Plane Jane On ‘RuPaul’s Drag Race’ Fans Celebrating Her Real Personality: ‘It’s Never Serious With Me’

It took a while, but a lot of the RuPaul’s Drag Race fandom are finally boarding the Plane; Plane Jane, that is.

The reformed villainess of Season 16, told Blavity’s Shadow and Act that she understands that it takes a while for people to get a sense of her real personality.

“In the beginning, you know, I was a little harsh, but you know, I like to say that I’m an acquired taste,” she said. “Just as the show and the edit portrayed and such as in real life as well, I feel like you really need to get to know me. I feel like anybody is really the same.”

“You don’t really know a person’s true colors until you spend a little bit more time with them,” she continued. “And luckily, due to my talent and my drag skills within the context of the competition, I was able to stick around for the entire time. So America got a healthy dose of Plane Jane, honey. And now they can’t get enough, and rightfully so.”

Part of what turned the tide was her hilarious collaboration video on Mistress Isabelle Brooks’ YouTube channel. The video showed a goofier side of Plane Jane, and it couldn’t have come at a better time, since as Drag Race episodes began to show the layers to Plane Jane’s humor and personality.

Plane Jane reiterated that the shade and reads are never coming from a place of hate.

“It’s never serious with me. It’s never personal,” she said. “You know, that collab I did with Mistress definitely helped some of the fanbase be like, ‘Okay, she’s not an evil, nefarious person. She’s just a funny, shady drag queen,’ and that’s really all there is to it.”

Plane Jane had a lot of iconic moments this season, one of them being when she was among the queens comforting Q after Q’s brave confession of living with HIV. The statement from Plane Jane — “Mama, kudos for saying that, for spilling” — has become a viral moment online, spawning countless memes. Plane Jane said that she’s happy fans caught onto the hilarity of her comment in the midst of a serious topic.

“I mean, it’s obviously hilarious. It’s funny that what myself and Q, the other active player in that, what we thought was a passing comment that sort of offered nothing more than just a pat on the back for her, a hug, a shoulder for her to cry on, if you will, just two sisters supporting each other … became viral, dare I say. We had no idea what happened. And I think it’s just really funny that the audience was able to sort of pick up on that interaction and be like, ‘Wait a second. That’s not really very typical of how people talk. That’s only very typical of how gay and queer people talk to each other nowadays.’ And that’s really hilarious.”

Plane Jane brought a lot of her Russian heritage to the mainstage during the challenges, and she did the same on the finale red carpet when she showed up as a glam Baba Yaga. She said that before Drag Race, she didn’t show a lot of her Russian heritage in her acts.

“It wasn’t necessarily an aesthetic that I paid homage to. I was just kind of brunching and gigging and dragging, but Drag Race gave me a really, really great opportunity to show more of my culture and represent it more in my drag and come up with more conceptual looks,” she said. “Arguably, a lot of people liked to call me out this season on having a few similar silhouettes here and there, hence “Bodysuit,” my finale number. But I also wanted to step out of my box and really do some cool, conceptual things with my drag because that’s part of who I am as a creative artist as well.”

“Showcasing my heritage and upbringing and my background, and bringing in that cultural aesthetic into my drag, was great,” she continued, “And I feel like it resonated with a lot of Russian queer people and a lot of Slavic queer people, so that’s really awesome.”

Plane Jane’s next takeoff after Drag Race is to meet all of her fans around the United States and internationally.

“I’m kind of in a million different places all at once right now. We’re trying to figure out what’s next while also touring — touring the United States and also planning out tours abroad,” she said. “This year, I feel like I’m just going to travel. I’m going to go from city to city and country to country and meet all the fans. But ultimately, I want to do more television. I have a one-woman show in the works, and I would love to incorporate some more well-thought-out ballroom dance numbers. I would love to just do it all — and I think that because of Drag Race now, the world is my oyster, honey.”

RuPaul’s Drag Race Season 16 is now streaming via MTV on-demand.