It's in the news today, but it was actually on TV Reload the podcast last week Their Life.
Welcome back to TV Reload My Dame's Benjamin Norris and on this podcast, I go behind the scenes with the biggest players in television. Each episode you will get a front row seat with content makers like executive producers, writers, editors, and casting agents, plus the talent that we all see on our screen. TV Reload reloads the shows that you are currently watching and gives you a better insight into
our television industry and our streaming services. Today. On the podcast, I have a feisty yet confident Ozzie Queen from RuPaul's Drag Race Down Under Us Series two. Today's guest is Beverly Kills. From day one, she was in it to win it, and she was certainly not taking any prisoners. The rest of the Queen's did at times seem to struggle with Bev's uber confidence, and some would say she was the least self aware, while others could see her
take on the competition to be well just competitive. There was plenty of screen time for Bev, and with no eyebrows and an undeniable pretty face, fans of the show could not argue that producers had struck gold with her casting on the second series of down Under. It all seemed to come to her head with the numbers down to five and a few strong words from her fellow Queen's who unanimously felt it was Bev's time to go. We will talk about her confidence or false confidence, depends.
On who you talk to.
If RuPaul taught her some life lessons and what about that final lip sync? Was she intimidated by Queen Kong? And how she feels about her co stars. Now, however, let's get started with today's guest. I'd like to welcome Beverly Kills from RuPaul's Drag Race down Under season two to TV reload.
The cooking at drag Race now as well? Is that the audience gets it.
Hurry up next, it's Beverly Killed.
You are stronger than that voice and it will never go What happened when you got someone to the character? That's kind of.
Wasn't that funny?
I don't think that we had the bite to communicator empathy to each other. Beverly Kills.
I'm sorry, my DearS, but you are both up for elimination.
And I'm going to do a live reaction recap of Muriel's wedding.
Thank you for sharing your heart and your love of drag with the world.
There was something in me that was like, I'm not surviving this, but what I can do is make Queen Kong Earnhus.
Spot Hi Beverly Kills. How the hell are you?
You know what? I have a bullet wound prosthetic on my head and I'm in full enough drag at eleven forty five am so I've had better days, but it alls had worse.
Do the words top and five sound good to you.
I'll take it like I'd love top four or top three, but better than top ten. I'll take five, you know, like, And also it's top five out of not just the ten, it's top five out of everyone who applied. That's pretty cool. That's the one thing that they keep coming back to. So whenever I'm like, you know, people see the negative self talk on the show, especially in this episode, but like, whenever that voice pops in, I'm like, no, stop your Beverly Kills. The top fivee of Drag Race down Under.
You can do.
Anything, absolutely, you know. Your relationship with RuPaul was great television. He seemed like he really cared about your journey. Is that TV magic or have you walked away with some good advice from RuPaul?
I think the best advice. I'm so glad it got aired because I really wanted everyone else to see that as well. And it was on the Snatch Game episode where I got a bit upset on stage and he was like, I remember that when he first started talking. I was like what because I was like, like cried for my makeup and I could feel my contact like slowly dislodging, and I'm like, what the fuck do you want RuPaul like, and he's like, that negative voice will
never go away. And I thought he was just gonna stop, and I was like, thanks, fuck you too, but then he was like, you are stronger than that voice and it will never go So just no, life is shit. All you can do is just move forward. And I was like, huh. The most successful drag queen in the world does have some good points, interesting very well deserved, and I like he's just earned that and he just rude.
Just that's it, and that's why he's rue Paul, because he can understand here's this clever, quiet empathy and get he just everything he sees he gets it, but he doesn't need to sit you down and tell you. All he can do is just drop a bye to wisdom. And in that moment when RuPaul said that to me, it was like just clarity. It was brilliant.
Well when he.
Sort of said that, he still didn't really know who you were. And then later on he sort of made a comment saying, do you think that being such a good looking kid has maybe held you back in some way? So I wondered whether or not being such a gorgeous kid your whole life that has held you back in any way?
What do you think?
The first of all, thank you for the compliment, RuPaul, I am taken. I think RuPaul is too, so that might make it a bit weird.
But like, I don't think he was sitting. I don't think that's where it was going.
Well, you know, he can have two Australian husbands if he wants. But I don't know. I've never never been shy being vulnerable or wearing my heart on my sleeve.
I felt like you had the most amount of screen time this season. I've felt like and you know what.
I finished that season and watching the first episode knowing I was safe episode two. Knowing I was safe, they did not let me off the camera, and I did not think I was like the main subject. I couldn't fucking rest every episode on screen talking and I'm like, give Bev a break, like, leave me alone.
Have you been happy with the way in which you came across them? I mean, some great pieces to camera and you were always in the drama.
Was I happy in the moment? No, but I look back on it and it's harmless in the moment. I remember when the premiere happened, and you know this, You've done reality TV, and I think most of the audience and the good thing that drag Race now as well, is that the audience gets it. They understand the edits. They understand that every single argument, agreement, success and failure
has context. So having that first episode of me literally lining up the girls and insulting each of their outfits one by one, they could have done that with anyone. And so when that happened, I remember I was in my premiere outfit and I just like, you know that gift of Homer going into the bushes is that's what I felt like, not me, but I had like three
people online message me. I read the comments guilty is charged on her three people, Max be like, I think you should have done that, you had more respect for the other queens. And then but I look back on that and I'm like, that's fucking hilarious, like serious, Like I don't know. I think it's all good. Like the fans have they've loved my highs and they have related to my lows, and I think that's all I can ask for.
Well.
A conversation that has come up a few times from viewers and other eliminated queens is where does Beverly Kills get her confidence from?
I am a drag queen. I played dresser as a living It's confidence of the drag, right, Like people use the word fake a lot or like false confidence, and I'm like Jesus Christ, like if I walk into a booking meek and shy, that's a bit awkward. You need to walk in with that with that confidence. Was some of it false? Yeah, of course it was because I wanted to push myself to do really well. Was some of it warranted? Yeah, it was because I thought I
deserved it or did the best. Again, it's just it's just honesty, I think, And the important part is I said this with every interview pretty much, is that like honesty is important because you know, if you ask me for your opinion, not I'm not gonna lie to you and I'm not gonna let you down. With that brutal honesty also comes loyalty. Those attributes are much more important than like not disrupting the piece. Sure, I'm a scorpio, I will shape the room for the greater good.
But you also said fake it to you make it a few times as well. You know, it's not exactly like you were hiding with that confidence. You were like, no, no, no, I might might not be the most confident person in the room. I'm just trying to be no.
Oh my god.
No.
And it was the same thing, like, you know, Mini had that issue with me telling the judges that a great time working with Pamara and then I tell the girls I didn't have a good time working with Pamara. I think, what Mini and I know this about each other now, But what was missing there was that two things can be true at the same time. I was so proud of the work I did with Pamarra, Like we put that together with two we're a Taurus and a Scorpio, like, are you joking? Like that was not
going to work? And we made like a pretty decent Was it the worst of the group, Sure, but it was a pretty brilliant set. And then so I told the judges, I'm so proud of the work we did, and I told the girls working with Pamara was really tricky. It was hard. I didn't felt listened to, and that's true.
At the same time, yeah, it's a very good point to make, you know, you also proved that you could throw shade pretty well. It would seem like you knew those boundaries in your banter between the queens at times better than they did.
You know, it looked.
At times where you were being on Rupol's drag race and throwing some shade and then they were looking at you like you were talking a different language. Is that an example of you being a huge Ruphole super fan and you're just leaning into the experience, or with those other girls really challenged by what you were saying.
I think the latter I think that personally on the show, I think that they might have used that first point of like, oh, Bed's just ticket, She's just a young queen who's been raised on social media and it's fuzz confidence and she's gonna use words as like boots wig sligh, But like that's all, it's all just in jest sort of. It's all just an ironic use of the word to
be honest, because I think it's ridiculous. But when it came to like my relationships with like the more experienced queens and the reasons why they would be so taken aback when I would throw shade or hold them to the same standards they held me to, I think it took them aback because I think they might have had being in the competition, you will get sort of neutralized. You will walk in and you're all equals. For me,
at least that was the case. But for them, they walked in being like I am this person, I have this chip on my shoulder, and I'm here to win and prove exactly who I am. Where I walked in being like, you don't know me, but let me introduce myself. So I think maybe that sort of difference in our understanding of who we are when it comes to the competition might have maybe changed it. But at the end of the day, now the competition's done and we're all in the real world, we all get each other like
one hundred percent. Like the season two group chat goes off every day and we're augamzed.
Well, the others kind of stood back to what you do your thing, and in some cases they left you on your own and waited until this episode to pass judgment.
Is that a fair assessment.
I think the reason why I snapped the way I did was because, like I just felt like I was being kicked when I was down. I think that's the main reason why I snapped. And it was like, this is so not helpful advice. It's the least from helpful. If someone's upset, don't be trying to, like, you know, give them a solution. Just I'm just upset, man, Like I'm just let me be sad, like this this is me, This is this is who I be. You don't have to accept it. You can just say like, I don't
really like understand you, but like I respect you. But they were like, because we don't understand you, we think that we've put this judgment on you, And that was quite frustrating for me as well. I think a lot of the context that was missing was that especially the viewersiden't sye was that Aubrey had been doing drag for like a year eighteen months. When I was doing Drag Race, I had only been doing drag for like two and a bit years, so I'd only had like about nine
months more experienced than Aubrey. But she was like, oh, she's young, She's getting there, Whereas for some reason, the standards that I was up to was like I had to know everything. I don't. I don't claim to be a super experienced queen. And then so when I was in the top five, it was everyone had ten years of performing experience on me.
I wonder if there's some jealousy, because I'm trying to work out how that was sort of miscommunicated from their behalf.
I don't think it was jealousy at all. I don't think those girls are jealous. I think it was I just don't think they understood. Uh no, actually no, I think they did understand. I don't think that we had the ability to communicate our empathy to each other. We're in a competition, and the empathy is in the back of our brain, but at the front of our brain is the competition. So we sort of you sort of willingly ignore your not your professionalism, but like just the
way that you communicate with people. I don't blame Hannah for the argument that we had, but I think she knew why I was upset, and because of the context of the show, she wasn't able to listen to it.
It was interesting, though, because Hannah and Queen sort of called you false and it just came out of nowhere, just all of a sudden, sou I'm like, you know, Hannah went stop, you need to stop and sort of had this very well put together thought of you that maybe was new, you know when that was put upon you. So how did you process their opinions and pick yourself up and can continue with what you had to do.
I usually process people's opinions at me by screaming at them, telling them to fuck off, And in that case, I think it worked brilliantly. I think I snapped at her, and I only think she got it when I launched back at her, and I think I just I took every bit of what she said and just sort of went, listen to what you're doing to me. You're calling me false, And that's like a brilliant way to gaslight someone like because when you call someone false. How do you come
back from that? Because then everything is like you are false, you are this. And in the moment, I was out of my element, self critical, frustrated, scared, upset because I pretty much knew I was going and I was all of those things. And I think hannahnow willingly or not, didn't like She just ignored it, and she was like, the most important thing right now is that we figure out why you being fake with us, And I'm like,
there is more important things. I'm pretty upset because I'm pretty sure I'm going home and you guys have had a lovely stroll to the top four. I guess that's where my upsetness came from. But again, I don't blame her for what happened, and that's fine. Sister's fight.
The way that you felt versus the w that you came across, was there a miscommunication there? Is it like you were brought up in some way to love bomb your opponent as a way to disarm them?
Just can you give me like a rundown of how it went.
At the start of the episode, Queen Seat of said, look, I'm very sorry. She just said, I don't want to apologize to you. Because then you'd think that you know, she was wrong, and then she sort of said, I'm so sorry of the way what happened last week. If that ruined everyone's day and had this big moment, and then you sort of jumped in and were like, you know,
I just want to say that I love you. At that point, you could have been able to really hammer it down the point with Queen and there was some resolutions still to be had in that situation.
That's where I thought.
Maybe the girls would see that you were being false, so you weren't being true to yourself.
I guess there's an element of truth to what you're saying. I was just over the conflict, to be honest, I wanted a solution. I suppose I don't like fighting with people just as much as the next person. I don't think, yeah,
I don't think I was love bombing. I think it was I do love them, and that's our relationship now, and you know, I don't if if we were to do conflict resolution on the show, would be there for hours and hours and hours and hours and hours talking about the nuances of our relationship and the show, and it's not possible. I just wanted to be like, look all good, I do not hate you, you don't hate me. We're moving on. You know.
It's interesting though, because like, arrogance and confidence are often confused, and I think that with you on the show at times, and I don't know how you felt by watching the show, were you like, wow, I'm coming across so confidently. I wondered whether or not arrogance at times was actually a lack of confidence.
I think confidence is confidence and then arrogance is unearned confidence, and it's sort of it was a bit of both. To be honest, again, like I was a fake it to you make it is not my life's mantra, but in that moment, I fucking needed it. So I was like, I really need to push myself here and just fucking go for it. And if I don't feel great about this, I just need to make it look like I'm doing my best. Don't let them see a sweat, you know.
But I think by holding that all in is why I would have those quite high emotion moments, because I would it all in and then be like, fuck, I can't do that.
So well, what is it that you've learned from conflict?
You know?
What have you learned from those moments with the other girls.
I don't know, I think I don't I don't know if it was necessarily that it was like lessons to be learned. I think it was more just about like showing that everyone is very different. We all have a different idea of what our success looks like, or what drag looks like. I think Drag Grace is a brilliant showcase of drag, but it's also a brilliant showcase of the human spirit and how we adapt to different situations,
especially as queck people. We've all got these different ideas of what it means to be excellent, and you know, it's our relationship to ourselves in relationship to others. So I think it's sort of like an expose on the queer mind.
And in a way, Mini predicted that you would be the next target. When I spoke to Minnie Cooper, I was like, what do you think is going to happen? Because it kind of felt like there was a bit of segregation happening with Minnie. And I said, with you gone from that conversation, what's going to happen now? And Mini kind of said, well, I kind of feel like it's going to go to BEV was that good foreshadowing on good insight from her perspective.
Brilliant foreshadowing. The second she left, it changed the same that there was a new There was a new target, and it was me. I'm not saying a group the group targeted me, but I.
It felt that way.
I was the black sheep with the group, was the most the most unlike them. So therefore I was not part of the group that in the competition, and it sucked to be in that because it like literally zapped me right back to that thing that feels like, this is your high school science class and you know everyone's picking their science lab buddies and it's like, oh, you guys just want to do with us.
No matter how old you get, you can still remember that feeling of not being picked in the science class. However, yeah it was in science, it was sport.
I'm so glad we didn't do the fucking captain's pick thing because I was last every single time.
Why was Spanky so accessible, because you know, there was that sort of group mentality, But at the same time, Banky was always there for the people that were kind of being left out. You know, you could see that Spanky tried to help Minnie Cooper and you could see that Spanky tried to help you. You know, why do you think that was Why do you think that's so easy for Spanky to do.
I think Spanky is able to communicate her empathy in high pressure situations. She works with children, which is very helpful for drag race because's the room of children. So it's like I remember like when she told her She's like, oh, yeah, like I work, you know, I take care of people. And I'm like, oh interesting. And you can see that because no matter how high pressure the situation is, she is cool, calm and collected and she can empathize with people.
It's a really brilliant skill that Spanky's got and it's something that I would love to I'd love to be able to have that like she does. One day.
You said at one point that the Gold Coast is fun and trashy, which you know you had based a lot of your drag aesthetic around. Is easy to work out people's yesthetic based on where their hometown origins.
Are insanely easy for me. Melbourne are the over the top show girls. So you've got your Karen, your Aubrey big, colorful, bright costumes, Sydney sexy, dancy always always gorgeous, mugs, funny and like just like the womanly spirit. You know, Brisbane is Brisbane and the Gold Coast trashy, punk, fierce like that. That's my judgment of like the three cities sort of there thank is Palmeston North, no tights us out. I
think she's the only drag queen in Parmeston North. So I think whatever Spanky does is the she is the archetype.
You know, I really want to go to Palmeston North after watching this.
I cannot wait to go. I think it's like two streets, a couple of homes, and one club some king.
Right away, we'll get our tickets.
You know.
Something that really hurt my feelings was RuPaul asking you about Muriel's wedding and you said that you hadn't seen Muriel's wedding, which to me is like a part of the gay Bible. Have you finally watched Muriel's wedding at this point?
Okay, no, but I have a reason. I was like, oh, I should go have I watch Mural's wedding? And I was like, no, I'm going to wait till the episode comes out and I'm going to do a live reaction recap of Muriel's wedding.
Oh my god.
You know it's my favorite Australian film, so I will I can't wait to sit down and watch it with you.
Well, if I'm going to be my first time watching it, so I'll have my live reaction. I think people will take a lot of joy in having someone watch for the first time.
Just as we come to the end of this. You know, what I thought was interesting was this dance off that you had, the lip sync that you had with Queen Kong. It was It kind of reminded me of do you remember it was a Jersey Shore or Jordie show, one of those where they go to the clubs and they call it fighter.
Dancing because they'd be like dancing like they were fighting. You know.
It was your lip sync like fighter dancing because the two of you look like it looked like Mortal Kombat of drag Race.
Yeah, it was like the Super Smash Brothers of the lip sync. It was so fun. It was like it was such a lip sync of passion. Like I was like there was something in me that was like I'm not surviving this, but what I can do is make Queen Kong earn her spot and make her fucking fight for it. And that's what was going to my head. I was like, fuck it, bring it on, bitch, Like.
Well, there were a few dance though that I just thought from Queen Kong where it seemed like she tried to intimidate you off the dance floor. I felt really uncomfortable watching it.
You know, did you.
Feel like Queen Kong was trying to intimidate you or how did that feel in real time?
I don't think she was trying to intimidate me. I think she was just trying to do what Kong does best, and that's performed. She was like, I'm not worried about Bev. I'm just gonna perform. She's not even know at me, and power to her. Well. I did the same with Minnie. I was like, I'm going to plant my feet here. I'm not moving from Senna. Minnie can go around me.
At this point of the podcast, I normally ask people like a behind the scenes secret, but we kind of scrapped that for Rue Paul's. So we're playing this game, shady old lady. Now you don't have to answer the question if you want to be a lady or you can say shady and just answer the question.
I know this game very well. I'm very familiar.
Okay, great, So we're going to kick it off with who was the most talented on this season?
Ah ha?
No, conduct Okay, who was the funniest? Who did you not like or maybe not get enough time to get to know?
Uh Mini, because we've become like best mates now, so I'm like, I'm got to be a more time.
We'll be fine.
So Annie, I understand.
Who is the messiest queen this season?
No, I'm not allowed to say myself, but a couple of the producers called me Hurricane Bev because I would just get ready and shit would go everywhere. So as the time went on, I ended up taking the space of like two and a half more mirrors just to like spread to my theme.
We could see some of that every now and again, just so you know we ever see that?
Yeah?
I know. Uri also left like because Uri used a lot of like different products for their makeup. There would just be goo all over. Yuri stationed to like pots and products and creams and liquids and shit everywhere.
So Uri was also probably existed, and this one is a hard one.
Who deserved to go in this episode maybe not even Queen Kong, but out of the top five who deserved to go, that wasn't Queen Com.
Can I say com, You could say Queen Con Absolutely.
I said con when they lined us up and they said KNG again.
Well, it's staying the same, which is totally fine.
Stamp it. But she sent me home because I'm like from the grave, like I'll get your one day cong that she doesn't. She isn't still in the competition.
Well, Beverly Kills, I have loved watching you on this show. I don't know what they're gonna do with the edit now that you've gone, because they could have renamed it Rupole's Drag Race.
Beverly Kills. That is congragulations on your time of the show. It's fun to watch.
Oh, thank you, Ben, thank you for having me. I'm really excited to listen to this back