‘RuPaul’s Drag Race Global All Stars’ And The Franchise’s Imperial Peak

Drag fans the world over got a special treat on July 15th thanks to the surprise announcement of RuPaul’s Drag Race Global All Stars, the newest iteration of the ever-expanding Drag Race repertoire. With a dozen queens from a dozen different countries (and, in turn, a dozen different drag cultures) serving up a new competition on Paramount+, Global All Stars marks one of the franchise’s biggest risks yet. But, for diehard Drag Race fans, this kind of imperial phase escalation was to be expected.

For a crash course in RuPaul’s Drag Race broadcast history, the show began back in 2009, airing on the niche queer cable channel Logo. Drag Race stayed on Logo for eight seasons before moving to VH1 in 2017. Then, just last year in 2023, the series moved over to MTV, where it boasted a bigger cash prize for winners ($200,000, up from $150,000) and a noticeably higher budget. RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars, which features returning queens battling it out on their second (or sometimes third) go around in the competition, followed a similar trajectory, but, significantly, it moved from VH1 to the streaming platform Paramount+ in 2021. The show consistently broke cable ratings records, and the move to streaming didn’t do much to deter the Drag Race fandom; the second All Stars season to premiere on Paramount+ was an “all winners” competition, and the hype around it sent viewership rocketing up 60% for the streamer (Paramount+ does not release series viewership numbers, but the streamer announced it has 71 million subscribers earlier this year).

However, that same example highlights what could go wrong with Global All Stars. The “all winners” season featured some exceedingly familiar faces for Drag Race fans, with the cast including winners from seasons broadcast on Logo and VH1. The only exception was The Vivienne, who won the inaugural season of RuPaul’s Drag Race UK and opened up the flagship All Stars series (and Paramount+) to international contestants—of which there are many.

So far, Drag Race has branched out into 15 different global markets. Early adaptations like Chile’s The Switch and Drag Race Thailand didn’t necessarily adhere to the rigid, rinse-and-repeatable format of the American hit, but they set the stage for the proliferation of international series to come. Fans can watch drag queens compete in Australia and New Zealand, the Philippines, Brazil, and Belgium (among others) on WOW Presents Plus, the streaming platform belonging to the franchise’s original production company.

Many of these global iterations have knocked out a season a year, consistently adding to the storied Drag Race Hall of Fame while contributing memorable looks and lip syncs, some of the show’s biggest hallmarks. Drag Race España has featured enough talented queens that it aired its first All Stars season earlier this year. There are several seasons of Canada vs. the World and UK vs. the World, which see clusters of queens from other international series compete against queens representing their home nation. Drag has long been a global phenomenon, but Drag Race has become an imperial power only recently.

That said, this abundance of drag excellence has thus far been limited; WOW Presents Plus remains a niche streaming service despite its fervent fanbase, though subscriptions are up 35% since January 2023, a WOW Presents Plus PR representative tells Observer. After many baby steps towards international competition, Global All Stars is finally making the big leap at Paramount+. There have been rumblings about this kind of season for quite some time, bolstered by the ongoing Vs. the World series and the crowning of Canada’s Drag Race alum Jimbo as the winner of the otherwise all-American eighth season of All Stars in 2023. The second season of RuPaul’s Drag Race: UK vs. the World even saw an increase in watch time of over 50% compared to the most recent season of RuPaul’s Drag Race UK, WOW Presents Plus tells Observer. Not only are more fans tuning in to global drag, then, they’re tuning in for global drag competition.

Despite these trends, a fully global Drag Race spin-off isn’t a sure bet for Paramount+. The streaming platform doesn’t currently host any of the international series (though it previously was the home of Drag Race México), instead leaving that to WOW Presents Plus. There’s also the sorry fate of Queen of the Universe, a potential prototype for this kind of international battle royale that saw drag queens from all over the world competing in a singing competition. It ran for two seasons before being unceremoniously pulled from the streamer. Paramount+ hasn’t been particularly adventurous in its drag-related programming, making the announcement of Global All Stars all the more major. With this series, there’s a newfound confidence that drag is a universal language—but any Drag Race fan around the world could’ve told you that already.

‘RuPaul’s Drag Race Global All Stars’ premieres Friday, August 16th on Paramount+.