‘RuPaul’s Drag Race’ Winner Nymphia Wind Explains That Moment of Shock With Sapphira Cristál
Q&A
Nymphia Wind, you’re a winner, baby! The drag superstar of Taiwan is the new winner of RuPaul’s Drag Race. Nymphia was crowned in the RuPaul’s Drag Race Season 16 finale on Friday, April 19 after an epic lip-sync battle with Sapphira Cristál to Kylie Minogue‘s “Padam Padam” (in third place was the season’s “villain” with a redemption arc, Plane Jane). This win makes her the first East Asian drag queen to win the competition.
In Drag Race, multiple finale outcomes are filmed during the finale taping event. The final three queens don’t know who won until the finished episode airs on MTV. The series always hosts a viewing party with the queens from the season to watch the finale, with the final three waiting backstage. They find out RuPaul‘s decision at the same time as everyone else, and then the official crowning takes place. TV Insider was present at the Season 16 viewing event, and the lip-sync performances from Nymphia, Sapphira, and Plane that came after the crowning were nothing short of electric.
The look on Nymphia’s face after victory was one of shock. Clad in gold (and her signature bananas) from head to toe, the queen sat with her eyes wide and her jaw dropped as she looked over at Sapphira (see her live reaction below).
Here, Nymphia explains that shocked feeling, how she put together her winning final lip-sync (her first of the season — you never found her in the bottom two!), her reaction to the President of Taiwan celebrating her win, and more to TV Insider.
Congratulations on your win! Can you tell me the feelings and thoughts that were running through you when you won? You looked shocked.
Nymphia Wind: I went blank. It was because it felt so unreal. They said my name, I was like, huh? I think my brain didn’t register that I had won, and it’s slowly setting in that I’m actually the winner of season 16. It’s crazy. It has always been a big dream of mine to be the first East Asian winner on Drag Race, so it’s crazy to actually have achieved that.
I think it’ll hit me when I actually have a week off just to really relax. Now, it’s like next club, next flight, next club, gig, gig, gig, which I also enjoy because I love traveling around and seeing all the fans and seeing the promoters and seeing the different nightlife and drag scenes. So it’s always very exciting, but it’s also busy and you don’t really have downtime.
I love that Lady Gaga reference. You performed “Marry the Night” at the finale watch party. Why that song as your first post-victory performance?
Oh my God, I love that song so much. There’s just something in that song that’s like, get your life together. You are the person who is in control of your life. Even if life throws you bullsh*t and trash, you could still survive all of that and marry the night. Just live your life. That’s what this song represents for me. It’s very passionate and fighting an upward battle and it’s just so inspiring for me, trying to dig yourself out of the dump. Even your lowest days, you find ways to get back up.
In the final lip-sync against Sapphira, which was absolutely sickening, was there ever a moment where you thought, “Oh my God, I think I just won”?
No. I had this manifestation. My roommate made me do this list before the new year. You write down your goals for the year, and I wrote down, “I’m going to get on Drag Race Season 16 and win.” I feel like that seed was already planted when I wrote it down, so I haven’t been thinking about winning. I just thought to myself, “Don’t be the first early outs and just have fun in the process and whatever happens, happens.”
When you were announced as the winner, there was a look of shock on your face and you locked eyes with Sapphira for a long moment. Why did you want to have that moment of connection with her?
Because I know Sapphira wants to win this very much, and I know it means a lot to her. Obviously, I was still in a state of shock; I didn’t realize I had won. I just wanted to let her know that we did this and no matter what happens, we’re all sickening and it’s a collective effort. You want to be graceful in front of someone whose dream is maybe shattered. It’s sad, but it’s reality and it’s the way this competition is.
Tell me how the idea for the Boba Tea reveal came together. I’m sure you heard it at the watch party room, but there was pandemonium when that happened.
I wanted to represent my country, Taiwan, but I didn’t want to just put a flag and call it a day, so I thought, what can I do? Then I thought of bubble tea. Bubble tea is the national drink of Taiwan and I thought, yeah, this is perfect. I’m representing my country without sticking a flag on it, so I went with bubble tea and I had discussed with this designer what I wanted to do. We kind of came up with [putting] balloons [under a cape] to represent Boba flying out.
How much did you have to practice ripping off that dress while doing a cartwheel?
I just had to practice when we were doing the fitting to make sure that it would come off easily when I did it. That’s my favorite reveal too, because reveals usually just require you standing and ripping off clothes. So I thought, what can I do to make a reveal more interesting? So I thought, let’s do a cartwheel reveal and make it happen.
What are some fears when you’re planning a final lip-sync like that? Do you worry that you’re doing too many reveals? Not enough? How do you decide what’s right?
You don’t want to do too much, which comes across desperate and trying too hard. You want to do the right amount where it’s kind of effortless and it’s just like for the audience, like it’s meant to happen. You want your reveals to be planned out and make sense within a song.
It seemed like — let me know if this is how you did approach it — you wanted to have the reveals front-loaded so then you could just have your life after.
Yes, very that. Just peel and peel and peel the yellow form you have grown to know.
This whole, season no one saw me lip-sync, so it was the perfect setup for me to surprise the audience and surprise the judges. This was my one opportunity to show the world what Nymphia Wind can do.
Santiago Felipe / Getty Images for MTV
You also ran over to the other Season 16 queens during the performance and showed off for them. Why?
I’m a very interactive performer. To me, I just treat it like club gig. I didn’t want to stress myself out and make this out to be such a grand lip sync. I just wanted to have fun and just enjoy this. Whatever happens, happens. I’m already in the Top Two. If I’m a runner up, that is an achievement in itself. So I thought just let it all go and have fun. Everything has accumulated to this moment, and it’s now time to let go of the competition and just enjoy the stage and enjoy the moment.
It’s a really pivotal time for drag in America. What will be the goal of your reign?
My goal of my reign is to spread banana fever and enjoy the yellow cult [laughs]. No, I really want to be a voice and an ambassador for Taiwan, be a tourist ambassador, make Taiwan a travel destination, and really just represent my country. I really want to produce these shows in Taiwan that really incorporate my culture, for instance, Peking Opera, aight markets, and temple fairs, amongst others, and try to combine these traditional ways of life into drag performances and fuse them together to have these fun parties.
The president of Taiwan, Tsai Ing-wen, and Kylie Minogue both reacted to you and Sapphira’s final lip-sync. How was it for you to see those shows of support?
Oh, mama. It was crazy. Famous people that are actually watching you. That is a crazy concept in itself, and being acknowledged by the President of Taiwan was — when you write this, you can write “INTENSE SCREAMING.” That was a big moment for me, because never would I have thought. This is the president that we’re talking about! They’re dealing with a ton of sh*t every day, and then they still know your existence and acknowledge you. That, to me, was a gag.
It feels like I am doing something right for my country because in Taiwan, we grow up not knowing what our national identity is. We’re torn between the relationship with a certain country, so it means to really be able to voice that Taiwan is a country. It is the worst feeling in the world when you’re shopping when you come to the country and you pull down and you don’t find Taiwan and you see Republic of China. It really makes you question your national identity. So it means a lot to be able to be recognized by the President of Taiwan to represent my country.
RuPaul's Drag Race where to stream
