‘Highly Trans, Highly Goddess’: Sasha Colby on Her Historic ‘RuPaul’s Drag Race’ Win

The second Sasha Colby was cast on RuPaul’s Drag Race Season 15, she was already a frontrunner. The former Miss Continental was already deemed a legend within drag communities, but Colby’s star power reached a new level on Friday when she was crowned America’s Next Drag Superstar by RuPaul.

She noticed the change almost immediately. “A beautiful older lady was eating ice cream and she stopped me and said, ‘Oh my God, you are Sasha Colby. It’s so nice to meet you. My friends are going to die.’ Then she started bawling,” Colby tells Rolling Stone several days after her big win. “People are invested. Your favorite drag queen’s favorite drag queen was a hidden gem: I was a very niche celebrity, but now this is global.”

Colby is getting acclimated to her new title, but she understands the significance of her win. With the crown, she’s making history: She’s the first drag queen to win both Drag Race and Miss Continental, the first Polynesian winner, and the fourth consecutive trans person to earn the crown.

During the finale, which aired Friday, Colby competed in a final lip-sync battle against Las Vegas’ Anetra to the Amii Stewart song “Knock on Wood.” The performance was watched by so many viewers that its streaming numbers among Gen Z listeners spiked by more than 280% on Spotify.

“I just wanted to be highly femme, highly trans, highly goddess, and do this burlesque style of reveals,” she says of her performance, which saw her strip from a fur coat into a gorgeous gown into a near-nude bikini. “You got to have some wow factors, you got to have some pows. So I just went for it.”

Colby’s win comes at a particularly difficult time for drag performers and trans people, as new legislation has been introduced in several states attempting to bar the art, and also reduce the visibility of trans people like herself. She said it best during the finale: “This goes to every trans person, past, present and future,” she said. “Because we are not going anywhere.”

Colby broke down her iconic finale look, working with Charo during one of the season’s challenges, and the significance of winning the trophy as a trans woman.

How are you feeling?
Like $200,000! I’m on top of the world. I think it’s all settling in. Talking to press is helping me integrate and have it sink in. It’s exciting! This was a little dream I had and to now to be able to sit in it and feel accomplished is so nice.

I want to break down that lip-sync battle with Anetra because you gagged everybody. Walk me through that decision-making process and how you literally ended up basically naked for it!
Well, it’s hard to make a costume for a number when you don’t know the song first. You don’t know what to prepare for. so this was all hinging on if it worked out. So a lot of the dreaming happened as “if it happens we’re going for it.” I think I’ve shown so many sides of Sasha Colby, but I really haven’t seen Sasha just be Sasha, which is half-naked [and] drunk at brunch. So without the drunk and brunch part, half-naked was the way to go because that’s actually my most comfortable place. I had to be naked, and just show anyone who has hate toward trans people, we don’t really care because we’re thriving without you.

Absolutely. You’re talking right now about just being as trans as possible, as goddess as possible, and why was it so important to you as a trans woman, winning this competition?
Especially in these times where they are making anti-drag bans, but really they’re anti-trans laws. Those two things are who I am: a trans person who does a drag, so I feel particularly offended. I really wanted to speak to the manager. I’m frustrated and in my head, because we’re traveling a lot and I can’t go to the marches. How do I protest? I mean my whole existence in drag is a protest. Just me being there and being successful, being happy, standing up for the trans people that are too afraid to walk out of their homes, that are afraid to walk down the street, for me to stand up and be that is the least I could do.

I just interviewed your drag daughter Kerri recently and she was sharing how for her, seeing other trans women exist and just be so powerful has been really monumental to her. Who was that person for you?
I think it was the Hawaiian trans people that I grew up with who taught me how to maneuver at a time when being trans wasn’t safe, how to take care of yourself, give yourself the correct therapy, and how to be unapologetically trans. It was about understanding that if you’re going to make fun of me, I’m going to call it out first. I’m going to stand up for myself. I always have taken this idea of, “You can call us any name under the book, but the second I call myself it, it holds no power when you say it.” And I had to do a lot of work being a trans woman in drag, because it’s not easy. You’re constantly questioned. I’d do drag brunch for years and they would just think I’m a gay drag queen or they wouldn’t realize I’m trans. If I’ve got that far, I shouldn’t be afraid to hear anything.

I also loved your speech when you were crowned about this being for the past, present, and future of trans people. That felt so powerful. Why was that the message you wanted to send?
The past are the people I learned from, many who aren’t even around anymore. The present are the people that are currently being persecuted, being killed, being victimized by so much hate. And the future is all we have. We have to do it for them so they can [know] this world can be a little better for them. We have to create allies that are more compassionate toward trans people because maybe they’ll be like, “I know that’s Sasha Colby, so they’re not all that bad.” It’s just something as simple as that to reach someone in Tennessee or to Texas.

For sure. It’s that one little spark and it’ll grow.
And I see people’s smiles, I see people when they stop me on the street, I see how much they see themselves in me, and that gives them so much strength. I get so many messages from a lot of ex-Jehovah’s Witnesses that were disowned just feeling prouder and saying, “You’re not going to just burn in hell. You could actually thrive and just not be around toxic energy.”

What were some of your favorite moments of the season?
I did love the neck-crack [moment]. I love the music video: that’s just my pocket and what I love doing. I love being goofy and acting. And working with Charo, it was so much fun interviewing her. I would be a little kid and I would pretend to do cooking shows by myself and I would talk to myself. I got to do my little-kid-pretend thing in front of the camera with someone like Charo.

Anything you want to add?
As a trans person, everyone is rooting for people to leave us alone. Let us be free and let us be successful. The more we flood social media with that instead of Ron DeSantis and all these other politicians, the more we give ourselves power and they don’t.