Drag Race's Shea Couleé breaks silence on drag daughters' family exit

RuPaul's Drag Race All Stars 5 winner Shea Couleé has broken her silence on the departure of her three drag daughters: Kenzie Couleé, Bambi Banks-Couleé, and Khloe Couleé, who are now, respectively, named Kenzie the Dragon, Bambi Banks, and Khloe Park.

Monét X Change — who competed with Shea on RuPaul's Drag Race All Stars 7, the legendary all-winners season of the series — asked if Shea wanted to comment on her drag daughters' departure from Maison Couleé.

"I want to say this on camera," Monét prefaced. "What I know of Shea Couleé? We've been friends for at least, five, six years now. I know you to be a generous, kind, and supportive person. I've never been your drag daughter. I've never lived in Chicago. But that is just my perspective on how I've seen you interact with our other sisters and how I've seen you be and get on with the world. So to seeing people come out and saying that you are a narcissist, you're doing all these things… That's just not the Shea Couleé that I know."

Shea started, "I have had to learn and be at peace with the fact that you can have relationships with people, you can spend time with them, create memories, and have a very specific experience with them… And they can be existing in a completely different reality than the one that you're in."

"One thing I do want to clear up, and make it perfectly clear: They did not drop the name. The name dropped them," Shea added. "For me, it really just got to a point where I felt like the dynamics were just not… They weren't positive. They weren't affirming, you know? It didn't feel safe. It didn't feel lovely. And I really, truly, from the bottom of my heart… All I wanted to do was help the girls and be somebody that could be a mentor for them."

Shea continued, "I didn't have a drag mother. I didn't have somebody in my corner prior to Drag Race. Just, like, you know, pouring into me and helping me to be a better version of myself. And all I ever really wanted for them and from them was to show up and be their best selves and feel safe enough and comfortable enough with me to to know that I really did have their best interests at heart."

After pausing for a second, Shea got into what she thinks is the main reason why this Couleéxit happened. "I'm going to say the quiet part out loud," she began. "I had a conversation with one of our drag sisters — because she was friends with them prior to getting on the show — and she was like, 'You know, they had painted a very specific picture of you to me.' And I was like, 'Oh, really?' And she's like, 'But then I got to know you. You are not what they said. I really do feel that they expected that because they had your name, that they… It would be a fast track for them to get on Drag Race.'"

For context, Kenzie the Dragon, Khloe Park, and Bambi Banks haven't been cast in the 17 flagship seasons of Drag Race that have aired thus far.

"So when it didn't happen for them, they began to resent me," Shea went on in the interview. "And I really do think that that is true. I auditioned 5 times; it took me a long time. And I would try to give them advice on how I felt that they could improve on their audition process and things like that. But I don't know where we went left — to where what I was trying to provide as critique was viewed as criticism. I was just trying to, you know, help a girl out. Like, 'I've been through this. I want you to, you know, do well. I want you to succeed.'"

The All Stars 5 winner reflected, "Ultimately, it's just like we grew apart. We got to a place where I was just like, 'I don't think that this is sustainable anymore. I just don't think that it is helpful or good for any of us to be in a situation where, you know, I don't feel comfortable with y'all and y'all feel comfortable with me.'"

Monét asked, "Is it being repair?"

"Oh, it is, yeah," Shea replied. "There's no going back. And here's the thing: I wish them well. Like, I really do. I don't bear any ill will towards them. It was really hurtful to see the things that they were saying about me online. To be called a narcissist, and a bitch in psychosis… You know? (…) And because I do go to therapy, we processed that. We learned. I have set them free to go on and be able to forge their own paths."

Watch Shea Couleé's full interview on Monét Talks, hosted by Monét X Change, below.