As one of a select few queens who have endured success as four-time Drag Race-rs, Eureka’s status as a franchise legend is indisputable. In season nine, she happy-cried to Lady Gaga slash Ronnie as she reflected on Mother Mother’s LGBTQIA+ impact and made herstory, albeit not in a positive way, as the first queen to be eliminated as a result of an injury. The self-described “Elephant Queen” made a triumphant return the following year, earning a spot in the final with two challenges under her belt and one of the series’ most iconic lip-sync showdowns with Tennessee bestie Kameron Michaels.

Although she failed to secure the crown with her third attempt on All Stars 6, Eureka won the – as various queens have put it – the ‘race after Drag Race‘ when she co-led three seasons of HBO’s We’re Here, which collected four Primetime Emmys and a Peabody Award. Again, because it bears repeating: she’s a legend.

In her fourth attempt at Drag Race victory on Canada vs the World, Eureka exuded joy in her newfound skin as a sober trans woman. While her time ended prematurely, sashaying away in sixth place, she assures GAY TIMES that it “felt right” for her journey. “I don’t necessarily know if it was my time to return competing. I think I really wanted to share my trans journey and where I was right now in my life – desperately, almost. I was maybe overly excited, that I jumped in a little quicker than I should’ve.”

Here, Eureka is as raw, shady and hilarious as she has ever been as she reflects on her Canada’s Drag Race vs the World experience (including her lip-sync battle with Miss Fiercalicious and the challenge she “hated”), the season 10 queen she wanted to “send to the house” and feeling “pleasant comfort” in her trans and sober journeys.

Eureka, it’s a pleasure to speak with you, but it’s also… annoying? I didn’t want you to go this soon.

It’s never ideal! Honestly, it felt good and right in the moment. I’m a present person, officially, so I was living in the present. I had a good time, but also being there, I don’t necessarily know if it was my time to return competing. I think I really wanted to share my trans journey and where I was right now in my life – desperately, almost. I was maybe overly excited, that I jumped in a little quicker than I should’ve.

I don’t know, that’s kind of bullshit too because when RuPaul calls, honey, you answer the call and show up! It’s always an opportunity to give back to the franchise. I’m blessed with the experience that I’ve had. When I got to see my exit episode, it was such a reminder of where I am now in my life, where I was then, and how much farther I’ve come with my emotional stability. It was also a great reminder of where I wanna go and focus on.

This was quite an emotional episode for you, but having seen all of your seasons, it feels like you were at your happiest? You were a joy to watch.

Thank you. I guess “happiness” is a good word, but I think the biggest part of happiness is weirdly comfort. I’ve lived in such discomfort most of my life because I’ve always tried to play the part to get the success I wanted, to have a place in my social atmosphere to support my family… There are so many factors as to why I needed to make it and have a successful career, but also this desperation of wanting to be in this spotlight. Growing up, I wasn’t very celebrated unless I was over-achieving, so I have this crazy drive to over-achieve and be the best at everything, which has caused this perfectionist narcissism that I live with daily. I think I just relaxed out of that. There’s something about when you start living more for yourself versus everyone else. You do find this sense of pleasant comfort.

This episode, you opened up about your sobriety and how it’s impacted your mental health and performance in the competition. How did this affect you personally, but also the relationship with your sisters and the audience at home?

I think that my sisters finally understood me a little better, being honest with where I was at mentally and where my insecurities come from. Addiction is a shame-fuelled disease, so it comes with a lot of shame about when you use or why you use, the traumas and releases [that results in someone] becoming an addict. You stay isolated and start living in this place of shame, and that’s how you stay using. For me, it was also to push myself to work, work, work, work. It was this desperation to attend and be apart of everything and be my best at everything. Also, I lost my parents, my grandmother and my mother very close together. I had a Christmas where – real tea, this is like my backstory – it turned a dark corner for me.

I couldn’t go home and I was in West Hollywood with all the abandoned queer people and it was a beautiful family moment for us to come together, but it was also such a sad time being in this environment with all these people where, the way that we coped, was to party. I started doing it heavily and it kinda stuck with me. I didn’t really use drugs until the pandemic, either. That isolation is also where it also began, finding a way to enjoy myself. The bad part about it is, when we have these not-faced traumas, which most queer people have, we can be [more] susceptible [to addiction]. Also, I think I have some generational addiction. Growing up, my parents were addicts. It explains a lot of my childhood and a lot of what I went through and witnessed. Marijuana was very prevalent, drinking and drugs, so it was normalised in my upbringing. I never really had a negative connotation or perception of it. So when it became a part of my lifestyle I was just like, ‘Oh, this is what people do!’

How do you feel right now in your journey? If that’s not too personal to ask, of course?

No, you’re fine. I appreciate you asking. I feel good. I’ve been doing really well with my personal and mental health, especially my recovery journey in general. Everyone’s journey is different, mine has been quite the rollercoaster as I explore my transness. I think that’s real for most people. In the AA community, there’s this addiction format of, ‘I’m an addict, and this is what I’ll always be forever,’ and I just feel that I’m a recovering… circumstantial addict. I’m also still narcissistic and a perfectionist and don’t want to admit that I have a horrible monster somewhere deep down inside me – we all have one. That’s the short answer! I am sober today, which is a beautiful thing. I’ve been in recovery for three years. I’ve had my “slips”, as we call it in the community, and minor relapses, but I am a proud three-year recoveree.

In a year, you can say you’re a four-time Drag Race-r and four-time recoveree.

A four-time Drag Race competitor and in recovery!

And then the next year when you appear on Global All Stars, five-time for both. That’s how it’s gonna be.

Maybe not that soon! I don’t know. We’ll see. I mean, right now I’m very much in the headspace of where I wanna live and pursue acting. I’m doing a show right now in Vegas that’s scripted, called Disco Show, which I’m very proud to be part of. I really want to branch more into writing, a lot of different things. Competing takes a lot of your spirit and attention, like prepping for the season’s release. Maybe so, but girl, I’m still trying to recover from the financial debt of Canada vs the World.

For me to have things custom made at that caliber, it costs a lot of money. If I’m ready, I think I would do Global because I appreciate all the franchises. But, I just wanna make sure I’m in a place where I’m financially secure and safe, and I’m emotionally in a place where I won’t go in feeling like I have more of a story to tell. Going into Canada vs the World, I really did have this idea of, ‘I’m excited to do this because / I wanna talk about this.’ It would be nice to go into a season without that pressure, maybe.

I’m hoping for appearance five, six, seven – whatever. I want more Eureka on my screen.

Well, my dream is that they do a plus-size All Stars. I would love that. Wouldn’t that be great?

Who would you want to go up against?

All the big girls! An all-big girl season. I don’t know how many we have now in the franchise, probably enough to do an eleven, twelve cast. All the legends to celebrate the plus-size and big girls. Normally there’s one a season, so what if we had ten or eleven? It would be drama. It would be cunty. Also, it could be “THE BIGGEST COMPETITION YET”. The PR would be great.