Big day on RuPaul's Drag Race: Two queens were booted after a languid lip-sync of "Oops!... I Did It Again" including the beleaguered Vivienne Pinay and the cool, mature Honey Mahogany, a.k.a. 29-year-old Alpha Mulugeta of San Francisco. As the show's first-ever native of San Fran, Honey lent a particular version of smartness that sometimes manifested in fantastic ways, like her dead-on impersonation of Mystique Summers Madison during the second episode's spoken-word lip-sync challenge. Unfortunately, her take on Diana Ross in the Black Swan-esque ballet about Ru's life wasn't enough to keep her in the competition.
We chatted with Ms. Mahogany about spoken-word lip-syncing, her caftans, and whehter she was prepared for the "humiliating" work of reality TV.
AfterElton: You weren't really ranked in the top or the bottom in earlier challenges. Did that make you nervous?
Honey Mahogany: Well, personally, I thought I was robbed in that second challenge! I did end up being safe a few times. The first time I wasn't worried because I knew I wasn't a sew-er, but in that second challenge, I would say I was in the winning team and did well on that team. On the third challenge when I was safe again, that was a challenge where I was paired with Coco, and it was just hard, as you saw. So yes, for me, going into the fourth challenge, I thought, "OK, I have to do really well." It's unfortunate that you didn't get to see all that much of it and hear all the judges' critiques. I danced pretty well in the final challenge, but the thing that got me sent home was my look and my Diana Ross [impersonation]. So that's unfortunate. To answer your question, did it make me nervous to be safe all those times? I was anxious to get in front of the judges. I wanted to be in the bottom or the top, just to get some feedback. That entire time, I wasn't getting any feedback from the judges. I didn't know if they liked what I was doing. I just wanted to hear from them so I could improve.
AE: You were heavily critiqued for your outfits, which were considered repetitive and ill-fitting. Had that been brought to your attention before?
HM: No! It's not anything I ever thought about before. I'd never been critiqued for it before, so it was a first time for me. That's definitely a growing and learning experience. When you're in the game, sometimes it's hard to step back and take in the whole picture. For me, I was taking it challenge by challenge and not thinking about what I wore at the last challenge. They said, "Wear one of your best drag looks!" so I choose that one. Then the next time they were like, "Oh, you have to wear pink!" and I thought, "Well, I wore pink last week" so I realized, "I guess I have to wear this thing." Then it was diva glamor, and I thought, "What do I have that's the most 'diva'?" And I thought about the orange sequined caftan. That was very Diana Ross to me, old-school diva. So I chose that. Of course now looking back on it, I probably would've made other decisions. What you also didn't see on the show was when I got that feedback from Michelle, I said, "Yeah, I see your point. I'm totally willing to take that feedback and make it work next week." But I didn't get that opportunity.
AE: Did you feel your appearance warranted less critique than it got?
HM: I thought there were other contestants who either didn't dance or were also critiqued for their look but didn't get [picked for elimination]. Just to be critiqued on my look -- I mean, they didn't like my Diana Ross, but it was mostly [pertaining] to the look -- I thought I could've at least gotten feedback on that so I could've improved it. It seems like most of the other girls -- well, I won't say "most" -- the other two girls in the bottom, Roxxy and Vivienne, had had the opportunity to receive feedback from the judges improve.
AE: I loved your performance as Mystique Summers Madison in the second episode. How were you able to capture her essence?
HM: I did not know that we were going to do a lip-sync to spoken word, but I'd been doing that for years. They do this all over, not just in San Francisco, but there, spoken word lip-sync is popular. I've gone to some places in the south where they look at me doing spoken-word lip-sync and they think I'm crazy. But I was excited to do it because I could nail it. It wasn't an issue for me. I was excited to do it, and I was super happy that I got such a big character to play. There's the whole thing of like, "You're pretty and you're resting on that," and I thought, "No! I do not have to be pretty all the time!" I was so glad they gave me the opportunity to play a character.
AE: What spoken-word lip-syncs have you done in the past?
HM: There's a video of me on YouTube lip-syncing a piece called "Martha, Martha, Martha" which is a part of Michael Sigourney's performance art piece, and it's a part of that movie Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? with Elizabeth Taylor where they're just getting into the car and she's calling George a bastard, and he's calling her all these awful, horrific things, and they're just getting really into it. I usually do Beyonce's "Why Don't You Love Me?" into that lip-sync. That's an example of something I've done. It's not really campy, mostly just dramatic. It's a tie to old-school Hollywood. I like doing all different things.
AE: Were you shocked to be in the bottom on this challenge? You played Diana Ross, and you have Mahogany in your name. That'd be like Jinx Monsoon losing for playing a tropical storm.
HM: I honestly just didn't think I was that bad. Maybe it wasn't perfect, but the thing was, I was looking at it as a dance challenge where the look was secondary. Up until now, the performance has always been primary, and the look has always been in support of that, but it's not necessarily the thing I focus on both. I realize that's rare for a drag queen, and maybe my background in theater and music are to blame, but I'm first and foremost a performer, then a drag queen on top of that. Part of what I said in Untucked is that I had to lot to learn from a lot of the pageant girls because they are so polished, and it's all about the look with them. That's the first and foremost thing. Then everything else kind of follows that. I feel like it forced me to take a look at that.
AE: Talk about lip-syncing the Britney Spears song with Vivienne. What would you say went wrong?HM: There were several things going on with that lip-sync. One: This is like whatever, but it's such a slow song. It's a Britney Spears song, but it's such a slow song. It's not like "Baby One More Time" or her more recent stuff like "Womanizer" where it's really up-tempo and dance-y. It's just kind of slow and on top of that, I'm in this huge sequined caftan that you'd think would be easy to move in, but it's actually really tailored. I couldn't really dance around! All I could think was, "OK, you're just going to have to do this all through your face and hands and live through the lyrics." I tried to do that. They didn't necessarily show all of that, but you saw snippets of me lip-syncing. But it kind of looked like we were standing around walking back and forth, but that's all I could really do in that outfit. I guess Ru decided it wasn't good enough.
AE: You have a profound maturity. I loved your confessionals on the show, and I loved your diplomacy with the other queens. Do you think their maturity matched yours?
HM: I think they're all wonderful human beings, but what I will say is I think a lot of them were much more prepared to be reality TV stars. I just feel like I wasn't willing to sacrifice my own composure and kindness in order to humiliate myself or other people by tearing them down, or making up imaginary grudges. I thought, "I don't need that in my life, and I don't want to be like that on television." Because of that, I didn't get as much camera time, and that's on me. In that regard, I didn't really understand what I was getting into, and maybe that was naive on my part. I hope it doesn't sound like I'm saying those girls are mean or bad, because they're not. They're beautiful people. But they're just better prepared to act a fool than I was. And that, I guess, is a little bit of a read. But it's true.
AE: Finally, which queen are you rooting for to win? You can only pick one!
HM: God, that is so hard. I would pink Jinx, I think. She's my Pacific Northwest sister and I love how much of a character she is. She's just a really joyful person to be around. That would be my pick.
