Drag Race Down Under's Art Simone reveals RuPaul didn't know who Bindi Irwin was | PopBuzz Meets

12 May 2021, 18:14

Drag Race Down Under's Art Simone Reveals RuPaul Didn't Know Who Bindi Irwin Was | PopBuzz Meets

By Woodrow Whyte

Bindi Irwin? That means nothing...

Drag Race Down Under star Art Simone has revealed that RuPaul did not know who Bindi Irwin was before her Snatch Game performance.

The revelation came after Art's shock elimination (and dramatic exit - more on that in a moment) in the second episode of the inaugural Down Under season. But the Drag Race episode proved controversial for several reasons.

The queens were taken by surprise when RuPaul announced that the queens would be playing Snatch Game. The impersonation-style game usually comes much later in the season. However, the choices of characters and jokes by a couple of queens did not land well with some.

Anita Wigl'it went on to win the episode with her hilarious impression of Queen Elizabeth II. However, when the show aired in the UK, the national broadcaster cut certain jokes about Prince Andrew, seemingly in a bid to avoid causing offence. The move is laughable in itself considering Prince Andrew is widely considered to be a disgrace by most Brits following allegations made by Virginia Roberts, who worked for Jeffrey Epstein, that she was allegedly forced to have sex with the prince when she was 17 years old.

Then there was Etcetera Etcetera's choice for Snatch Game, Lindy Chamberlain. For those that don't know, Chamberlain was wrongly accused of murdering her own baby and jailed for three years in 1982 [via news.com.us]. The child was snatched by a dingo from a campsite near Uluru, a moment Etcetera Etcetera mocked during the episode, complete with a blood-soaked dingo puppet.

And then there was the elimination of fan favourite, Art Simone, who revealed in an interview with PopBuzz that RuPaul didn't know who her Snatch Game character was.

Art played Bindi Irwin, who is an internationally famous television personality, conservationist and zookeeper, and the daughter of the late Steve Irwin. But it seems like Ru didn't know who the Crocodile Hunter was either.

"Yeah she had no idea. I had my one on one with her and I brought over my stuff, and she was like "Who are you doing?", and I was like 'Bindi Irwin' and she was like [silence]. 'Oh, Steve Irwin's daughter?' And she was like [silence]. 'The Crocodile Hunter's daughter?!' [silence] And so she repeated what I said and we moved on."

Awkward!

After ending up in the bottom two and losing the lip sync to Coco Jumbo, Art burst into tears as she sashayed away off the runway.

In the final clip, the producers try to get Art to see the positive side of her experience by saying how proud she must be to have even made it on the show, to which Art snaps back: "That means nothing. I will never live this down". It was absolutely iconic, and fans were living for Art's unvarnished emotional reaction. So much so, it's even become a meme.

So does Art still feel that way? Commenting on her exit, she said: "At least we've made something out of it. We've made lemonade out of lemons. I think I won't be able to live it down, but for different reasons than I was thinking at the time."

Hit play on the video at the top of this page to see the full interview and head over to the PopBuzz YouTube Channel where we will be releasing a new video with the eliminated queen from Drag Race Down Under each week.

Watch Drag Race Down Under on BBC iPlayer every Sunday.