Many of us know about RuPaul's Drag Race, one of the most fun competition shows on tv. It's a platform for drag queens to give their careers, fresh or well-established, a huge jump starts just for being cast, let alone for winning.

The show may have its problems and may be criticized both in and out of the LGBTQ+ community, but it is well-loved by many and viewed like crazy, and has won many Emmy Awards in recent years.

The goal of the show is to narrow down a cast of ten to fourteen drag queens down to one winner, crowned as America's Next Drag Superstar, not only due to her talent but also to her personality and her proving herself worthy of a crown and worthy of being a representative for drag queens everywhere until the next Drag Superstar is crowned.

In Season 10 of RuPaul's Drag Race, the most recent one, that winner was Aquaria, the youngest winner ever, being barely 21 (the minimum age required to audition for the show) when she was cast, and just over 22 when she was crowned at the end of the show's run.

Aquaria was a fan favorite, even before casting for the season had started, she was heavily wanted on the show by fans as she had been a well-established queen both in person and online since she made her debut at 17 years old, and heavily rumored to be cast during the summer, so of course people were ecstatic when she ended up actually on the show.

She was a natural frontrunner, and no one was surprised that she won because even her worst performances on the show were fantastic.

Naturally, if someone is crowned a representative for a well-watched and well-loved show, and as an honorary representative for the drag community, you would expect them to be a gracious and outspoken person with a love for their fans.

While Aquaria has been very well outspoken in her time holding the crown, she's made a major mistake lately in terms of being gracious and loving her fans. Enter Martha's Vineyard, a well-loved, well-established, 18+ LGBTQ+ club in Springfield, MO.

For the Greater Ozarks PrideFest, Martha's made a huge surprise announcement: They were going to be hosting a very famous drag queen for a special PrideFest show. That queen was none other than Aquaria herself.

Springfield was ecstatic about getting such a huge name to come to perform in one of our most beloved and established clubs, and an 18+ venue rather than a 21+ one.

Tickets sold out super quickly, even despite another large name, the rapper CupcakKe, also coming to perform with our other beloved set of drag queens, the Get Dusted girls, the same night.

The Springfield LGBTQ+ community was extremely ready to have a huge night during what is already our biggest weekend of the year, locally. Both performances were slated for Saturday, June 16th.

As the event neared, Get Dusted featuring CupcakKe sold out fast, all but VIP for Aquaria sold out fast, and word spread more and more around the community even after tickets were no longer available. Suddenly, Martha's had to scramble around because Aquaria had canceled, but she promised to reschedule for another date.

So they reached out to other big name queens from Season 10, namely Kameron Michaels, Asia O'Hara, and Miz Cracker. Unfortunately, both Kameron and Asia were already booked at other venues that night but politely declined, explaining that they would have if they hadn't had prior engagements.

Miz Cracker, however, had an open night in her schedule and filled Aquaria's place at the show Martha's was hosting. The show was a hit, and everyone was even more excited realizing that between Miz Cracker's performance and Aquaria's promise to reschedule, Springfield would be getting two well-known queens performing in our city, rather than just one.

Fast-forward to August, Aquaria had rescheduled her show at Martha's and was slated to perform Saturday, August 24, and Martha's had made a promo video to announce the performance.

Tickets for this performance, as well as VIP reservations and meet and greets, sold out even more quickly than those for the canceled June performance, and everyone was again highly anticipating getting to see her perform.

Then the news came in, Aquaria had to cancel yet again as she was scheduled to perform at a different venue that same night, and Aquaria apologized to us in a video saying she would never let us down again and felt horrible about it all and would be performing for us on September 15.

Martha's handled this announcement well, sharing the video and immediately transferring all tickets purchased to be valid at the later date. Everyone was disappointed in Aquaria for canceling twice but happy she was still going to make an effort to come and perform for the Springfield community despite the scheduling hell the last two attempted dates had been.

Martha's drafted up a new contract made sure Aquaria and her management knew they would not stand to be let down a third time, scheduled a cast of local queens that would get people even more excited, and prepared for the show.

Then comes the evening of September 14. The night before the performance. Martha's is in contact with Aquaria's management, being told that they aren't sure Aquaria will be able to make it to the show because her flight leaves too early in the morning after her St. Louis performance.

Martha's responds by offering to drive her instead and get her a plane ticket directly from Springfield Regional Airport to her next performance in Milwaukee. Everything seems fine again. Then, everything falls apart (all details and screenshots can be found here on Martha's page).

Martha's is told at 11:45 pm that Aquaria has fallen ill and has been taken to Urgent Care and diagnosed with an upper respiratory infection, and won't be able to make it to the show in Springfield as the doctor has told her to cancel shows and rest up.

Sicknesses can't be controlled, so of course, it was upsetting that she would be missing yet again, but no one was going to try and throw a fit over it.

A while later, it's discovered that she wasn't actually hospitalized and was in fact on stage hosting an afterparty from 11pm-midnight at the time. Whether Aquaria was aware of it or not, her manager had lied to us and in a way that made it seem like Aquaria herself just didn't want to show up and was looking for an excuse.

Her manager went on to request more money for her performance and say that we were the only show being canceled for her sickness because "these are massive 5000-7500 people shows...of course the smaller show with arduous travel is suffering", which is not only disrespectful but also unfair to us that the rest of her performances would go on as planned while ours would be canceled.

This was and is no way to treat your fanbase, especially after letting them down twice already. No queen should ever put down or disrespect her fans or their venues. If she didn't want to do the show, she should have just politely declined the first time rather than putting everyone through this ordeal.

Ultimately, Martha's decision to give up on having Aquaria perform, and stated that they would not be attempting to book her for a fourth time because of the ordeals that the first three tries were.

This did not mean, however, that there would not be a show that night. Martha's pulled out all the stops, returned to the original cover charge, and added a few more queens to the cast of the show that Aquaria had dropped from.

Martha's and all queens involved did more publicity for the show that night than anyone could have expected Between constant commentary on Instagram stories to Facebook posts to Tweets to a revamped poster (shading Aquaria with the hashtag #supportlocaldrag), they all made sure that the house would be packed.

And it was. I have never seen that many people show up to a show or tip nearly as generously on an average Saturday night, but this was no average Saturday night.

The evening was packed with every killer performance our beloved local queens had planned for the Aquaria show, as well as the additional lineup's performances, featuring a queen from Kansas City who had come down for the Aquaria show and decided to join the cast for the night after it was revealed Aquaria wasn't going to show.

We even had the most established queen in Springfield get into drag and perform for the first time I've ever seen her, and absolutely mesmerize the audience. Not only were there so many great performances, but the host was constantly throwing shade at the situation and getting the crowd riled up, making everyone laugh and open their wallets to support our local queens.

Even many of our local queens who weren't performing showed up in full drag, and joined the performers for the night in the free meet and greet that Martha's put on. Instagram feeds were absolutely flooded with support and love for our local queens and pictures and videos of their performances, as well as with the hashtags #supportlocaldrag and #aquariawho.

Those who didn't make it out to the show still showed the outstanding amount of support for everything Martha's decided to do that night.

The entire Springfield LGBTQ+ community came together in the wake of Aquaria's cancellation to support each other, our favorite club, and our local drag queens. They've poured love out of their hearts toward each other, and inside Martha's that night, they emptied their wallets onto the stage and into the bar.

They've spread the word of what happened across all social media platforms, from Twitter to Reddit to Facebook to Instagram, and now I'm writing this article to further spread the news. What happened to us at the hands of Aquaria and management was disrespectful and unfair, we were greatly wronged.

What happened in our community when we came together afterward was beautiful and wonderful. I'd give up a dozen chances to see a "big name" queen for a chance to see another local show full of as much support as the show on September 15 was.

So now I say to you, Aquaria, that you owe us a proper apology. The one you posted on Instagram does not count and is not feel at all genuine or at all direct. Generalizing the situation glosses over the fine details the same way you glossed over our show and moved on to the next. Apologizing for being sick and letting people down while also saying you had a blast performing in a major city the night before, while you were still presumably sick, makes your illness sound falsified and makes you sound like you're just coming up with an excuse to not perform for our show. Your managers owe us an apology. They were wildly disrespectful and demanding when it was us who were being wronged and let down. They hurt us, your fans, deeply, and they made you lose many fans in the process.

Our community became stronger without you, but we are still hurt by what you've done and by the nightmare that was us trying to see you perform three different times, only for you to let all of your fans in Springfield and around the area down thrice in a row.

If you can't apologize to us sincerely, if you can't give us a proper explanation, if your managers ever disrespect another show by talking down its size and importance again, then I will be more than happy when the Age of Aquaria is finally over.