Breaking down the drama between Bob, 'Drag Race' fans, and Nehellenia

It's giving Bob vs. the World!

RuPaul's Drag Race season 8 winner Bob the Drag Queen has been at odds with fans and queens of the series since sharing rather negative opinions on non-U.S., All Stars-esque spinoffs like Global All Stars and Versus the World. The intense back-and-forth — which now spans several days — has also involved queens like Angeria Paris VanMicheals and Nehellenia.

On Thursday, May 15, the Sibling Rivalry podcast shared a new episode in which Bob and guest cohost Naomi Smalls recapped the grand premiere of All Stars 10. During the episode, Bob urged queens to "say no" to international All Stars seasons, which led to an epic feud between Drag Race fans and queens from non-U.S. franchises.

Now, Out breaks down the latest Drag Race discourse between queens and fans — which started as a discussion about the cast size of All Stars 10 and turned into a worldwide feud about Versus the World spinoffs and the continuation of Global All Stars.

Important context surrounding that viral clip of Bob the Drag Queen.

The Sibling Rivalry coverage of All Stars 10 has started with a bang. This season, Naomi Smalls joined Bob the Drag Queen as a cohost in the Sibling Rivalry podcast — filling in for Monét X Change as she hosts the franchise's official recap web series, The Pit Stop, in 2025.

This particular Sibling Rivalry episode recapping the first episode of All Stars 10 started out with praise for the new "Tournament of All Stars" twist. However, Bob noted that the format could potentially run its course too quickly due to its large cast size. If All Stars 11 were to maintain this format, Bob argued, it would mean that two season of All Stars (each with 18 queens) would burn through 36 queens from one year to the next.

"You really run the risk of exhausting your All Stars pool" of potential competitors, the season 8 winner explained. Jacob Ritts, a producer on Sibling Rivalry, chimed in to say that other shows that include alumni, like RuPaul's Drag Race UK vs the World and Canada's Drag Race: Canada vs the World, would also contribute to this potential issue with casting.

Bob agreed, and brought up returning queens who do back-to-back regular seasons, like Vanessa Vanjie in seasons 10 and 11. Even though this hasn't happened for a while in flagship U.S. seasons of Drag Race, Bob recalled that Kornbread "The Snack" Jeté wanted to compete in another regular season before doing All Stars.

'Drag Race' fan posts a clip of Bob expressing her opinions about non-U.S. seasons of 'All Stars.'

This is the beginning of the rest the mess.

On Thursday, May 15, X user @KINA2_2 shared a clip from this Sibling Rivalry episode (as seen above) that started right in the middle of Bob and Naomi discussing Kornbread's potential return onto the show. Bob's understanding was that Kornbread declined an invitation to All Stars, but Jacob — Sibling Rivalry producer — alleged that Kornbread seemingly declined doing a season of Versus the World, not that she had declined a U.S. season of All Stars.

Nonetheless, Bob reacted to Jacob's clarification by sharing negative opinions about queens who accept the invitation for non-U.S. All Stars-esque spinoffs.

"I would never… Let me tell you something right now: Any queens, if you're being offered Versus the World, say no," the season 8 winner started. "We have to stop them from even offering it as an option. If you all just keep saying no, they'll stop offering it. There's no way you would ever convince [me], and I know I won Drag Race…"

"We all know," Naomi replied, teasing Bob and making the two of them laugh. "We all know."

Bob continued, "But if I was [season 4's first-eliminated queen] Alisa Summers, you could not convince me to do a Versus the World.

"What about Global [All Stars]?" Naomi asked.

Bob replied, "No! Even worse! Even worse."

"See, for me, I just want… I'll do whatever is there," Naomi said, acknowledging that factors like lower viewership than U.S. seasons could impact her decision.

But Bob wasn't convinced, "You would not accept a Versus the World. Stop lying, bitch."

"What if the prize was a million dollars?" Jacob asked, off-camera.

"OK, I'm back in," Bob instantly replied.

Naomi asked, "What if it's $500,000?"

"No," Bob answered.

'Drag Race' queens and fans share intense reactions to Bob's comments.

While some fans agreed (or at least understood) Bob's perspective, a wave of non-U.S. queens and fans felt insulted by Bob's point of view. That pushback has gotten the clip to cross 3.1 million views on X as of this writing, and an intense debate in the worldwide Drag Race queendom was carried through the weekend.

The original poster of this viral clip wrote, "I don't understand why being so harsh on a platform showcasing amazing non-U.S. and especially drag artists that aren't from English-speaking countries? Have you seen Marina Summers? Nehellenia? etc. And if those stop existing, including Global, where are we gonna see it?"

Besides reaching 3.2 million views, the original post has accumulated 5,000 likes and hundreds of exchanges discussing Bob's remarks.

Bob responds to 'Drag Race' fans in a series of X posts.

"'Where are we gonna see it?' Baby, go to a drag bar," Bob wrote in her first response to this Drag Race controversy.

Another X user shared a similar opinion to the original poster, asking: "How would you see the drag cultures of so many countries outside the US by going to a drag bar in the US?"

"Wait until you find out about YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram," Bob replied.

A Drag Race fan commented, "Bob this is a weird hill to die on."

"Girl I don't like the fucking show. Y'all have to get over it," Bob replied.

Another X user responded, "Love u Bob, but because [you're] An American queen [you're too] good to be around the ones that are not from USA to do a TV show? Explain queen maybe I understood wrong."

"You got all of that out of what I said?... Interesting," Bob wrote.

New responses kept coming to this X thread, including one that has since been deleted.

"Girl shut the hell up," Bob replied.

Days later, Bob defends herself from accusations of her being 'xenophobic.'

On Saturday, May 17, the temperature of this discourse rose slightly when a fan told Bob to "just own an opinion without being xenophobic" — prompting the Drag Race winner to write a longer statement in response to that allegation.

"Xenophobic?!?! Sometimes the Drag Race fandom is the very definition of 'go touch grass.' Y'all have truly lost the plot," Bob wrote. "All this because I said I wouldn't compete on [Versus the World] or [Global All Stars]. I've also stated that I wouldn't even compete on an all-winners season. When you boil 'xenophobia' down to 'Bob said she wouldn't compete on Versus the World,' the word begins to literally mean nothing."

An X user argued, "It was not you would compete, you said even if you were Alissa Summers, you wouldn't even answer the call for Versus the World and you want them to stop making it that got people pissed. Literally no one even expects you to be on Versus the World or Global, you are obviously above that."

"Honestly. I still stand by how funny that was," Bob wrote in response.

Another fan chimed in, "The backtracking here is insane [crying emoji] cause what you ACTUALLY said was 'Even if I was Alisa Summers, I would NEVER go on a [Versus the World] season.' And you also said no U.S. [queen] should EVER accept the invite to go."

"The Alissa part was funny and I stand by that," Bob replied. "I said NO queen should go on. I beg of you to find the clip where I specifically said that 'no U.S. queen' should do it. I'll wait… No please take your time. I'll just be waiting here."

A half hour later, Bob wrote another X post into this thread that read, "Still waiting over here. Been 30 minutes already."

After an extended period of time and a few new responses, Bob circled back to the X user who had claimed that Bob was urging U.S. queens to say no to Versus the World and Global All Stars.

"Okay, it's been about 6 hours, and you haven't found the clip of me saying that no US queen should compete. I'm just going to assume it doesn't exist.

Meanwhile you were too busy at work, but had time to tweet and retweet 38 times. Yes, I counted, because I do have the time. Just admit it. I made your day. This was the highlight of your day. You texted all of your friends and said, 'I'm in a Twitter fight with Bob the Drag Queen' and they gagged. They rushed over to check and see. Some of them even had to redownload Twitter after swearing it off just to see the main event of your week.

I'm going to go ahead and leave this conversation alone, but tbh happy that you're fighting for your life in the comment section. Frankly is what you deserve. Be well. Or don't. I really don't care."

Angeria Paris VanMicheals adds her voice to the discourse, and Bob responds.

Angeria Paris VanMicheals, who won All Stars 9 and entered the Drag Race Hall of Fame last year, re-shared the original post and chimed into the discourse:

"I actually told my best friend that if I didn't win All Stars 9 and was asked to do UK vs the World or Global, my answer would be 'yes.' I wanted a new experience. Competing with non-American queens sounds so fun to me."

Bob replied, "BOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!"

Nehellenia enters the discourse with a strongly worded statement.

Nehellenia, a queen first introduced to fans on Drag Race Italia who made it to the grand finale of Global All Stars and became a new fan-favorite within the franchise, also entered the discourse as someone who could literally speak about how beneficial that opportunity was to her.

"TV shows like [Global All Stars] or [Versus the World] not only give the opportunity to drag queens who otherwise could not have the same visibility on a global level," Nehellenia wrote in her first X post. "[To] show the public how artists with different backgrounds and styles can compete together, proving to have the same talent…"

"…and sometimes even more than American artists," Nehellenia added. "Try to do what you do in a language that you do not master perfectly! Why denigrate something that tries to praise the art of drag instead of supporting it? Why take away value from something so humanly and artistically unifying?"

Nehellenia concluded, "Every drag is valid… some ideals instead are not."

RuPaul's Drag Race Global All Stars is streaming on Paramount+. New episodes of RuPaul's Drag Race All Stars 10 drop every Friday on Paramount+.