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Drag Race icon Kennedy Davenport reads 'messy' season 16 drama: 'Shady as f---'

"I think Plane Jane is really hot, and I would definitely do her. I'll shut her up," Mhi'ya Iman Le'Paige's drag mom jokes in a hilarious chat on EW's "Quick Drag" podcast.

By

Joey Nolfi

Published on January 16, 2024 02:55PM EST

Kennedy Davenport knows that black stockings and white shoes, shouldn't be allowed in the church, and she feels the same way about "messy" drama on RuPaul's Drag Race season 16.

The season 7 and All Stars 3 icon joined EW's Quick Drag podcast as the mother that she is — both to react to her daughter, Mhi'ya Iman Le'Paige, hitting the Main Stage for the first time, and to offer some hilariously specific maternal shade to the season 16 sisters who stirred up juicy drama on Friday's episode.

"I think it's just how it's received, because the reading is all still the same. I was reading, too.... all of us were reading, but I got it the hardest, and, sadly I think it was just because of the color of my skin. A read is a read, it doesn't matter where it comes from, it's how it's received," Kennedy tells EW when asked to react to the spiciness of the most recent episode, which saw the Drag Race fandom split in half over support for Boston's Plane Jane, who delivered a chaotic episode that included savage shade for her castmates and an epic scrambling of the Rate-a-Queen votes (which Kennedy describes as "shady as f---") by placing the queens she thought performed the worst in the talent show extravaganza at the top of her list.

When asked if the notable reads from this season's queens — particularly from Plane and Morphine Love Dion, whom Kennedy is familiar with from the Florida drag circuit — were consistent with what goes on backstage at real-life drag shows, Kennedy agreed to a certain extent.

"The face-to-face reads, yes, but not the confessionals. Morphine is family, too, so she was raised around that circle of Miami, Florida-type of drag, and the banter in the back, things like that. But the big difference is, I know these queens that I'm reading," Kennedy explains. "When those type of reads go on, we know each other. We can [be] cutthroat, we can cast shade and be real funny and it be okay."

She also predicted that Plane and Morphine's early foundation on the show could mirror her own trajectory on season 7 as the show progresses, and cautioned that Plane's strategy — especially in the Rate-a-Queen twist — could "backfire on her ass" in future episodes.

"People had to really learn who Kennedy Davenport was after season 7, and to see me on All Stars and to actually interact with me to see that, oh, that bitch is just playing!" she says. "That doesn't mean [the season 16 girls' shade] is a bad thing, it's just, we see what she's playing at. I think it still may all mesh well together, eventually, but being that this is season 16 and everybody is trying to get their name out there and get some stuff going, it's probably going to be a lot more shade than we want."

Elsewhere on the episode, Kennedy says she was underwhelmed by episode 2's offerings overall, but enjoyed Geneva Karr's talent show performance the most — and also got a little emotional watching Mhi'ya pay tribute to Kennedy's own All Stars 3 talent show performance by mirroring select dance moves Kennedy debuted on the prior season, including flipping up onto a table on the stage and finishing the number in a split.

Kennedy also hilariously reveals that Mhi'ya didn't tell her drag mother that she was a contestant on season 16 of Drag Race until the cast was revealed in December.

"I was kind of shocked, because she did not tell me she was on the show. This generation of children, honey, they like to do stuff on their own! When I found out, I was like, well, okay!" she recalls, laughing. "I was like, well, congratulations!"

And, while Kennedy has a lot of feelings about the way the two-part premiere unfolded overall, she still has some motherly advice for all of the new gals competing on the show.

"These girls are observers and listeners, and I hope they are to think before speaking and reacting so they can really get a chance to learn each other — and that's just a fair comment concerning this show and things that I've learned, because I didn't do that for my season, on season 7, and I was so quick to judge and quick to have something to say about it, and that's definitely not the way when you're put into a room with people you do not know," Kennedy says, later adding a final thought on Plane with a mischievous laugh: "To be fair, let me just say, I think Plane Jane is really hot, and I would definitely do her. I'll shut her up, alright!"

RuPaul's Drag Race season 16 continues Fridays at 8 p.m. ET/PT on MTV. Listen to Kennedy's full interview with EW — in which she reveals how she mended her relationship with Trixie Mattel after All Stars 3 and reacts to Miley Cyrus defending her during that infamous Joe Rogan podcast interview — above, and catch up with the latest Drag Race interviews and episode recaps in the Quick Drag feed below.