Who Will Win ‘RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars 4’?

· Updated on December 14, 2020

In the wake of Friday morning’s RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars 4 cast announcement,  it’s time to evaluate the 10 queens’ chances at the crown.

What, you thought we were going to wait? Silly. It’s Drag Race! Wild speculation is the name of the game. Starting from least likely to win to most, here are the 10 queens’ odds, ranked.

10. Jasmine Masters We deserve a Jasmine All Stars win. The meme queen is far greater a talent than she ever gets credit for, and would continue a legacy of excellence from the season 7 cast that, bit-by-bit, is redeeming what might be the most important Drag Race season. But Jasmine’s talents aren’t a good fit with what Drag Race demands, sadly.

 

9. Gia Gunn Gia’s inclusion in the cast is a little shocking, considering she’s been vocal that not only was she not on, but Drag Race isn’t welcoming to trans queens. Considering how she’s spoken out, as well as her fairly dismal performances in the season 6 challenges, we can’t imagine she goes far.

8. Farrah Moan Farrah’s here because she showed major spark in the reunion of season 9 — far more than she did on the show. A come-from-behind victory is always possible, and would be pretty thrilling if she pulled it off! But since All Stars tends to be a pretty performance-heavy format, Farrah is likely to flounder.

7. Monique Heart If there’s one ranking that we think we might be wrongest about, it’s Monique’s. The Kansas City queen was a massive fan favorite in season 10, and was hampered solely by her limited budget compared to other queens … at least, that’s how the story goes. If you watch back the season, something stranger takes hold: The judges just don’t seem to respond to Monique’s drag. That’s why we have her lower on the list, although if the judges suddenly take a shine to her (helped by her increased budget for drag), she may go far.

6. Naomi Smalls We keep pushing Naomi further up this list, because all of our reasons for thinking she won’t do well (she’s not great at performance challenges; she hasn’t grown tremendously since season 8) have clear responses. She still made top 3, so the judges clearly like what she does, and her growth was happening simultaneously with the season airing. So she had already blossomed by the time the finale happened. She still doesn’t feel like a winner, but who knows?

5. Latrice Royale On a personal level, Latrice is one of our all-time favorites, and we’d love to see her take her rightful place in the Drag Race Hall of Fame. She was screwed during All Stars 1, and we’re glad she’s getting a fairer shot. Moreover, both of her wins in season 4 were for performance challenges — acting and singing — which makes her a good potential All Stars competitor. That said, we think if either of the All Stars 1 returnees wins, it won’t be Latrice.

4. Trinity Taylor Few queens who have competed on Drag Race are as cutthroat as Trinity Taylor. The season 9 competitor won an impressive three challenges in her time, in a wide range of challenges: runway presentation, acting, and makeover. She’s incredibly well-rounded, and we know she’ll take advantage of All Stars‘ Lip Sync for Your Legacy format to send strong competitors home if she gets the chance. The only reason we have her this low is that it feels like the wrong time for another white or white-presenting All Stars winner.

3. Monét X Change So the myth with Monique — that her only problem was cheap drag — is actually Monét’s truth. The season 10 New York City queen was a massive favorite, scoring high in multiple challenges, and killing two lip syncs (one so hard she wound up in the top 10 lip syncs of all time). But she kept losing out on wins because her runway looks were inelegant. She’s the perfect fit for the All Stars format. If this season truly is a battle, and not just a predetermined path forward for a preselected winner, Monét could easily take it all.

2. Manila Luzon It is entirely possible that All Stars 4 will serve as a coronation run, similarly to how Chad Michaels breezed through All Stars 1 and Alaska dominated All Stars 2. (Between BenDeLaCreme dropping out and Shangela losing by jury vote, it’s safe to say logic and reason can’t be applied to All Stars 3.) If it is such a run, who better to receive it than Manila?

She is one of two queens who performed statistically the best on their original season, only to lose the crown — because she and the eventual winner, Raja, statistically tied. (Shea Coulée is the other stats queen to not win, because of the Lip Sync for the Crown twist.) Manila’s brand of fashion excellence and performance prowess seems like a great fit for the All Stars mold, too. If not for someone else in this competition, I’d say she has this in the bag.

1. Valentina But of course. The second we learned that Valentina, future Rent: Live star and Miss Fan Favorite, would be in All Stars 4, we knew she was the odds-on favorite. Valentina’s run on season 9 has always carried a “what if?” quality to it. What if she hadn’t landed in the bottom two for the sitcom challenge? What if she knew the words to “Greedy”? What if she proved that, as RuPaul told her, she “had the stuff to go all the way”?

All Stars 4 is her chance to make good on all those “what if?” questions. She has the talent, and more importantly for All Stars, she has the fanbase. The safe money going into this is on Val.

Image via Getty

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