Babe, wake up! The winner of RuPaul's Drag Race season 2 has just announced another drag name.
James Ross (he/him), the drag artist best known as Tyra Sanchez while competing in (and winning!) the second season of Drag Race, spent the past few years asking fans to stop attaching Tyra to the franchise created by RuPaul. Ross also made it clear that King Tyra was the official new name for fans to refer to this drag persona.
But something has changed within Ross, or at least that's how it seems! On Saturday, November 16, the official @thatdamntyra profile on X/Twitter wrote:
"Drop the King, just call me Tyra."
— (@)
A slightly altered version of this announcement was shared via the official Instagram page from @thatdamtyra.
"Message. Not Queen. Not King. Just Tyra."
The formal and informal renaming of Tyra has been a recurring theme as far back as Drag Race season 2. At the time, RuPaul had fun calling Tyra as "the other Tyra" in reference to Tyra Banks. In recent years, after taking a break from drag, Tyra returned to social media with a new drag name: King Tyra, who went by he/him pronouns even in drag (according to Ross).
It's unclear if this "drop the King" rebranding means that Tyra will once again use she/her pronouns for the drag persona. Nonetheless, it doesn't seem like Tyra's contentious relationship with the Drag Race franchise has changed.
RuPaul's Drag Race is streaming on Paramount+.