'Drag Race Holland's Roem Talks Elimination & That Queen Controversy

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'Drag Race Holland's Roem Talks Elimination & That Queen Controversy

Just like Drag Race, The Dipp's Exposed: Dragged Out podcast, hosted by Joseph Shepherd, is going international. And, this week, Joseph talked with Drag Race Holland's Roem (formerly known as Roem Service) about being the first cut of the first season of the series.

Not that she didn't see it coming. Roem tells Joseph that she did think she deserved to go home, but there's lots more to discuss than just her elimination — in his in-depth chat, Joseph covers it all with Roem, including that whole queen costume controversy, the increasing expense of Drag Race, what host Fred van Leer was like behind the scenes, and why we need more photoshoots in the franchise.

Listen to the new episode below, or read on for a full, unedited transcript of the chat!

[rich Embed]

Joseph:
Well, welcome to Dragged Out. I'm Joseph Shepherd and I host this lovely weekly podcast. We dive into all things, Drag Race, all international franchises, all of that good, good. And we get into some of the girls that just so happened to go home first, whether it was deserved or not. And today's guest is all the way from an international Drag Race franchise, Holland to be exact, please welcome Roem Service. How are you doing?

Roem:
Hi. Oh my God. I'm doing amazing, actually. I'm so excited for this. Yeah.

Joseph:
I'm so excited because back when Holland the queens were introduced, you were already following me and I was like, "My gosh, Miss Roem Service." And I was like, "All right, we're going to be rooting..." I was like, "I'm excited." And then I was like, "No, no."

Roem:
Not this.

Joseph:
Not this. How did you end up figuring out about me?

Roem:
Well, people like to call me a social media queen and I was a lot on Reddit back in the days and someone posted your interview with Alaska. And if anyone knows me, I'm obsessed with Alaska. I love that bitch so much. I, of course, took out my headphones. I was like, "Let me listen to this interview. Let me listen to this bitch and I want to know anything she says." I just loved it. And I was like, "Let me follow this bitch. Let me see what he does."

And I love your work. I absolutely love this. Anyone who gets into the deep with drag queens and gives us a platform, that's great stuff for us. It's like, "Yeah, let me see what you're doing." And you make great content.

Joseph:
Well, thank you. You also made great content that you stopped. I'm very disappointed that you did stop it. You had your-

Roem:
The Dark show.

Joseph:
Yes, the Dark show and I actually had no idea it was you behind it and I just remember always watching those and that must have been like a very big creative process for you too. That's a big undertaking.

Roem:
Yeah. I had no life, so I spent all of my time to making that. My goodness. A lot of people are like, "Why did you stop making it? And what's going on? I never knew it was you." But the fun thing is I had such a fun time making fun of everyone on the show. If anyone knows me, I love to criticize Drag Race. I love to be a little bit salty, but I love the show. I'm obsessed with the show and it's the greatest platform for us ever.

It was a little bit of a love and hate relationship with Drag Race and that merged into RaPal Dark Res back in the day. It all started as a joke between me and a friend, actually. It was never meant to be something serious because he loved these weird internet cartoons and he hated Drag Race at the time, so as a joke for him, I combined the two into RaPal's Dark Res and put a little video on YouTube, but I didn't tell him it was me. He's like, "Have you seen this?"

He found it himself and then a few days later, the views started to increase and increase and increase. I'm like, "Hold up, what's going on? This is not supposed to happen." And then I was like, "Okay, people like this, let me make more." But I was ashamed of putting my name behind it because-

Joseph:
Really?

Roem:
Yeah. I was like-

Joseph:
Because you were... Yeah. Were you afraid of getting backlash or something from actually applying for Drag Race? Were you afraid of that?

[video Embed]
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