Willow Pill Brings RuPaul's Drag Race Crown Back to Denver

Before season fourteen of the reality-TV competition RuPaul's Drag Race started airing, contestant Willow Pill told Westword that she planned to follow in drag sister Yvie Oddly's high-heeled footsteps and bring home the crown. This past Friday, April 22, the Denver native did just that. Gay bars around Colorado erupted in applause and cheers as Pill was crowned America's Next Drag Superstar, three years after fellow Denver queen Oddly was given the same title.

"Being on Drag Race was something Yvie and I had talked about for years," Pill told us in January. "I think we both knew it was going to happen. It just felt like she was on, and she was going to pass the torch to me." Pill will be coming home to Denver in June to headline the Pride edition of Tracks' monthly drag showcase, Drag Nation.

The 26-year-old Pill was up against four other queens in Friday's finale (the first five-person finale in the franchise's history), where each queen performed an original number specifically written for them. Pill performed the cheeky and charming "I Hate People," wearing a gown with two mannequin heads that paid tribute to Oddly's iconic finale look from Season 11. RuPaul chose his top two queens, Pill and British import Lady Camden, to compete in a final lip-sync battle to a Cher cover of ABBA's "Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight)." To raise the stakes even more, RuPaul announced that this year's winner would not take home the usual $100,000 cash prize, but instead $150,000, the largest cash prize in the show's history. For the first time, the runner-up also received a cash prize, of $50,000.

Fans of Drag Race were quick to notice the parallels between the final two competitors and those of season eleven, Oddly and Brooke Lynn Hytes. Both Oddly and Pill are Denver queens whose quirky, offbeat styles of drag are largely inspired by their struggles with chronic illness. Oddly spoke openly of her battle with Ehlers-Danlos syndrome during her time on Drag Race, as did Pill of her experience with the rare kidney disease cystinosis (which also inspired the name "Pill"). Their opponents, Hytes and Camden, are both poised international queens (Hytes is Canadian) with a background in ballet. Oddly and Pill were both considered underdogs, as they hadn't won as many challenges as their competitions. As Oddly pointed out on Twitter, "Apparently Denver births iconically weird and chronically ill queens who don't win challenges...we win SEASONS."
Pill is the fourth queen from Denver to appear on RuPaul's Drag Race, following Oddly, Kahanna Montrese and Nina Flowers, who was in season one and also made it all the way to the finale of her season.

While Pill recently relocated to Chicago, she will always be a Denver queen; she hopes her win will inspire producers to cast more Colorado drag performers on future seasons of Drag Race. In the meantime, the Mile High City is thrilled to see the Drag Race crown go to another exceptional representative of Denver's twisted, fashion-forward, psychedelic drag.

For more information on Willow Pill, visit her website. Follow Tracks on Instagram for updates about June's Drag Nation, including when tickets will be available for purchase.