Lost and Found

“It just feels like yesterday,” BeBe Zahara Benet says of her star-making turn on the first season of RuPaul’s Drag Race. “Even after all the seasons, I remember what I’m supposed to remember.”

Of course, those of us who weren’t on set that first season can’t be expected to remember it as clearly as Benet. As Logo’s drag competition show’s popularity skyrocketed in subsequent years, Season 1 languished in obscurity. What’s now known as “The Lost Season” was never streamed online, never released on DVD, and never re-aired on TV—until now.

This week, Logo begins airing RuPaul’s Drag Race: The Lost Season Ru-vealed, a special encore of the show’s groundbreaking first nine episodes. Still, we couldn’t wait for the September 30 premiere, so we tracked down Season 1 winner Benet for a little kiki about the season that started it all.

You have to understand, prior to all of this, they had not given us any information. We had to get ready and then people picked us up to take us to the set—and we didn’t even go right into the set.

Going into the show the only person I knew of was Shannel, because I’d worked with Shannel before doing Drag Race. But everybody else I did not know. So seeing Akashia and Rebecca and Nina and Jade and Ongina and Porkchop, I was trying to figure out, who are you and what are you bringing? What’s your story? Everybody was so unique in what they do, and anybody at that point could have been competition.

Akashia comes off as this hood chick, has been through it all, you know, and has this tough shell. But really when you get to talk to Akashia, underneath all of that is this amazing being who has been through so much and uses all the façade to protect herself. But she’s very caring and friendly.

Talk about moments: Ongina coming out with having HIV, which was something which was so unexpected.

Episode 6:

When we had to do the Absolut Drag Ball, we were given different fruits and I was representing raspberry. I ended up doing well on that challenge, but up to now it’s still one of the challenges I’m like, ‘Oh my gosh, I don’t know how I pulled that off!’ I felt like I had a really great color, but the worst fruit! I was struggling with the raspberries.

Nina and I are very close. I just became really good friends [with her]. But at first—her look can be very intimidating, like if you’ve not really been part of the culture and you’ve never seen androgyny done to that level. I wasn’t intimidated, but it was like, what’s behind all of this? Throughout the competition I did come to find out that she’s just an amazing spirit.

When we did the show and it aired I didn’t get a chance to really watch it. It will be good to see how far it has come. It’s like memories.

RuPaul’s Drag Race: The Lost Season Ru-vealed premieres Sep 30 at 9pm on Logo. Visit logotv.com for more info.