SASKATOON -- A 16-year-old from La Ronge got an inspiring video message from her favourite queen on RuPaul’s Drag Race.
After watching the show's 13th season with her mom, where drag queens compete in a series of fashion and performance challenges, Molly Graham said she was drawn to queen Denali’s confident energy.
She happened to be friends with the mayor of La Ronge, Colin Ratushniak. Both were professional figure skaters. Molly said she found out about the pair’s friendship while scrolling through Denali’s Instagram profile.
“All of the sudden I saw a picture of Colin, and I was like ‘wait a second, this looks a lot like the mayor’ and so I checked the tag and it was," Molly told CTV News. "Then, I woke my mom up in the morning and I was like ‘look at this.’"
Molly’s mom, Brooke, got ahold of Ratushniak, who reached out to Denali to record a personal video message to boost Molly’s spirits during the pandemic.
“Whatever you’re going through, embody the spirit of Denali. Whatever you’re doing, whether it’s school or life or your job or whatever it is, come into it with a huge sense of self and confidence,” Denali said in the video.
"Just remember that you are that girl, you will always be that girl and I’m rooting for you."
Brooke filmed Molly’s reaction to the video, where she wipes tears from her eyes and describes it as her "best moment in life."
"I didn’t really know what was going on. My mom called me into the living room and she took my phone out of my hands and started recording me and I was like ‘this isn’t normal,'" Molly said.
"The first time I watched it I was sort of like ‘what the heck is going on?’ It was crazy."
Before watching RuPaul’s Drag Race with Molly, Brooke said she was skeptical because she doesn’t like reality TV.
"It blew my mind how exciting and how powerful the show is," she said. "Somehow seeing a lot of them overcome their personal adversity really gives you courage."
“It’s a very empowering message. Anybody, I think, could listen to that and take something from it,” Brooke said about Denali’s video.
Molly said Denali's message fueled her self-confidence.
"There's the part where she goes 'you are strong and you are independent’ and that's always playing in my brain whenever I feel sort of 'I don't know if I can do that.' I'm like 'wait a second, yeah I can.'"
Denali was known on RuPaul’s Drag Race for performing on ice skates. She was eliminated in episode 10 of season 13, coming in eighth place.
