Discord Addams is, to put it mildly, not a fan of Law Roach.
The celebrity stylist and RuPaul’s Drag Race rotating judge gave Addams and her partner Colton harsh critiques during the Season 18 makeover challenge, saying their punk and preppy teen looks were ugly and that he hated them as much as he hates his own father.
If you thought what Roach said was wild, Addams did too.
“It usually is, though, isn’t it?” she said of Roach’s comments throughout his Drag Race tenure in an exit interview with Blavity’s Shadow and Act.
Discord Addams calls out Law Roach’s critique
Addams said Roach’s comments during the makeover challenge — especially one involving non-contestants — were not just harsh, but revealing.
“That speaks loudly about his character, right?” she said. “Like, you’re standing there in front of a bunch of people who were scared as f**k to get into drag, who were scared as f**k to show their femininity, and they all just got done talking about how beautiful we all made them feel and how confident we all made them feel. And then for Law Roach to look them dead in the eyes and be like, ‘I hate it, it’s ugly, I hate this more than my dad,’ it’s like, what? What part of that critique is constructive? What part of that critique is helping me grow or helping them grow? What part of that is helping anybody feel better about themselves? So to me, it’s out of pocket, it’s out of character, and it speaks loudly about who I think he is as a person.”
“Michelle [Visage] can be like, ‘Oh, I didn’t see the family resemblance.’ That’s fine. Michelle is always there to lift you up with her critiques. She’ll always button it up with something that is helpful and it’s gonna help you grow as a character and as an artist,” Addams continued. “Law Roach just speaks in terms of clickbait and rage bait. He just wants engagement on the internet, and you can tell that he is just chasing that clout in the way he just got done styling the Bezoses, you know what I mean? You are taking money from billionaires.”
“You don’t have morals that I personally align with or that I personally agree with, so his critiques to me, they didn’t matter,” she said. “They just went in one ear and out the other, ’cause it’s like, I don’t f**k with you as a person, so I don’t care what you have to say, but don’t make my partner feel bad, who is here for the first time.”
“You’re a judge,” she added. “Your job is to give critiques and constructive criticism, not just nasty words.”
Supporting her partner through the moment
Addams confirmed she spoke with Colton behind the scenes about the critiques.
“I’m sure in Untucked they may have shown the way that I was encouraging him and telling him not to listen to that because he felt confident and he felt good, and that’s what drag is about,” she said.
“Drag is about inspiring confidence. Drag is about making you feel like your best self, whether that’s through a character or whether that’s through your own inner femininity or your own inner power,” she continued. “And I did that and Colton felt that way. So at the end of the day, I still feel like I won because I did what I was told to do, and I made my partner feel comfortable, happy and powerful, and that’s all that matters. At the end of the day, I was in charge of him and his emotions and I think I nailed it.”
On the judges’ feedback and runway concept
Visage also critiqued Addams’ family resemblance concept, saying the punk and preppy pairing didn’t fully read as a family connection.
But Addams disagreed.
“I thought it was a loud enough story that made obvious sense,” she said. “If you have a bunch of family members, it’s not unlikely that one of them’s gonna be punk or gothic or one of them is gonna be really preppy and they’re not gonna get along, but maybe they go to the same private school. I don’t know, I was trying to be on the nose with it.”
“It was funny because I remember RuPaul gave me a critique during the walkthroughs that was like, ‘I don’t get it, and if you have to explain it, then it doesn’t make sense.’ And I was like, ‘This is honestly the most obvious, on-the-nose thing I’ve done all season. Like, all of my runways were way more highbrow than the idea of a preppy [person] and a punk person.’”
“I think that the internet has a loud opinion on how they feel about the makeover challenges every single season,” she continued. “So you know, my opinion doesn’t matter, but we all know what the internet thinks.”
Learning from the makeover partners
Despite the tension, Addams said working with the makeover partners — cowboys — was a highlight.
“It’s so cool getting to see that side of the gay spectrum, and that’s their art, you know what I mean?” she said. “Some of them are tackling goats and putting panties on goats, you know? Things that I’d never even fathomed thinking about. I was like, ‘What do you mean you’re goat dressing?’ It was just so crazy to see how much there is outside of drag or just going out to the clubs. Everybody has their own passions, and getting to hear them talk so strongly about it — it was really cool.”
On bending the rules and standing firm
Addams also addressed criticism from fellow contestants about her bending the rules in past challenges.
“I didn’t care because this isn’t Juicy’s Drag Race. This isn’t Jane [Don’t]’s Drag Race. This is RuPaul’s Drag Race. And if RuPaul felt that I had bent the rules, then I would’ve gone home — and I didn’t go home,” she said. “So what my sisters have to say about me doesn’t matter because they’re not on the judge’s panel.”
What’s next for Discord Addams
Addams said she’s bringing that same unapologetic energy into life after the show.
“Oh, we gotta change the world, right?” she said. “We’re living in scary, scary times. And the more people with louder platforms to speak out against what’s happening and to raise awareness, the better. I wanna do that.”
“I want to create a punk album that very loudly states what I believe,” she continued. “I want to donate money to any charity that aligns with me. I want to be loud and I want to be gay and I want to not let up on this fascist administration. I wanna not let up on the fact that I think ICE agents need to be publicly hanged in the streets.”
“I think we are at a point in time where love has only carried us so far, and it’s clearly not making anything better right now,” she said. “So right now we need to call people to action, and we need to be the resistance that we see on TV. We need to actually put our money where our mouth is and we need to get our boots on the ground. Right now it’s just more important than ever. We need to take a page out of the French [way], where if you even try to instate a rule about overtime, they’re gonna burn your corporation to the ground. And I think that Americans think that if they tweet about it then they’re doing something fundamentally important, and they’re just not. The social activism on Twitter and on Reddit — it’s fake, and it’s performative, and it’s not helping anything. We need people to actually be in the streets, actually picketing, actually making an f*****g difference.”
RuPaul’s Drag Race airs Fridays at 8 p.m. on MTV.