Lady Bunny Instagram – I’ve seen Mayhem perform both in person and on video. She looks great, and delivers energetic lip-synch numbers well. She’s also fun on the mic as a host. So why on earth would she choose this talent? Or was it chosen for her? I have no issue with kooky talent numbers—I seldom watch, but I enjoyed the queen who made ice water, and the ballerina who danced on point and then humped a photo of Ross Matthews. (These numbers were performed to cheaply cleared background or classical music.) Maybe Mayhem’s talent would’ve worked better if she hadn’t gotten the giggles or forgotten her words. Or the edit cut out the good parts—you never know what we don’t see. The Chaka Khan line was funny, but maybe lost on many under 40 who never grooved to Ms. Khan’s Prince cover “I Feel For You.” As a performer, if someone asked me to be on a national TV show, I’d pick a tried and true crowd pleaser. Not the iffy, new number I don’t yet know. While she may, I can’t imagine Mayhem feeling differently. (I don’t know her well.) The only possible explanation I can come up with is that producers were too cheap to pay for a dynamite tune which is already in Mayhem’s repertoire and brings down the house every time. Why would you cast a queen and then put her on TV doing something that’s much less entertaining than what she performs in clubs? Hint: It’s not because Drag Race is actually mentoring queens as it claims to, or even interested in showing them at their best. Every performer watching is out there thinking “How did this get on TV? Would this be on a top-notch, international drag showcase?” I’m sure some viewers appreciate the train wreck vibe of Mayhem’s number—since many reality fans think mistakes are “good TV” and cat fights are ratings gold. As a drag queen, I think “good TV” is seeing a queen doing a goodperformance. Who is making these decisions? Look at Robin Fierce’s lip-synching to “Now That We’ve Found Love last season.” There’s no drag queen on earth who gets dolled up and thinks “I look c#nt tonight! I’m gonna gag them when I bust out my Heavy D & The Boyz!” To use another Chaka Khan reference, the number of queens who would choose to Heavy D? “Ain’t Nobody.”