Two famous felines have been on the spotlight of late—Miss Universe 2018 Catriona Gray and Choupette Lagerfeld. Queens in their own right, they are joined the past week by royals of another kind—newly crowned Miss Q&A Mitch Montecarlo Suansane and soon-to-be-crowned RuPaul’s Next Drag Superstar Plastique Tiara. The real queen of them all—Mary Queen of Scots—gets another cinematic treatment via the luminous Saoirse Ronan.
• CATRIONA GRAY She completely embodies her role as Miss Universe. During a four-hour, heartwarming motorcade to show her gratitude to her Filipino fans, Cat never showed she was tired, greeting every well-wisher with a sincere smile. Every inch a queen, she wore a sampaguita terno by Mak Tumang, a pantsuit adorned with our national flower and national leaf—anahaw. “It is a callado, similar to piña barong, embroidered with stylized pañuelo and mariposa sleeves,” the designer explains.
Cat was recently featured in a makeup video tutorial on Vogue.com, in which she replicated her coronation look. It’s a major coup for a reigning beauty queen. True, Bollywood goddess and new Mrs. Nick Jonas Priyanka Chopra scored the January cover—a first for a titleholder. But it was years after she won Miss World 2000. As her popularity grows, here’s hoping that Catriona nabs a coveted cover and a cosmetics campaign next.
And then days after that Vogue.com makeup video, she posted a glamshot of herself barefaced, by Fadil Berisha. Still as stunning. This queen will have an unpredictable, interesting reign.
• ‘MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS’ I’ve seen The Favourite (a queer retelling of Queen Anne of England, played by the Oscar-nominated Olivia Colman), so I was excited for this film about the legendary rivalry between the cousins Mary Stuart and Elizabeth Tudor. The film is based on the book by John Guy, Queen of Scots: The True Life of Mary Stuart. It features a fictional encounter between Mary (Saoirse Ronan) and Elizabeth (Margot Robbie, Oscar nomination-worthy), providing an acting duel between the two acclaimed actresses. The Cate Blanchett Elizabeth films are far superior but watch this for the costumes, designed by Alexandra Byrne, who is Oscar-nominated, her fifth, for her work. She won for
Elizabeth: The Golden Age (2007). And for the homoerotic rendition of David Rizzio (Mary’s Italian secretary, Ismael Cruz Cordova) and her second husband Lord Darnley (Jack Lowden). Plus, Joe Alwyn (Taylor Swift’s new squeeze) is a dish as Robert Dudley.
• MITCH MONTECARLO SUANSANE “Miss Q&A” on It’s Showtime may be another hilarious slice of the gay life but the joke’s on the hapless public. Unbeknownst to the viewers, who laugh out loud on the antics of gay contestants, the gays themselves are the ones laughing all the way to the bank. They have, in their clever ways, used this TV segment as a platform to advance the cause of the LGBT community. While the audience is hooked on the quick wit, sharp arguments and juicy debates between contenders, the gays are voicing their grievances and educating people for more understanding.
Miss Q&A is based on the dreaded interview portions of beauty pageants. As gays are more intelligent than the general population, this segment is where they excel the most. Mitch won the pageant on Saturday, amassing about P2 million worth of cash and prize packages. Her surname Suansane comes from Chalita Suansane, the beloved Miss Universe Thailand 2016. I assume she hails from the Montecarlo Family, a group of like-minded beauty queens much like the Xtravaganzas, Ninjas, LaBeijas of the New York ballroom culture.
• PLASTIQUE TIARA AND MERCEDES IMAN DIAMOND Season 11 of RuPaul’s Drag Race casts its first Canadian (Brooke Lynn Hytes), has another alt-drag queen (Yvie Oddly) and the first Muslim (Mercedes Iman Diamond) in its herstory. Then there’s the Asian Barbie, Viet-Am Plastique Tiara, my personal bet. It’s a stacked season, hopefully like S6, where we had the ABCDs of drag royalty (Top 4 Adore Delano, Bianca del Rio, Courtney Act and Darienne Lake).
The fandom has become so toxic, racist and vile that the queens have appealed for more decency. “If you are one of my fans or even if you are not one of my fans. DO NOT attack one of my sister[s] cause that sh%t ain’t cool. We are human underneath all this sh%t so don’t be coming at any of us with any of that death threats and BS cause that is NOT ok,” Plastique tweeted.
• CHOUPETTE LAGERFELD The Birman cat is a bonafide social-media superstar with 282 thousand followers on Instagram and is set to reportedly inherit about $300 million from her pet parent, the polymath Karl Lagerfeld.
“Thank you everyone for your words of condolence. With a once cold but now simply broken heart, I am going into mourning. I pray that your kind words and well-wishes will help me to put my best paw forward in my future without Daddy @KarlLagerfeld & as my own woman,” the cat posted on her Instagram account.
Lagerfeld fell in love with the blue-eyed cat in 2011 when his model Baptiste Giabiconi asked the Chanel/Fendi designer to look after Choupette while he was traveling. When Giabiconi returned, Lagerfeld refused to give Choupette back. Since then, the cat has been looked after by a bodyguard, a personal chef and two maids.
Humans bequeathing their wealth to their pets is nothing new. Gunther IV, a German shepherd from Germany, is the world’s richest dog with an estimated net worth of more than $370 million. According to Vanity Fair, “That money has been passed down from a long line of German shepherds of the same name. The original Gunther was bequeathed $80 million from his owner, a German countess named Carlotta Liebenstein, when she died in 1991.”
Choupette might not be the richest pet but she’s still a high-flying, high-fashion heiress.