Drag Race Down Under Episode Four: Minnie Cooper And The Snatched Defeat
Image: Minnie Cooper. Image: Supplied
We are officially halfway to the finale of RuPaul’s Drag Race Down Under Season 2.
In episode four, it was time for Snatch Game, followed by the clown-themed runway, Cirque du SoGay.
The three queens that struggled the most in the Snatch Game: Minnie Cooper (Ellen Degeneres), Beverly Kills (Val Garland), and Molly Poppinz (Orville Peck).
SPOILER ALERT
This week, Sydney drag legend Minnie Cooper was sent home. The Snatch Game sin that sent her into elimination and ended her drag race journey: Not Being Funny.
The critique from the judges were direct. Michelle Visage said, “I loved when you were funny and in the snatch game you weren’t funny.”
Speaking about Minnie’s Snatch Game performance, RuPaul said, “I kind of dreaded every time I had to go to her. Loved her outfit on the runway though.”
Minnie admitted, “I just felt like I was drowning. I wasn’t in it and I know that.”
Talking to Star Observer about her time on the show, Minnie said, “It was so many great things and so tough on the other end. The mental side of it was a real struggle for me. It was really super hard. I wasn’t expecting it to be like that to be honest.”
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Does she have any regrets, you might ask? “I wish I wasn’t so reactive,” Minnie said.
Elaborating on that, she brought up the incident with Aubrey in episode two, saying, “We were all sitting around talking about each other’s costumes. But when I spoke up it had a reaction. So that to me is really peculiar… they could say my outfit was shit and I wasnt getting upset, but I’d say it was ill-fitting and it caused a reaction. Well, I think maybe I should have kept my mouth shut.”
When asked if she felt she was portrayed fairly on the show, Minnie said, “I think it’s a pretty – I wish they’d show more context of when things happen because you only see me losing my stack. Because there’s more to – I think it’s very complex. I’m a complex person. I think we’re all complex.” She added, “they can’t show everything, which I get.”
Sydney Drag Royalty
Minnie has been doing drag for over 20 years. Her first experience with drag however goes much further back.
“It was the first half of kindergarten,” Minnie shared. “My sister used to have a ballroom dress and I put on a wig – my mum used to have a wig – and I went as an ugly stepsister to the book parade and that was my first experience in drag.”
She added, “My mother never discouraged me dressing up so I never saw it really as a problem. Until I sort of got older and you feel that discrimination from kids and stuff like that… you’re more self-aware about the world.”
Minnie’s first bit of drag gear that she purchased was a Mr Whippy outfit. “It was the first time I did drag as an adult. I went to a Mardi Gras party and I got a Mr Whippy uniform from an op shop and I got it all cut up so it would look really short and sexy,” she said.
Moving forward, Minnie is going to start working again on her one-woman show. “I put together a cabaret show, about my life, from chorus boy to leading lady, and it’s talking about being a young boy in the western suburbs of Sydney and what it was like growing up for me in that time.”
In closing out the interview, Minnie had some important advice. “Never compare yourself to others. I have learned that lesson. But that’s a lesson I wish I’d learned much, much younger.”
