Adore Delano, New York Magazine drag queens react to “gross” ranking
Former AltPress cover star Adore Delano was one of 37 drag queens on the New York Magazine Pride Month edition cover. Despite championing the queens, the magazine is under fire for the way they presented their stars within the issue’s pages.
The stars and other queens were ranked in an article titled “The Most Powerful Drag Queens In America,” which placed 100 drag stars into tiers, labeled “The Tops,” “The Upper Tier,” “The Mid-Tier” and “The Bottoms.”
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Delano, Monét X Change, Nina West appeared on The View to discuss the “problematic” article.
“For me the big issue was that this is the beginning of pride month, not to mention the Stonewall 50 2024, we are all celebrating amazing strides,” Xchange says. “Ranking us like that, in top-tiers, middle-tiers, bottom-tiers, it’s so gross.”
West echoed X Change’s sentiments—and many upset community members—stressing Pride Month should bring people together rather than separate.
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“Ranking them only gives fodder for fans to kind of tear us apart and put us against one another,” West says. “We’re going into pride month trying to celebrate and lift our community up and here’s an article that seemingly on the surface is really incredible, and that’s amazing to be featured on the cover of the New York magazine, but then we’re like dividing ourselves up again.”
You can see the clip below.
.@monetxchange, @NinaWest, and @AdoreDelano react to the ‘New York Magazine’ drag queen cover story.
“The fact that we were on New York Magazine’ is iconic,” @monetxchange says. “But then couple it with ranking queens by numbers… it’s so gross.” https://t.co/d88Waaz3uH pic.twitter.com/mtfdMGfUV7
— The View (@TheView) June 11, 2019
Delano also sounded off on the issue, saying she had no idea about the rankings until they were posted.
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“It’s very problematic in our community,” Delano says.
You can watch the full segment with Adore Delano, Monét X Change and Nina West below.
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