Alexis Mateo has taken to social media to address a recently resurfaced video that showed the queen accusing RuPaul’s Drag Race of mistreating Latinx contestants. Mateo is now claiming that some of her statements were taken out of context. However, she still stands by the video’s general message.
Ever since she became a finalist on RuPaul’s Drag Race season 3, Alexis Mateo has had an incredibly successful career as a drag entertainer. Later on, the Puerto Rican queen returned to the Drag Race franchise for All Stars 1… and guided her drag daughter Vanessa Vanjie Mateo to compete on seasons 10 and 11 of Drag Race. Then, Alexis was cast on All Stars 5 and she was a strong contender. However, Alexis Mateo’s performance on RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars 5 was diminished. This is because contestant India Ferrah alleged that the Puerto Rican queen had openly campaigned to eliminate Shea Coulee in a previous episode. When Alexis found herself in the bottom again on this past Friday’s episode, the All Stars 5 contestants unanimously voted to eliminate her. Then, over the weekend, a video resurfaced on social media. It showed Alexis accusing Drag Race of mistreating Latinx queens and saying that Latinx fans of the show shouldn’t be rooting for Miz Cracker. Now, the Puerto Rican queen has taken to social media to clarify the timeline of when the video was recorded and what she really meant by those statements.
On Sunday, July 12, Alexis Mateo went live on Instagram and took some time to address the resurfaced video in question… and to suggest that the franchise needs a version of Drag Race set in Latin America. In Spanish, Alexis started out by saying that the video is “is not new,” but that the opinions she expressed in the video haven’t changed. According to Alexis, she simply wanted to point out that queens like her shouldn’t be diminished due to their place of birth, native language, and/or culture, but that they are often discriminated against by fans of the show. For that reason, Alexis believes that the Drag Race franchise needs to branch out to Latin America, just like it did with Canada’s Drag Race and RuPaul’s Drag Race UK. Later, the Puerto Rican queen noted that the clip being shared on social media had been edited and her statements had been taken out of context.
With that said, this new explanation from Alexis Mateo did not address many points of contention that fans noted from the clip. For instance, Alexis had claimed in the original clip that Nina Flowers deserved to win Drag Race season 1 over BeBe Zahara Benet. This was interpreted by some fans as though Alexis was trying to bring attention to queens who are Latinas by putting down a queen who is Black. Moreover, Alexis stated in the original clip that “if you don’t speak Spanish, you’re not a Latino,” which bothered Latinx fans in the U.S. who may not speak Spanish and Brazilian. Unfortunately, neither of those topics were addressed in the live-stream. Alexis Mateo’s full statement (in Spanish) may be watched in the video below:
On the other hand, Alexis Mateo did clarify in the live-stream that her criticism of Miz Cracker in the clip was from 2018 – which is when Cracker and Vanjie competed together on Drag Race season 10 – not from Alexis’ time competing with Cracker on All Stars 5 in 2020. With that said, it is of note that most of the statements made in the original clip were related to older seasons of Drag Race. As such, Alexis Mateo’s accusation that the show mistreated queens like Nina Flowers (season 1), Jessica Wild (season 2), and Yara Sofia (season 3) isn’t something that had any major development between Drag Race season 10 and All Stars 5. Still, the live-stream did clarify that Alexis shared the original video two years ago, not following her elimination from All Stars 5 in 2020.
Nonetheless, Alexis Mateo’s core message during her time on RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars 5 was celebrating queens who are Latinas, and that is what Alexis will likely be most remembered for. Moreover, it would certainly be interesting for the RuPaul’s Drag Race franchise to expand to Latin America again – either by reviving The Switch or creating something new… Alexis would be a great candidate to host the series.
