When RuPaul’s Drag Race aired in 2009, no one could have predicted the monumental success the show would eventually see, or the effect it would have on pop culture for decades to come. After 14 regular seasons, seven All Star seasons, and dozens of international spin off, the reality show has quite literally taken over the world.
The RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars we know today is very different from the All Stars we saw in season one. Back then, queens were paired into groups of two. The rule was quickly thrown out after audiences grew furious with the injustice of seeing excellent queens go home due to the shortcomings of their teammate.
Some seasons have been legendary (we’re looking at you season two), others have been, in the words of RuPaul, “meh.” But they’ve all entertained us and provided some of the most legendary content the franchise has ever seen.
And speaking of legends – season seven of RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars was the very first season to introduce an entire cast consisting entirely of previous winners. “All Stars All Winners” was the title used by Ru in the work room. The season aired on Paramount Plus on July 22 and garnered the most mainstream publicity any season of Drag Race has ever seen. When the queens weren’t promoting the show with Entertainment Weekly, they were on The Kelly Clarkson Show or The View.
Ever since then, new fans have added their names to the growing list of people who simply can’t get enough of the show. Thankfully for them, there enough seasons to keep them occupied for a very, very long time.
And on that note, here are all the queens who have won RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars and have been inducted into the Drag Race Hall of Fame.
Season one — Chad Michaels
No one really knew what to expect of the show when All Stars aired back in 2012. The franchise was only in its fifth regular season and it was still testing the waters of its popularity. Those who saw Chad Michaels in season four were understandably happy to see her on All Stars just one year later.
Chad has always been known as a Cher impersonator, but her leg up among other impersonators (looking at you Derrick Barry) is that she is also uniquely herself, which is not an easy thing to do when you’re literally pretending to be someone else.
Chad went toe-to-toe with Raven in the final lip sync and eventually went home with the crown and title of the very first RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars winner.
Season two — Alaska Thunderfuck
All Stars 2 was a turning point for RuPaul’s Drag Race. It highlighted just how much talent had come in and out of the workroom from the regular seasons’ five, six, and seven. To this day it’s still regarded by many as one of the most talent-filled All Stars seasons to date, consisting of iconic queens like Alyssa Edwards, Detox, Roxxxy Andrews, Adore Delano, Katya, Tatianna — basically the whole cast. And let’s not even get into the lip syncs and music challenges…
No one was really a front runner coming into All Stars 2 simply because the whole cast was so talented, but Alaska Thunderfuck wanted it the most, even if it was to her detriment. At the end of the day, though, she beat out the other queens. Although she’s largely fallen off the Drag Race map, she’s still very much active in the drag industry and considered one of the best in the game.
Season three — Trixie Mattel
Of all the queens who’ve won, it can be argued that Trixie Mattel has become the most famous, most mainstream, and most recognizable drag queen in Drag Race herstory.
Originally starring in season 7, Trixie’s time on her season was marred with premature exits. Looking back now, she was truly only half-baked (every pun intended) compared to her time on All Stars 3. While she might not have been the front runner for All Stars 3, she was well deserving of the crown (after BenDeLaCreme eliminated herself, of course).
Given her momentus career, it seems almost laughable for Trixie not to be a winner. She’s the owner of the commercially successful cosmetics line Trixie Cosmetics; she’s released four solo albums; she’s the New York Times Bestselling author of Trixie and Katya’s Guide to Modern Womanhood; she has over 1.66 million subscribers on YouTube; basically she has built an empire, as Rolling Stone put it.
Season four — “Twinners,” Monét X Change and Trinity the Tuck
Season four of All Stars made history as the first — and hopefully last — season to ever co-crown two winners. At the end of the day it was neck and neck between Trinity the Tuck from season nine and Monét X Change from season 10, and Ru simply couldn’t choose one over the other.
After winning season four of All Stars there were rumors that Monét and Trinity were at odds with one another, but the pair were quick to shoot those rumors down. They have since become known as the “twinners” of All Stars 4, a term Montet and Trinity largely used when they both came back for the “all winners” season of All Stars 7.
Season five — Shea Couleé
Look at the edges she snatched today.
While season five was considered by many an overall bust, Shea Couleé was at the top of her game. Part of the reason the season felt like “meh” was due to the fact that Shea Couleé was pretty much a shoe-in to win right out of the gate, which, you know, makes for a boring season. The weekly challenges were lackluster, the lip syncs were passable, if that, and any drama the producers tried to inject into the show felt like a “look over there” moment from Jaida Essence Hall to distract us from how underwhelming everything was.
Still, one can’t get too disgruntled. We did get Shea Couleé after all, who was very deserving of a redemption from that career-altering lip synch with Sasha Velour in the season 9 finale (rose pedals, anyone)?
Shea is adding more titles to her name now that she’s become the first drag queen to appear in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. You can read more on that here.
Season six — Kylie Sonique Love
“Oooh, girl, you got female.”
When Kylie Sonique Love entered the All Stars work room, everyone’s head turned. Not just because she looked stunning in an all red latex outfit, but because it’d been 11 years since people last saw her.
After her time on season two in 2010, Kylie Sonique Love, previously known on the show as just Sonique, returned for All Stars 6 a new woman. She now identifies as a woman, and went on to make history as the first transgender drag queen to win All Stars.
To date, her lip sync against Manila Luzon to Christina Aguilera’s “Dirrty” is among the growing list of top Drag Race lip syncs of all time.
Season seven — Jinkx Monsoon
For the first time in Drag Race herstory, season seven featured an “all winners” cast of queens from Drag Race past. Jinkx Monsoon, previous winner of RuPaul’s Drag Race season five, was by and large the front runner for the season.
10 years after season five, Jinkx came swinging just as hard as she did last time. So much so, that season seven was one of the few All Star seasons in which there was a clear front runner from the beginning, which is saying something considering it was an all-winners season. Her sharp tongue, quick wit, and out-of-the-box personality gave her that extra “oomph” she needed to not just stand out from the crowd, but dominate the competition. By the time the Snatch Game rolled around, pretty much everyone was convinced she’d win the season.
And so she did. Jinks walked away with a total of five wins, the most of any queen that season. Had she not been blocked twice, she would have won at least one more challenge. She is the only queen in Drag Race herstory to win the crown twice.
