because they even tell you that you’re not on the show yet. But the fact that they called me, they said they saw my video, and they said, “Congratulations!” that was enough for me to feel so proud of myself. Whether I would’ve gotten on the show or not, that call would’ve propelled me to do it again and again.
Sparkles: Truly, with the tape itself, everyone tells you, ‘Oh, my God, the ‘Drag Race’ audition tape requirements are crazy.’ But it was my first time doing it, so I was really like, ‘Holy shit, this is a lot of work.’ It’s basically a whole season of drag. You have to show 20 outfits. You have to film an entire interview portion — on your own! You have to do a talent number.
How do you interview yourself?
Nurve: They assign you these 20 questions.
Sparkles: And you have to answer them in five minutes.
Nurve: “What’s your drag name? How’d you get your drag name? What’s your least favorite type of drag queen?” There’s a bunch of questions and then you have to do a written and video portion.
What’s your least favorite type of drag queen? That’s a hard question.
Sparkles: Oh, they’re getting messy. But that’s an easy question, babe. [Laughter.]
Tell me.
Sparkles: My least favorite type of drag queen is someone who takes themselves way too seriously and forgets to have fun when we’re doing all of this. If you’re not having fun, why are you doing it? The last thing I want is to be in the dressing room with someone who’s stressed and overwhelmed and taking it too seriously. It’s not going to be perfect, bitch. Let it go. That’s so annoying. It takes the fun out of it — and if you can’t handle it, it’s not for you. Go home.
Nurve: That is a really good point. Exactly. Because before we got on this platform, we were just having fun and I hate that people expect us to not continue to have fun just because we’re on ‘Drag Race.’ We’re young, we’re still having fun. It’s still a silly thing for us to be doing, even if we’re on a TV show. We take it seriously because it’s our job, but we remember the fun.
Sparkles: How can you not have fun when you’re dressing up in outfits that you picked and you designed, and hairstyles that you picked, and putting on the makeup you want to wear? You literally get to transform yourself into the ultimate diva of your dreams. How are you not enjoying that? And if you’re not enjoying that, babe, go live your barista fantasy or something.
Nurve: No shade to the baristas out there. Us drag queens could not be you. You keep us alive.
Do you feel like you were having fun in your audition tape? Is that why you got picked?
Nurve: Absolutely! I was definitely having fun. I remember when the tape was finished and I saw the first draft, I was like, “Damn, I got a good chance of getting on this show because this tape is tea!” I was really proud of my tape and it was a lot of work. To even see a finished product, it was almost like a 20-minute reel of yourself.
Turns you into something of an indie filmmaker.
Sparkles: Totally. You get to direct. And these are both of our first “Drag Race” audition tapes. There’s some sort of blissful ignorance there. We didn’t take it too seriously. It was our first time. We had nothing to lose. We were just trying out auditioning and I feel like the more that people audition, they can start to pick themselves apart and get a little too picky with what they decide to put in — and it becomes this perfectionist thing. We were lucky it was our first time doing it, because we were like, “OK, girl! Let’s throw it all in the kitchen sink and see what happens.” We didn’t have the mental thing of like, “Oh, my God, last year what didn’t they like?” “Oh, my God, I have to change this but what do I do?” We just had fun and I believe that got us in.
There’s so much to dig into throughout Season 17, and I’ve loved seeing you two paired for all of this press — Onya as the winner, and Jewels filling this sort of narrator role that see get naturally selected by the editors of reality TV. What can you tell me about that dynamic, and how your versions of events have shaped the show?
Sparkles: Season 17 was so much. There’s just so much that’s happened. There were so many battles to overcome, both challenge wise and sister wise. [Laughter.] So much happened.
Nurve: There were so many interesting personalities. I mean, y’all saw what happened. When we would film what we filmed and then go through the things that we went through, sitting down with professionals it was so easy to tell that story. There is so much substance there.
Sparkles: And personally, for me, it’s very rooted in Latino culture to be able to talk shit. It’s very rooted in our culture to be like, “Oh, my God, did you see what she did last night? Did you see who she was out with last night?” It’s just so embedded into who we are as people. You put me on TV? Me being a gay Latino crossdresser and all this is happening at the same time? Ask me the questions now, girl.
You sparkle!
Sparkles: You’re cute. [Laughter.]
When were you having the most fun during production?
Nurve: Honestly, on Sundays when we weren’t filming, I was having a good time because it’s so much work. Monday through Saturday, it’s nonstop. You go 12 to 14 hours a day, and it’s a lot. So, I really enjoyed the day that I didn’t have to get in drag. I could just lay in bed and listen to my little MP3 player or whatever. But on the show, I feel like I had the most fun doing [Outstanding Unstructured Reality Program nominee] “Untucked.” “Untucked” was a blast because it was the last part of the day and there was no pressure. As far challenges, “Snatch Game” was really fun, of course. It was more work than play, but there were some nice play moments.
Sparkles: Some of the most fun moments for me were rehearsing production numbers. I loved the Rusical so much. I had so much fun with the Rusical. I had so much fun any time we were going to choreograph something and then put it on stage. My thought process behind every time we did that was, “When’s the next time I’m going to have this much production value? When am I going to have these lights and backup dancers and a song written just for me and the cameras in my face? When’s the next time I’m going to have this?” I was never sure, so I just kept enjoying it. You’re really living your pop star fantasy doing that. You are.
You’re performers as much as craftspeople. Is there a moment that you’re the most proud, feeling like, “I planned for that for weeks, and I engineered it exactly the way I wanted” and you pulled it off?
Sparkles: The final numbers.
Nurve: Definitely.
Sparkles: For the finale, we got to do one minute and 30 seconds of whatever we wanted to do. You send them song inspirations, like, “OK, I love this song. I love this song. I love this song. I would love my lyrics to be something like this.” Then, two weeks later, you get a track and we pretty much go to set and the choreographer, Jamal Sims, is like, “OK, and what do you want to do?” And we give them the idea and then they put it together. It comes from us, you know what I mean? That vision comes from us and getting to do that whole process was so incredible. It’s us at our core.
What were your inspirations?
Sparkles: Oh, my god, yes. So, for my number, I was inspired by an old Goldie Hawn variety show moment. Sabrina Carpenter also referenced it at the Grammys. I really was inspired by doing something campy like that — because for my number, I wanted it to show that no matter what happens, no matter what goes wrong, you can still come out on top. And that I felt was the perfect representation of it. Things are going wrong. I’m running into backup dancers. Things are falling off. All these things are going to happen and they’re going to go wrong, but you can still come out victorious no matter what. That was my journey on the show, and that’s my journey in life. I’ve always had crazy things happen. The universe has tested me with so many obstacles, but they’ve only ever propelled me to better.
How about you, Onya?
Nurve: We had so much control over what we were doing on the show and for me, I sent them some of my favorite artists and it was just really cool to see what they came up with. I was very chill in the process. I was like, as long as it gives my vibe — which is like rap meets Barbara Streisand — as long as it was those vibes, I was totally OK with it. My whole focus was just making sure my outfits turned out right, and I was going to perform whatever they gave me. It was one of the most fun times on the show, even at the end.
Given your backgrounds in the pageant world, do you have any favorite beauty queen competition movies? Or favorite visual film references?
Nurve: “Miss Congeniality.” 100 percent. With Sandra Bullock. Whenever I think pageant movie, I always think of that.
Sparkles: It’s not a pageant movie that inspired me visually, but the “Valley of the Dolls” is a movie that’s inspired so much of my drag. That’s why it’s all ’60s, big hair, very delicate, babydoll aesthetics, kind of clueless. I love that pageantry. To me, anytime a woman goes and overdramatizes everything about herself — and in that movie, just her in her bedroom, please — that’s a woman.
I’m always so taken with the reaction to the finale crowning because it’s filmed before the winner is actually announced, and I just loved the way that you screamed, Onya. How do you prepare to perform a moment like that? When you don’t know if the reaction will be used?
Nurve: Aw, thank you. When my name was called, there was just this moment of relief. Whether I won the crown or not, it was all over at that point. I just felt like there was a weight off my shoulders, and this needed rest for all of us. That’s what that wailing really was, like, “Oh, fucking finally.”
There are a lot of emotions in that moment. What did you make of the final decision, Jewels?
Sparkles: Oh, the right person was absolutely crowned. She did the best in the season, you know what I mean? I was lucky to be up there next to her. It was an honor to be up there next to her. I remember going into it, I was like, “Whatever happens, the right person will be crowned. Whoever this is meant for it is meant for.” I’m someone who very much believes in the universe and if something is meant for you, it’ll be yours. And if it’s not for you, it’s not going to be fucking for you — no matter how much it hurts or whatever. So, I went into it with that mentality. If it’s for me, it’s going to be for me. And if it’s not, it’s not and I’m happy.
What’s been your favorite moment from the show since the season aired?
Nurve: This is a random one, but Suzie Toot’s outfit in the finale, with the claws and the arms, I still think about that outfit all the time. When I’m asleep, I dream about it. It was top-tier drag and I just loved it. I love seeing things like that on TV. So, to see it on in-person, it was insane.
Sparkles: My favorite moment was honestly when we walked in and our lives completely changed after that. I watched that moment back and I see the person who was walking into the work room and that’s such a different person to who I am now, but I see the wonder in her eyes. She’s just so excited. She has no idea what’s about to happen. She has no idea what her life is about to become. But it’s very sentimental to look back at how nervous I was, how scared I was, how clueless I was. It’s really beautiful.
Ahead of the Emmys, I keep thinking about past contestants who have said the real race starts after “Drag Race” — that the platform you get will only take you as far as you want to go. Is that true?
Sparkles: Absolutely. There’s so much pressure right now. The show’s over and we don’t have the weekly runways, but that’s what we were using to promote ourselves on social media. Drag queens don’t get new outfits every week. Outfits are so expensive. We spend so much money to do “Drag Race” and while the show is airing, we have all this content. We are posting at least one look a week — our runways every week, our challenges every week. It is just so easy, but then it’s over and it’s up to us to stay engaged. It’s definitely harder than I thought, especially when you’re on the road three or four days a week. It’s definitely a balance that I’m still learning to play with and teeter on. It’s hard. Some girls, like Kori King, are doing it. Kori is someone who is touring four days of the week but is still coming up with so much fresh content every single day. Like, geez girl, she’s at top of the race right now. It fully does start when the season ends because it’s about who is going to keep people’s attention.
Nurve: I’m finding my own lane and my own journey. I feel like drag has come to a place where there’s not only one thing that we can do. We’re singers, we’re dancers, we’re actors, we’re producers, we’re makeup artists. We’re so many different things. So I feel like after the show is when you finally can ask yourself, “Besides drag, what is my dream?” You have to ask yourself those questions because that’s the race that’s starting, following those dreams that aren’t “Drag Race” because you already have that.
What dream are you chasing now?
Nurve: Girl, I want to be on Broadway. I want to get a Tony. I want to get a Tony and then be on “Abbott Elementary.” Ask me about my dreams all day. I will tell you.
Quinta Brunson reads IndieWire. Who knows? Maybe we can get you guys snuggling at the Emmys.
Nurve: Yes, you go ahead and put her in touch with my team. [Laughter.]
How about you, Jewels?
Sparkles: I really want to go into the fashion world.
Nurve: Yes, yes, yes. [Clapping.]
Sparkles: I want to get into all of the big fashion houses and get up on that runway. I am so passionate about runway, and I would love to do that at the highest level. I’d like to more TV stuff. I loved “Drag Race,” so anytime I’m in consideration for that stuff, I’ll be excited.
Are there are other reality TV worlds you want to explore?
Nurve: “Survivor.”
Sparkles: Bitch, I could not.
Nurve: Seriously! “Survivor.” I would do “Survivor” in a second — not as Onya, but as Justin. I’m such a fan of that show. When I started watching “Drag Race,” I also started watching “Survivor,” and they’ve lived in my head alongside each other for years. So, Jeff Probst, call me. I would love to do it.
They just announced Mike White was heading back to “Survivor,” didn’t they?
Sparkles: Oh, my God, I want to do “The White Lotus!” I want to do “The White Lotus” so bad.
Nurve: You would be so good on that show!
Sparkles: That’s a real dream come true. If they write a role that’s like a drag queen working at a hotel, I would love to do that.
What country are you taking us to?
Sparkles: Let’s do a Latino country, bitch! Let’s go to Mexico. Or Puerto Rico! That would be so fierce.
Is there anything you want to add about “Drag Race” or your time on Season 17?
Nurve: I just want to say that this has been a huge accomplishment for all of us entertainers and I just encourage everyone to continue to follow their dreams. This is one path of many and I encourage all entertainers that are doing anything remotely close to what we’re doing to be smart. Follow your dreams, do your research, and one day they might come true.
Sparkles: Have fun in your audition tape. [Laughter.] If it’s not fun, don’t do it.
