Lawrence Chaney Reflects On Winning Over Bimini
In an exclusive interview, Lawrence Chaney reflected on her RuPaul’s Drag Race UK season 2
In an exclusive interview, Lawrence Chaney reflected on her RuPaul’s Drag Race UK season 2 journey and talked about winning over Bimini Bon-Boulash.
RuPaul’s Drag Race UK season 2 was one of the greatest Drag Race seasons in herstory, and Lawrence Chaney came out victorious as the UK’s Next Drag Race Superstar. After a wild season that included a months-long pandemic break, shocking eliminations, the catchy “UK Hun?” bop, and even a civil war between Scottish queens, the fierce and hilarious Lawrence Chaney snatched the crown and kickstarted the so-called Purple Reign. Now that the show is in the rearview mirror, the reigning Drag Race UK champion is reflecting on her journey to the top.
During an interview with Screen Rant, Lawrence Chaney revealed that she didn’t think she had a shot at winning RuPaul’s Drag Race UK season 2 before the finale aired. Lawrence first looked back at the discourse surrounding her argument with Ellie Diamond over the comedy challenge’s lineup order. “It’s a very Scottish way of dealing with things,” Lawrence explained, “to blurt out when you have a problem with something. For me, I just thought: ‘Can I count on Tayce, Bimini, or A’Whora not setting me up? No. Oh, but Ellie, she gets me.’ For that to come from her, I wast just shell-shocked. Consequently, Lawrence wasn’t exactly confident that she was able to win the show under those circumstances: “Because of the interactions I had with fans in the previous few weeks, I was like, ‘Well, I don’t know if I want to win this. I don’t know if it’d be right. I don’t know if these people would want me to be their queen.’ And I never want to make anyone uncomfortable.”
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Lawrence Chaney did acknowledge that the Drag Race UK finale competition boiled down to her and Bimini Bon-Boulash, but the Scottish queen thought that her co-star would take the crown: “I saw Bimini start to get some traction online, start to get more likes, and Team Bimini really became a thing.” And yet, Lawrence was surprised by how she reacted to that thought process. The queen recalled, “I was really proud of myself because for the first time in my life I went like: ‘It’s okay if you don’t win. It’s okay if you aren’t the best. It’s okay, because you and Bimini have literally done the same thing: you have put best foot forward.’ See, if I don’t win, I’m just proud that my friend is going to win.”
In fact, Lawrence was so certain that Bimini would win Drag Race UK that her first reaction upon hearing RuPaul’s announcement was to cheer for her co-star: “I just started clapping normally, thinking it’d be Bimini, and I just was like… ‘What!?’ It was just really shocking for me.” In any case, Lawrence believes that this crown is not only hers, but a win for Scottish drag in general. The season 2 winner explained, “Scottish people are generally underrepresented. Scottish people [in films] are always American actors doing a Scottish accent. Like the Austin Powers films. It just means so much to me that I get to represent Scotland on a global platform.”
As for the future, the reigning champion of RuPaul’s Drag Race UK season 2 just wants to keep making people laugh and have a good time. Lawrence Chaney is still uncertain about what her WOW Presents Plus series will be about, but she is eager to make plans with the World of Wonder producers behind so many successful LGBTQIA+ projects. May the Purple Reign live on!
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