RuPaul’s Drag Race Season 15 Winner Sasha Colby headlines HalloQueen Ball Manila, taking the crowd to queer celestial peak!
Sasha Colby stands at the apex of supremacy. She holds two of the most coveted crowns in the rainbow community and has earned the reputation of being the favorite drag queen of our favorite drag queens. With her RuPaul’s Drag Race victory, the world is at her feet. The legendary beauty queen and eminent figure in drag performance art is known for owning the stage but more so for her kind heart—and nothing shines brighter than that.
I believe I can speak on behalf of the HalloQueen Ball Manila audience when I say what an epoch-making blessing to have witnessed an icon perform live right before our eyes. It was akin to seeing a miracle happen in full view. It was a moment that seemed too gloriously incredible to be real. Whenever we find ourselves in perfect scenarios, it blurs the line between reality and fantasy. My brain struggled to process watching her perform a few feet away from me. I remember malfunctioning and feeling happy liquid leaking from my bewitched eyes.
Minutes before Sasha Colby was called upon the stage, the energy in the room was already accelerating. I don’t know how many smartwatches alerted their users for raised heart rates despite being inactive because mine did.
When HalloQueen Ball Manila host ØV CÜNT summoned the headliner, her name reverberated throughout the space. The continuous utterance of the letters that form Sasha Colby’s name carried a profound weight that filled the entire room.
Got us burning with her love
Our screams became a symphony of the highest praise when the spotlight landed on her face. She slowly made her way to the stage—taking all our loud love in—from the back of the audience as Loleatta Holloway’s “Love Sensation” echoed through the walls. She is a true maestro in using every inch of her body—from the tips of her hair to the fringes of her dress—to animate a song and imbue it with a spirit of art and heart we can’t find anywhere else.
The gospel-charged disco track matched the G-O-D-E-S-S’ sublime presence and elevated our appreciation to a higher plane. The power of music combined with the power of Sasha Colby gave the audience its own power to connect to something greater than all of us.
Fully immersed in drag artistry that we’ve never experienced, we were a collective outburst of pure joy.
Ms. Sasha Colby from the Philippines
“My babies, my loves, my angels, we did it,” Mother said about snatching the RuPaul’s Drag Race season 15 crown. “For the AAPI, for the trans girls, for the dolls, and for God. I thank God everyday that he made me a transwoman, honey!”
“I am contestant number 17, Sasha Colby from the Philippiiiiines,” the winner of Miss Continental 2012 screamed into the mic, to which the entire room responded with record-breaking shrieks of the purest form of delight. “Oh my god, as a pageant girl, I’ve been waiting to say that my whole life! Y’all, Manila, the Philippines, y’all know good drag. Y’all know good pageants. And that means y’all know Sasha Colby, bitch!”
The trans icon also revealed that she likes pork adobo and sinigang, and showed interest in judging a season of Drag Race Philippines. “The Philippines is my favorite franchise! I love watching because it shows the ingenuity, it shows the love, it shows the passion that Filipinos are all about,” Mother Colby said. She’s been very vocal about her love for the show when she met season 1 queens at this year’s DragCon in LA.
Her final performance was a song from a rock band that infuses electronic music, She Wants Revenge, with the fantastic track from 2006, “Tear You Apart.”
Beyond the perfection, the poetry of her performance comes from an aura that lures anyone in. Every undulation and masterful hair flip felt like warm hugs that enveloped us. Sasha Colby is a rare artist.
HalloQueen Ball Manila was brought to us by Beyond Limits Event Production.
Photography KIM SANTOS and GRANT BABIA
