‘Drag Race’ winner Onya Nurve on her last lip synchronization

Onya Nurve did it.

It is a few days since Nurve, whose real name is Justin Woody, was crowned the winner of season 17 of the “Rupaul’s Drag Race”, and it has not completely clicked for the queen who has been celebrating since Friday and is now on the Crack of Dawn, speaking against the press.

But one thing is clear, she is proud of her victory. It has been a season for Nurve. She dominated with four main challenge victories, she surprised with her Eddie Murphy -imitation during the Snatch Game Challenge, and she triumphed about jewelry sparkles in the final Lip synchronization to take the crown home.

Nurve spoke with Variety To discuss her victory, performing that final lip synchronization with Lady Gagas “Abracadabra” and what she would like to do afterwards.

It is a few days since you won ‘Rupaul’s Drag Race’, how does it feel?

I am really so exhausted. I’m so tired. I feel that all the work I did until a moment came this weekend, and it just feels like a huge weight of my shoulders. But I have worn that weight for so long that I am mentally and physically tired. I don’t know it’s all clicked, and that’s okay, because I did it.

You call weight, and that is something that people don’t realize, what that weight is and what it means. It’s different for everyone. What was that weight for you?

You have to stay proud of yourself, regardless of the result. Having that pressure is a lot to handle in the brain, because although you are so proud of yourself for how well you did and keep doing it in the show. But in the back of your brain you know it is not over yet. It is difficult to balance those two things of being proud and to know that it is not over yet. Many of the girls have had time to sit with their position and to be proud of themselves and to continue. [Being in] The top four, we didn’t have the chance yet, so it touched us for the first time that weekend, and it was crazy.

Have you had a moment to tell yourself: “I’m proud of what I did?”

Yes, I have that. I keep telling myself that I am so proud every day. I will say it again now, I am so proud of what I did and I would not change anything that I did for the world.

You tweeted this in the past, but you said that you are incredibly proud of your growth. How did you grow in the series from where you started where you ended up?

I always say, I am not a shy person. I think I’m very frank, and I always speak my opinion. I wear my heart on my sleeve. But in the competition I noticed that I had some walls, especially because it was a competition, and I knew I wanted to concentrate on that alone. But after I had viewed and experienced it, I learned that I don’t have to have those walls, that most of the spaces I put myself in, whether it is ‘drag race’ is a safe space. I never felt that I couldn’t let people inside. I think I walk through life with much more openness and joy, and it is because of “drag race” that I feel so.

One word, Liza. How was that in the final that Liza Minnelli saw in the final during the show?

It was alien. I am a big fan. I don’t know if you have seen online, but “maybe this time” from “Cabaret” is one of my favorite songs, and the display that I always listen to is Liza’s. So I’m just such a big fan. I also went to the “cabaret” show. I just love her work and the legendary glitter that she has spread over the queer community, I don’t think someone of us would be here without her. So it was crazy.

What does this mean for the young child who grows up in Ohio?

I have always been a person of success. After high school I knew that I would go to university, I knew I would get my diploma, and I knew that I would be successful in one way or another. I have a diploma in painting. There was a moment when I didn’t know what I was going to do. I couldn’t find out, and that was really difficult because I didn’t earn money, but I couldn’t find the thing that made me feel the most joy. When I found ‘Drag Race’ late in life, there was a certain level of queernness, the family hood and the art that was shown in the show that I was really attracted to. Once I started doing, I just felt like my whole life was complete, regardless of the money I had earned. I put “drag race” on my vision board and I focused on drag for three years of my life, which is probably the craziest thing I have ever done. I put myself through Drag College. I always say that, and I obtained my diploma by winning ‘Drag Race’. I remember the day I turned to my brother and I said: “I’m going to go on a ‘drag race’ and I will win. I have never been so focused on something. I say that drag has changed my life because it was like blinkers where I was just.

Talking about performing the last lip synchronization with ‘Abracadabra’ by Lady Gaga, how was that like?

Lady Gaga said that the category ‘dance or that’ was, and I knew that at the end of the day it was about serving the song, and I really hope I encapsulated what that number meant. I am not a queen of doing revealing or a couple of gags in real life, outside ‘drag race’. I felt that I just didn’t need them. And it worked. I was the gag in the game.

After you had done that last lip synchronization, you could take a little breathing, given the pressure of what that moment entails?

Yes. After performing the number there was a level of exemption. It was regardless of what happens, I did it.

What do you hope that this victory will do for you and what it symbolizes fans?

I hope that drag fans and people realize that Drag is so much more than the things we put on our body. We can buy glitter and glamor. We can buy fashion, but we can’t buy a great person. And at the end of the day drag is about who you are as a person, the joy that you bring to the world, and it must always be about that. And I hope my winning that proves, and I hope that my winning inspires many entertainers.

We have seen that Queens’s success can have after winning, they went on to Broadway, TV programs and films, what can we manifest for you?

In the latest season of “Abbott Elementary” I have to be with Quinta Brunson. We must also be on “SNL”. And to be honest, I want to make a film with some of my favorite actors, including Viola Davis, Kerry Washington, Denzel Washington and people in that sense. Meryl Streep, Lupita Nyong’o, the list continues.

Are you going to get some rest now? Can you even?

There is no peace for the wicked, darling. It is a lot, next club, next bar, next city. I’ll sleep when I’m dead.