Mhi’ya Iman Le’Paige let us all know why she’s the queen of flips during Season 16 of RuPaul’s Drag Race. But even though she proved herself to be the Lip Sync Assassin, she met her match with fellow Miami queen Morphine Love Dion and had to sashay away.
Le’Paige told Blavity’s Shadow and Act that she has mixed feelings about being the season’s lip sync assassin, saying, “For me, it’s like it’s up and it’s down.”
“The down part about it is. You know, I had to like lip sync almost every episode,” she said. “But the good part about it is that there is a list of amazing girls that have been lip sync assassins and have went very far with their careers and I’m going to go down in history as like one of the best lip syncers on drag race. I’m happy with that.”
Le’Paige’s talent for flipping during her performances in Miami earned her the nickname “Queen of Flips,” and she showed just why she has that nickname throughout the competition. As she said during the series, she learned to flip from hanging out with her cousins.
“[Flipping] stuck with me from being a child up until being an adult, and I kind of just ran with that. And every show that I did do, he was going to get at least two or three flips depending on the venue,” she said. “:…[H]ow I knew that I was great at flipping was when I [watched] videos of myself, ’cause I’ve always been the type to not [watch myself]I, I’ve never cared to look at myself. I don’t know why, but that was always the thing with me. And I started to see videos of myself flipping and I kind of like just studied what I needed to do to make it perfect, like my forms, my takeoff, my landing.”
“In the beginning, I used to flip with my eyes closed,” she continued. “I had a talk with someone and they told me to keep my eyes open. And once I [started] to flip with my eyes open, that’s when I started to do numbers of backflips.”
Le’Paige made her mark on the series with her amazing performances, but throughout the season, she was labeled as a quiet queen. Le’Paige said that being called that didn’t affect her much during the competition.
“I don’t think it really affects me because I’m like [that] in my normal life. I’m quiet, so I don’t think it affected me,” she said. “For the Snatch Game, everyone was able to see who I really was and I think I came alive for all of the challenges. I just shut down when I get around people–not shut down, but I get shy and quiet. I’ve always been like that and I’ve tried to break out of that so many times, but I haven’t broken that curse yet.”
Being quiet doesn’t mean less star power, though, since there are many entertainers who are introverted and still show us who they are. Le’Paige is no exception, since she has her city of Miami behind her.
“It’s been great to have so many people from home support me, show love, and when they see me, tell me how much I’ve inspired them or motivated them,” she said. “Something great came out of it, and I’m here for all the love and the uplifting and the support I have from my city. I know for a fact that I made them very proud and I’m not done yet. There’s still more work to do and I still want to put on for my city and represent. I’m going to represent Miami to the fullest, till the day I die.”
Le’Paige has a lot of projects she’s looking to get into now that her time on Drag Race is over.
“After Drag Race, I do want to get into some music…I want to do my own shoe line. I want to do my own lipstick line and I want to do more TV,” she said. “I think I’ve gotten out of the fear of being in front of cameras. So now I want to do more TV, movies and I just want to take off [and] take over the world. Anything I’m able to, I’ll get my hands on it and I just want to put everything out there.”
RuPaul’s Drag Race airs Fridays at 8/7 on MTV.