“Drag Race” stars face arrest threats, 'religious cult' accusations in shocking “We're Here” season 4 trailer
Sasha Velour, Latrice Royale, Jaida Essence Hall, and Priyanka stand up against hate and uplift LGBTQIA+ people across the country.
A fresh court of RuPaul's Drag Race queens scales the nation in the new trailer for We're Here season 4 — and face perhaps the most sinister threats to their existence in the Emmy-winning show's storied history.
Taking the reins of the cross-country makeover series for the first time, the new preview sees season 9 victor Sasha Velour, season 4 fan-favorite queen Latrice Royale, season 12 winner Jaida Essence Hall, and Canada's Drag Race season 1 champ Priyanka uplift their community through the art of drag and confront the harsh realities standing in its way.
"Because they tried to cancel Pride, it's important that we make drag a spectacle. We're not hiding. We're not going anywhere," Priyanka says in the trailer (above), which charts the queens' course from Tulsa, Okla. to Murfreesboro, Tenn., where proposed local legislation targeted drag queens and trans individuals throughout 2023.
"Honey, you can't kill drag," Jaida adds in the clip, just before an off-camera person informs the queens that they "might get arrested" if they proceed with a demonstration.
Later, the clip shows Priyanka and Sasha addressing two critics, one of whom calls them "people in the LGBTQ religion," to which Sasha quickly replies, "It's definitely not a religion." Still, a man standing to her right pushes back, telling her "it's still a religious cult."
Greg Endries/HBO
Latrice Royale, Sasha Velour, Priyanka on 'We're Here' season 4Other moments include Jaida tearfully coaching a young person about the importance of finding community through struggle, and Sasha guiding another person through transitioning amid their gender journey.
Ahead of the trailer drop, Entertainment Weekly broke the news that Sasha, Jaida, and Priyanka would replace original We're Here cohosts Bob the Drag Queen, Eureka, and Shangela, who collaborated on the series for its first three seasons. The show later added Latrice to the lineup, and the queens told EW at SCAD TVfest in February that the upcoming episodes marked a turning point for the series' structure.
Greg Endries/HBO
Jaida Essence Hall, Priyanka, Sasha Velour in 'We're Here' season 4"The show is doing something different this time, we're just switching it up," Jaida explained at the time. "We still want to have the format of three queens in each city so you can focus without having to be so expansive, there's a lot that could happen with four queens. I don't know if there's enough room for all four of us."
The news of the new cast came months after Shangela was accused of sexual assault by former We're Here assistant Daniel McGarrigle — allegations the Dancing With the Stars alum denied and called "disgusting" in a statement to EW. The entertainer was later accused of more sexual assaults in a Rolling Stone investigation that was published in March. Through attorney Andrew Brettler, Shangela told the outlet the allegations were “false and unsupported by any evidence or reliable witness testimony" and denied engaging in nonconsensual sex. Shangela also claimed there were “significant problems” with the accusers' accounts.
We're Here season 4 premieres April 26 on Max. Watch the new trailer above.
Subscribe to EW's Quick Drag podcast for recaps of RuPaul's Drag Race, including reactions from the cast, special guests, and more.
Related content:
Read the original article on Entertainment Weekly.
