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Anita Wigl’it is thus far the only Drag Race Down Under Queen to compete in the Drag Race franchise for a second time.* She is also the only queen in Drag Race herstory to win Miss Congeniality twice!

Sadly her time on Drag Race Canada Vs The World was full of disappointments as Anita struggled to get the judges to connect with her drag.

“In Drag Race Down Under Season One, I felt like I had a really good run,” she exclusively tells express magazine. “[For Canada Vs The World, I was basically always in the bottom or near the bottom, and then I went home.

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“I went from winning Snatch Game on my original season to being put in the bottom for Snatch Game this time. That was a real blow because it was the one thing that I expected to do well in,” she confesses.

For Canada Vs The World, Anita chose Adele as her character for Drag Race’s most notorious challenge Snatch Game.

”I thought my jokes were really funny, and I stayed in character really well. I remember sitting there watching people like Icesis. She broke character a few times and had the same joke for every single answer, I was thinking, ‘oh, I’m a bit worried about her’… Then she was on the top, and I was at the bottom!”

Anita wonders if favouritism was at play.

“The producers wanted this person or that person to be in the top, and I was just filling a place,” she confides, adding that as she began to feel that she could do nothing right in the judges’ eyes, her self-confidence began to slip.

“I just couldn’t understand what the judges wanted. They didn’t get my comedy. I don’t think they really got me as a performer. There were several drag queens there who are super famous, and the show was about finding the next drag superstar of the world. At the point we filmed, I had done my season of Down Under about a year before, but because of COVID, the only thing I had done was my solo show. I hadn’t done any big international tours, so it was hard to compete when I didn’t feel I was on the same level as people like Silky and Raja, who have literally toured the world. I just didn’t have it!”

However, with her trademark optimism still shining through, Anita tells us she has ‘no regrets!’

“With Drag Race, it’s not necessarily how you do in the competition, it’s how the audience responds to you. I had some really good moments like the Reading Challenge, had some really cool outfits, and I won Miss Congeniality again. Which means that I’m the only person in the whole world that’s been Miss Congeniality twice”

When asked what the secret is to her congenial winning ways, Anita puts it down to being a Kiwi!

“It’s just the Kiwi way, really! I came from a background of working in classical music where we had to be super professional, always show up on time, and be easy to work with because if we weren’t, we wouldn’t be called back again. It also has a part to play with the fact that there have been some difficulties in my life, and you can choose to react to difficulties in a couple of ways. You can either be really negative about everything and really cautious about everything, or you can choose to see the good in everything. I chose to see the good!”

Photo | Peter Jennings.

Anita Wigl’it’s hilarious and touching one-woman show, Funny Girl, is playing at Phoenix Cabaret on Friday, 26 May, as part of the NZ International Comedy Festival.

*This will change when Hannah Conda competes on Drag Race UK Vs The World later this year.

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