Megami reveals why she wanted to 'stare Ru down' during key lip-sync lyric before “Drag Race” elimination

Megami playfully tells EW's "Quick Drag" podcast which Miley Cyrus lyric she wanted Mama Ru to watch her sing before being sent home on season 16.

Megami's time on RuPaul's Drag Race season 16 was all about protection — protecting herself from renegade Werk Room attacks from Plane Jane, Q, and Xunami Muse, from harrowing choreography during the Rusical, and, most importantly, protecting queer art with her heavily meme'd talent show performance.

Unfortunately, Megami was only able to tick a few things off of that list, as she was sent home on Friday night's episode after a Sound of Music-themed theatrical performance landed her in the bottom two opposite Mhi'ya Iman Le'Paige.

Still, much like the sign she held up on episode 1, she's become a poster (board) for the excellence of the art form, and she tells EW's Quick Drag podcast (above) that she gave herself a tiny parting gift that honored her own worth when she playfully stared RuPaul down as she mouthed a specific, empowering lyric about self-love in the Miley Cyrus lip-sync performance that sent her packing.

Read on for a full breakdown of EW's exit interview with Megami, before RuPaul's Drag Race season 16 continues Fridays at 8 p.m. ET/PT on MTV.

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: Megami! How are you?

MEGAMI: I’ve been better, but I’m also glad to be here and glad to be hashtag robbed on the show. Everyone send me love!

If you were robbed, who should’ve gone home?

I feel like Plane and Xunami should’ve been in the bottom because walking across the stage is not that difficult. Me, Dawn, and Nymphia were sweating our asses off dancing like a goddamned storm on that stage. I’ll leave it at that.

Xunami, Plane, and Q did put in a lot of work walking around the Werk Room shading everyone.

Walking is very hard, and Xunami is excellent at that. I’m glad she got to show off her talent.

You began this episode with a hilarious read for Dawn where you likened her outfit to Buzz Lightyear. Where did that come from?

Dawn’s whole character was an intergalactic elf thing or whatever, and I’m like, you’re literally wearing Buzz Lightyear colors in a swimming cap.

On that note, can you please explain this running gag on social media of you saying that Dawn is Latina?

This came from another queen in Brooklyn. Dawn loves to paint herself a multitude of various colors. One of the queens in New York, I think it was Rify Royalty, they were at a show and Dawn was getting out of drag, they’re backstage and she’s finally seen Dawn out of drag, and Rify goes, “Oh my God, Dawn, I didn’t know you were white, I thought you were Dominican.” It became a meme in Brooklyn that Dawn is canonically Dominican.

This week was the fan favorite Rusical challenge, and of course we got drama with role selection. You wanted Baroness Braun, which eventually went to Q in a game of Rock, Paper, Scissors that you lost. You looked plucked, and Xunami, Plane, and Q all said later in the Werk Room that you were Bitter Betty over this. How do you feel in hindsight about the role selection and how that went down, and can you explain the resentments you were feeling?

Resentment is certainly applicable. At this point, I’d been safe so much. Even when I won, I never got to hear positive feedback from the judges. I wanted to get one of the main character roles, it’s a comedic role that I feel like I’d be fantastic at. Looking back, I should’ve put my foot down kind of like Plasma and took the role I wanted…. After we rehearsed and learned the show, me, Dawn, and Nymphia were dancing in every single act, and as a non-dancer, I worked my ass off. Maybe I wasn’t 100 percent perfect all the time, but we were sweating by the end of the show. It was just a lot.

Morphine said in that moment she felt Xunami was shading everyone because she had a crush on Plane Jane. What’s the tea? 

That’s not a thing. If anything, the one you need to look out for is Plane and Nymphia. I’m not going to expose my sisters on that one.

I think you just did!

I didn’t say anything that can’t be looked up online. I’m just putting that out there that maybe that’s a distraction. [Laughs] I don’t know how much, I’m just saying that over the winter, Plane flew to Taiwan to go visit Nymphia, and we were all like, "Ooh, what are you two doing over there?"

Michelle later critiqued you for having the same face and same delivery — do you agree with her assessment that your makeup was too similar?

When has consistency been bad? What do you mean I have the same face? Yeah, I’m naturally beautiful, I don’t need a bunch of filler to make different faces. I don’t get that critique. I thought I looked great every single week. Even after the show, my makeup has continued to improve. It’s not in my character if I’m not doing a specific cosplay to be doing all these weird, crazy faces. I have my good face and I love to stamp it. For me, that was a weird critique. If consistency is the worst thing you can say about my drag, girl, that means how good I am, right?

Were the critiques overall adding up?

I’d like to believe that other people did worse, for my own mental health. It really was a thing of, like, everyone did so well and really rose to the challenge of this Rusical that it was so hard to tell who was even going to be on the bottom. It is what it is at this point.

You seemed confident that “Flowers” by Miley Cyrus wasn’t a “flipping” lip-sync song, and Mhi’ya said that the queens didn’t know she was a “ballad queen.” Were you surprised by Mhi’ya’s performance? Did you tailor yours to what you thought she’d do?

I’m not a flipping kind of girl, I don’t do tricks and splits. I love doing weird artistic s---, lots of sad songs, so this is kind of more up my alley. I don’t know much of what Mhi’ya did because I was going to focus on the words of this song and the emotion and intent behind the song, and kind of stare Ru down and make that connection and feeling the feelings of Miley Cyrus. Maybe Ru didn’t like me looking her in the eye and saying, “I can love me better than you can.”

You did that intentionally, looking at Ru when you sang that lyric?

You’ve got to bring that Brooklyn spice with you. I don’t know much of what Mhi’ya was doing. I feel like her shoes were off at one point and there was jewelry all over the stage. I was like, my shoes were on, and my costume didn’t fall apart.

In Untucked, it seemed that you had a moment of that Brooklyn spice when you told Q how you felt about her choreography, and Xunami pushed back against the moment you called them “filler.” Did it seem fair to you that people pushed back heavily against you, when Plane has been mean to people all season, and Amanda was the only one to clap back?

At that point, I was upset about the entire thing. My intention was never to hurt anyone’s feelings, either. I know Xunami felt some kind of way, because I was upset and taking my frustration out on other people, and I apologized to her. It wasn’t you I should’ve been angry at; it was the situation. You guys didn’t pick how much choreography you got. I was annoyed at everything. I can see the writing on the wall, here, and it’s not looking great. Not my proudest moment.

You also inspired a lot of “Protect Queer Art” memes, and you’ve since said you stand by that performance. Are those memes validating or upsetting?

It’s a little of both. The performance came from a genuine place of love and concern for the community and for the art form of drag. I could’ve done a million other things and I was just, in the moment, was just thinking about all the legislation and pushback against queer and trans individuals. I want to use my 60 seconds to say something to the world, to the millions of people watching at home, many of whom are not queer people or particularly politically active. The most pushback and criticism I get were from people who live in L.A., New York, Chicago, these very queer centers and live in this bubble. Having been able to travel, going to places like Tennessee and Virginia, more traditionally red states, talking to people, their responses are completely different, like, "We get what you were doing, and it mattered."

It's fine that it’s a meme; that means I’ll be remembered, because no one’s talking about “Burger Finger” anymore. [Laughs]

At the beginning of the season, there were clues to the season ahead hidden in Untucked — the first shot shows your “Fuhgeddaboutit” card next to a guitar with “Mariah” on it, a nod to Plasma’s role. How did your card get there?

I put it down in the last episode while I was talking to Geneva in the back when we were about to leave. I forgot that I didn’t pick it up. When we came back on the next episode, it was still there, so I was like, f--- it, I’ll just leave it there and I think it stood there for the rest of the season if the girls are telling me the truth! At least I left a little part of me there in the Untucked lounge.

Subscribe to EW's Quick Drag podcast for recaps of RuPaul's Drag Race, including reactions from the cast, special guests, and more.

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Read the original article on Entertainment Weekly.