Welcome back folks and make yourselves comfortable because this week on Drag Race Down Under…it’s Snatch Game! Known as one of the most notoriously difficult challenges across the Drag Race universe, Snatch Game has caused many a talented drag queen to crumble under pressure—and Sydney’s Karna Ford is its latest victim. In conversation with Not Safe For Queers, Karna discusses her performance as Eddie Murphy in drag, the pressure of the competition, and why this week’s lip sync wasn’t quite as fierce as her first.
At the top of this week’s episode, Michelle Visage announced that the queens would be competing in Snatch Game (or, as it was officially named, I’m A Celebrity Impersonator, Snatch Me Out Of Here). And while some queens—like Lazy Susan, Vybe and Brenda Bressed—were thrilled with the announcement, Karna Ford was decidedly not.
“Um…I was looking forward to ticking Snatch Game off my box. But, obviously, thinking about the actual challenge in itself, I was definitely dreading it,” Karna tells Not Safe For Queers. “I think that all the things you have to do in Snatch Game, like being in character, answering questions, and trying to volley off other people, all while making Michelle laugh…that’s a daunting thing.”
Yet, Karna went approached the challenge with a surprising confidence, choosing to portray ‘Eddie Murphy in drag’ (a reference to his role as Rasputia in the movie Norbit) without as much as a single backup option.
“Honestly, there was no other character that I could’ve seen myself doing. I was just very confident that I could do it,” she admits. “But then, for copyright reasons, I couldn’t say my name was Rasputia, so I was like, okay let’s come up with the name Eddiesha Knowles Carter Murphy III which is, like, just too ridiculous.”
However, Karna’s confidence was all but crushed when the likes of Lazy Susan entered the workroom with three very versatile Snatch Game options. “Seeing what the other girls had brought—that definitely intimidated me. Especially seeing what Lazy Susan was doing. Like, who the f*ck would’ve thought of Lindsay Lohan as, like, an Irish man? And the fact that she brought a horse? That girl is insane,” she expresses.
“And to see how confident she was with her ideas, like, it definitely made me worry.”
Ultimately, while Karna’s performance in I’m A Celebrity, Snatch Me Out Of Here wasn’t the worst Drag Race has ever seen, it did land her in the bottom three (alongside Max Drag Queen and Nikita Iman). And while she isn’t entirely convinced that she should’ve been there, she does respect the outcome.
“In the moment, I thought I did enough to not put myself in the bottom,” she begins, rather diplomatically. “But, um, yeah, I think that some of the other performances I saw weren’t as strong as mine. I don’t want to say names, but yeah, I did think there was someone else who should’ve been in the bottom. But I guess I’m not the judge, so.”
As the episode came to a close, Karna, Max and Nikita went head-to-head-to-head in a bottom three lip sync performance to Ladyhawke’s My Delirium. But the passion Karna had shown in episode 1’s lip sync was missing.
She explains, “My Delirium is a great song, but it’s not necessarily one that I would lip sync to. So, I had to learn it. And so having to make sure that I knew the song, while having all three of us on stage, that’s probably why I didn’t give as much fire as I did in the first episode.”
Episodes of Drag Race Down Under Season 4 stream each Friday—only on Stan.