RuPaul's Drag Race alum Mia Starr is putting Jennifer Lopez on blast.
In a new interview with Entertainment Weekly, the season 18 queen recounted her experience of working with Lopez when she was hired as a backup dancer for the 2020 Super Bowl halftime show.
Starr, who had already worked with stars like Britney Spears and Rihanna before getting hired for the Super Bowl, quit her job on the casting team for the reality competition series The Voice so that she could start working on the routine right away.
However, on the second day of rehearsals, things quickly turned awkward when Lopez showed up and seemed unhappy with Mia’s physique.
"She looks at me, comes up next to me, and is like, 'Hey, can you take off your shirt?'" Starr told EW. "I did it, and the look of disgust she gave me... now, people are looking."
After looking at Starr's body, the drag queen said Lopez gave a "huge speech" where she told the dancers, "Guys, I need you to elevate yourself. You're dancing for me!"
"I get it, but I was like, bitch, this is literally day two, and we have three months, and I know my body. I'm going to snatch it back if we're going to be dancing 60 hours a week," Mia said. "We have three more months, give me a break!"
She claims that Lopez asked "all the boys" to take off their shirts for the next few hours of rehearsals, which Mia said was "so uncomfortable.”
"It just felt like an icky feeling. But, as a dancer, obviously, you are getting paid to look good," she said. “But I was coming straight from office casting work. This job came out of left field, and I was grateful for it."
Starr got into shape, but said that Lopez "made it very clear that she was not pleased with my image, the way she gave that look of disgust. I was like, oh, this is embarrassing."
She also recounted a time when Lopez hired a catering truck to bring ice cream to rehearsals, and Starr made sure she "was one of the first people in line" out of spite.
According to Starr, she thanked Lopez for the sweet treat before the "Jenny from the Block" singer gave another speech in which she told the dancers they needed to "elevate" themselves.
"Clearly, at this point, I was like, she hates me," Mia said. "I'm so petty. If I know you don't like me, I'm going to do everything in my power to make you really not like me. I'm going to give you a reason to not like me."
That’s not the only criticism Starr leveled at Lopez. The fan-favorite queen also said that the pop star would "always come in rehearsals maybe the last two hours after we'd rehearsed eight hours of a 10-hour day, and she'd just be like, 'I hate it,' and give this big spiel," which would lead to changes in the set, though Starr said that’s a normal part of the rehearsal process.
Starr may be critical of some of Lopez's methods, but said the pop star was "super sweet to the kids,” while still telling the adult dancer that they “look like s—t.”
"I'm busting my ass," Mia said. "This dream job wasn't what I expected in the sense that this is the biggest moment of a dancer's career, and it felt like hell up until the point of the performance."
Ultimately, Starr said Lopez was happy with her performance, but when she was put in Lopez’s 2022 Netflix documentary, Halftime, despite refusing to sign releases to appear in the film without pay, she was only sent a $20 check as compensation.
"It was so insulting," Starr said. "I told my agent, 'You know what, actually, you can just please send this back, they clearly need it more than I do.' I sent it back, because it's super insulting. I just had to laugh at that point, I was like, this is unreal."
