Lady Camden mustache you to respect the pain behind her Drag Race Freddie Mercury stunt: 'It did hurt'

The Lady tells EW she practiced the jaw-dropping mustache runway reveal multiple times in her kitchen, and reveals the meaningful inspiration behind it.

By

Joey Nolfi

Published on February 22, 2022 05:52PM EST

After staging a stunt maneuver for the Hollywood gods, Lady Camden transformed into Lord Camden before our very eyes on the RuPaul's Drag Race runway — but just because she felt her acting fantasy during the jaw-dropping moment doesn't mean the bumps she received were any less painful.

"It did hurt, I'm not going to lie. It's also hard to clean an outfit that's white when you keep falling down. The outfit is stained at this point," Lady Camden exclusively reveals in the latest episode of EW's BINGE podcast below, in which she also reveals she was "scared" to debut the bit — which involved her falling to the ground in front of the judges, knocking her wig off, and emerging with a Freddie Mercury-esque mustache on her face — on the Main Stage, but its reception was worth it.

"I practiced it in my kitchen a lot. You sort of don't want to give it away when you're backstage, you want to let the surprise happen. I practiced it once in the Werk Room. I don't know if anybody knew I was going to do it because not that many people saw me do it," she continues, estimating that she went over the act about five times at home — alongside performing splits and jumps for her audition tape — to the point where her downstairs neighbors lodged a noise complaint with the Britain-born queen.

While the suffering of her fellow apartment-dwellers contributed to Lady Camden's challenge-winning success on the latest installment of Drag Race, so did her own suffering beyond just the physical. The stunt, she recalls, was inspired by a particularly somber moment in her life.

Lady Camden falls on the 'RuPaul's Drag Race' season 14 runway. World of Wonder/VH1

"Before I got the call to go on Drag Race, I had this weird feeling that I needed to focus on drag.... I was working three jobs, and I remember quitting my restaurant job. I left at night and walked through Sacramento, it started raining and I was listening to music on my phone. Queen's "I Want to Break Free" came on, and it was this weird movie moment where I was like, maybe the universe is telling me that I'm doing my thing right now. It was so cheesy and corny, but I felt like I had to do something with it."

Lady Camden emerges as Freddie Mercury with a mustache on 'RuPaul's Drag Race' runway. World of Wonder/VH1

RuPaul's Drag Race continues Friday at 8 p.m. ET/PT on VH1, with each episode followed immediately by EW's new Quick Drag post-show recaps beginning at 10:05 p.m. ET/7:05 p.m. PT on the @EW Twitter handle. Listen to Lady Camden's full conversation above, and hear more Quick Drag interviews below.

Subscribe to EW's BINGE podcast for full recaps of RuPaul's Drag Race, including weekly season 14 recaps with the cast, adapted from our new Quick Drag series airing Fridays at 10:05 p.m. ET / 7:05 p.m. PT on the @EW Twitter account.

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