Series six of RuPaul’s Drag Race UK delivered another iconic girl groups episode last night (Thursday 17 October), with Rileasa Slaves being crowned the winner of the challenge after delivering an incredible performance.
But it wasn’t quite such a good night for Zahirah Zapanta and Lill, who found themselves lipsyncing for their lives after landing in the bottom two. In the end, it was Zahirah who was told to sashay away following the lipsync to Don’t Call Me Up by Mabel.
Ahead of the lipsync, Zahirah and Lill admitted they weren’t looking forward to lipsyncing against their fellow Manchester queen and in an exclusive post-elimination chat with heat, Zahirah revealed they’d had an unaired conversation beforehand.
She explained, ‘It's already hard enough and to do it with one of your Manchester sisters, it was even harder. But what was beautiful about that moment was Lill took me to one side before, because we knew, it was almost written on our foreheads that we were going to be in the bottom, and she held my hands and she said, “This is not even a thing, Zahirah. Let's just show what Manchester has got”.
‘Watching it back, I think we did that. I have so much love for Lil and she is coming across so well on TV, and she's so authentic. Either way it was going to be heartbreaking for either of us to go and heartbreak for the fans as well, so I'm proud of her and I wish everybody who is left in the competition good luck.’
We love a congenial queen.
Speaking about performing Don’t Call Me Up in front of Mabel herself, who was a guest judge on the episode, Zahirah told us, ‘I can't lie, it was so scary. You're performing a Mabel song in front of Mabel, you want to do it justice.
‘And because I was also really, really, really focused on doing well in the girl groups challenge I was scrambling. I was scrambling learning those words to be honest with you, so it was, a difficult, difficult week for me. But watching it back out, I watched it so many times. I was rewinding the lip sync because, for the past however many months since filming, I made it so much worse in my head and was like, ‘Oh my God, I flopped so hard,’ but I stand by the lip sync. We both killed it.’
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Nathan Katnoria is heat and Closer online's Senior Digital Writer. He writes about all the latest and greatest reality TV, including Love Island, Made in Chelsea, Geordie Shore, Big Brother and Love is Blind UK and has interviewed everyone from Charlotte Crosby to Chloe Brockett and Miles Nazaire to Megan Barton-Hanson.