May the Best Drag Queen Join the MCU! Shea Couleé Joins Marvel’s ‘Ironheart’!

The time has come for you to lip sync for your life, Riri Williams. News broke yesterday that Drag Race superstar Shea Couleé is heading to Marvel’s Ironheart series for Disney+, and while we don’t know anything about who she could be playing or what her relationship will be to Dominique Thorne’s Riri Williams, this is still incredibly exciting!

According to Deadline, Shea Couleé is joining the cast in a “secret” role, and while this is exciting as a fan of RuPaul’s Drag Race, it’s more than that. This means a lot because having a drag queen star in a Marvel Cinematic Universe show in the midst of whatever narrative the right is pushing? It’s making a statement, and one that I’m proud of the MCU for standing behind.

Shea Couleé is a Drag Race winner for a reason. She’s incredibly talented, one of the best, and while she didn’t win the most recent season of All-Stars, which had a cast of previously crowned queens all competing against each other, she was at the top of the queens (as she always should be). And now, having her in the MCU in Riri Williams’ show? Feels like a dream come true.

“BEYOND excited to be strutting out of the Werkroom right into the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Words cannot express how excited I am to be a part of this amazing project! Acting was my first love, and I’m thrilled to be doing it again in such a big way!” Couleé wrote in a Twitter post.

We’re all born naked and the rest is drag

The inclusion of Couleé in the Marvel Cinematic Universe is exciting not only because many fans of the MCU are fans of Drag Race (me, it’s me, I’m talking about me) but because we haven’t seen this kind of representation in mainstream franchises yet. We’ve seen one-off movies where a drag queen has given heartfelt advice to a young woman, or we’ve seen Lady Gaga perform at a show where drag queens are hosting in things like A Star Is Born, but this is completely new and exciting.

And I’m just so happy that it is happening to Shea Couleé. We all have our favorite queens and as Drag Race continues to be a platform for new queens, we get to see the talent that so many have in the drag community, and Shea Couleé is the kind of performer who continues to shine in everything she does. So having her in the Marvel Cinematic Universe means a lot to not only fans of Drag Race and Shea Couleé, but to the audience that will get to meet her for the first time and see her brilliance.

I can’t wait to see Riri Williams take on the world. She has become one of my favorite new characters in the Marvel canon since her creation in 2016, and to add Shea Couleé to the mix? It’s a win-win situation! We have a while to wait until Ironheart comes our way, but this makes the wait just a little bit sweeter.

(featured image: Jamie McCarthy/Getty Images)