Shupack’s words stuck with Bianca, and with three days to spare before the audition deadline, she and her friend put together an audition tape. Ironically, before becoming a Drag Race champion, Bianca admits she considered quitting drag shortly before joining the show.

“I thought, ‘Let me give Drag Race a try, and if it doesn’t [work out], I’ll wrap it up at 40,’” she says. “Which means at that point, I would’ve had 20 good years. And here I am sitting here, almost 30 years later.”

Post-Drag Race, Bianca also dabbled in film acting, appearing in the film Hurricane Bianca and its sequels. She also put her theater background to good use, appearing in the West End musical Everybody’s Talking About Jamie, which follows a British teenager who dreams of becoming a drag queen. Although Bianca jokes that she was offered the role of the “elderly drag queen,” she points to the show as an example of how far drag has come.

“I didn’t think I’d be a drag queen, nor did I plan on being a drag queen, and God knows, I wouldn’t have told anybody, ‘I’m gonna be a drag queen,’” she says. “I still don’t tell people. But it is interesting to see how much we’ve evolved… Overall, it is kind of exciting, especially for me, to see how much we’ve grown, and how much acceptance is out there.”

Watch the full interview above.

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