RuPaul’s Drag Race season 1 alum Shannel — the first-ever queen to walk into RuPaul’s Werk Room back in 2009 — is happy to do some explaining when it comes to her collection of Lucille Ball memorabilia.
“As far as how much? Too much. There’s so much,” the Las Vegas queen and returning All Stars 9 competitor exclusively tells Entertainment Weekly in the video interview above, referencing her massive haul that represents one of the largest collections of Ball artifacts in the world. “I do have a pair of shoes that Lucy almost always rehearsed in when she was doing I Love Lucy. I have some of her makeup that was used back in the day, and some prop pieces that were actually used on set of I Love Lucy.”
Shannel even has things that once belonged to Ball’s husbands, Desi Arnaz, whom she costarred with on I Love Lucy and divorced in 1960, and Gary Morton, who married the iconic comedian and actress in 1961 prior to her death in 1989.
“I have several things that Lucy, Desi — and later on, Gary Morton, her other husband — gave out as gifts, that have their signatures on them,” Shannel exclaims.
None of Ball’s items, Shannel confirms, made it into her All Stars 9 runway package (they’re far too rare and precious for that, she notes), but she did bring some lingering baggage when it comes to her Drag Race her-story.
Shannel says carrying the weight of her legacy as the first queen to ever sashay onto the show initially made it difficult to come back for another shot at the crown — after she also previously competed on the first All Stars season in 2012.
“Season after season, watching the show and sucking in all of that knowledge, it’s crazy because while I’ve been in this industry for 29 years now, I’m scared of all of these girls. They’re so good, they’re so amazing, they’re so talented, and I really questioned coming back,” she explains. “I had moments where I said to myself, ‘I don’t know if I can do this, I’m so 16 years ago, I don’t know if I have what it takes anymore.'”
She ultimately wrestled those demons down: “I thought about it, and I said, maybe that’s the reason why I should do it, to be able to bring that old-school level of drag back that you don’t always see anymore. Headpieces and big costumes!” she teases.
Naturally, Shannel had some hurdles to overcome, like the infamous moment she tried to quit season 1 after she felt the judges critiqued her too harshly.
“Had I known what Drag Race was going to become, I don’t know if I could’ve opted out the way I did. I don’t regret it because I think in life you make the decisions you make because you’re in that moment and you make them, and I’m okay with that,” Shannel says. “I just felt years later that I’d let Ru down, when you’ve got the No. 1 drag queen in the world…. to welcome you on to their show, and then you opt out, that’s challenging to some degrees to live with. I’ve thought about that for many years. It was a moment, and people remember it.”
Judging by her AS9 promo look, something tells us we’ll have plenty to remember about her upcoming run on the show, too.
RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars 9 premieres May 17 on Paramount+. Watch Shannel’s full EW interview above, and check out all of the cast interviews before the debut.
