The annual Rusical challenge claimed another queen; this year, it was RuPaul’s Drag Race Season 18 contestant Athena Dion.

Dion was still audibly upset when Blavity caught up with her to discuss her emotional lip sync against her drag granddaughter, Juicy Love Dion. She said she was in denial about what was ahead of her at first.

“I think in the beginning I didn’t wanna accept that it was happening,” she said. “I think I was disassociating in the beginning, like, this can’t be real. She’s [RuPaul] gonna say, you know, ‘You’re both staying’ or something’s gonna happen. And then halfway through the lip sync, I think I realized it was happening, and I said, ‘You know what? I’m gonna kind of just walk into the light and give this girl [Juicy] all the love I can.’ I know how much more she was hurting than I was because she felt like she was going to either lose her closest person and be alone either in the competition or in the outside world.”

“I just thought that we were in two different places in life and how much more it was weighing on her heart than mine ’cause I’ve been through loss before, you know?” Dion continued. “And so I just wanted to kind of, I don’t know…I’m not gonna say I accepted my fate. I just wanna say that I just wanted it to be less painful in some way. If I could have alleviated any of that emotion, that’s what I wanted to do. I wanted to take it away from the judges and [make it] more about her, I guess.”

Taking on the drag mother role in the Rusical

The Rusical this year, Fanny: The Hard Knock Ball, was a ballroom take on the popular Annie story, and Dion said she felt the house mother role, based on Daddy Warbucks, was hers to knock out of the park.

“When we saw the parts, I thought that this part is written for me. I’m obviously the drag mother here. There’s obviously a theme happening,” she said. “It’s a solo role, it’s this overbearing drag mother, powerful, narcissistic, uber-rich drag mother. I was like, ‘Yeah, that’s the Athena Dion character if I’ve ever heard it.’ So I was like, ‘I have to take it.’ And when Nini [Coco] was just so undecided and going down the line [saying], ‘Maybe I’ll take your part, maybe I’ll take your part,’ I’m like, ‘Bitch, back up. Fight with Myki [Meeks], don’t fight with me. If anyone’s a drag mother here, it’s me, I’m sorry. Like, this one actually makes sense,’ you know what I mean?”

“And look, I’m not a voguer. I’m not a dancer, and I’m not a singer. But I thought I held my own, to be honest with you,” she continued. “I am a performer, and I thought I performed the role really well. I haven’t seen it yet, but I thought I performed really well, and it was also validated when RuPaul said that it was so close. It was basically her saying it was so close, but someone’s gotta go. And I was like, ‘Well, why does it have to be me?’”

“I didn’t want to go home on a fumble or a bad note. I didn’t want to go home because I did terrible. If I was to go home, it was because it was so close and we kind of just have to pick somebody,” she added. “And luckily, Juicy was the one to send me home. I mean, I would’ve thought somebody else should have deserved to be in the bottom with me…and I thought I would have sent her home. But that’s another story.”

Remembering Gabe Lopez

This episode featured music producer and singer/songwriter Gabe Lopez, who died in January following a battle with lymphoma. Dion described him as being “so wonderful” on set.

“There are certain people on set that really make you remember that they have a heart. A lot of people are just doing their job and you feel like they’re kind of pushing you through the motions. But Gabe just always had a smile,” Dion said. “I would look to him for validation if I was doing something right or wrong because he just always had a smile on his face and made you feel calm.”

“He was just somebody that could give you a hug without physically giving you a hug,” she said. “And I feel like it’s a great loss because he was just one of those people that just emanated goodness.”

What’s next for Athena Dion?

As for what Dion is doing after Drag Race, she said she’s currently “touring the world.” That includes working with Juicy and Juicy’s drag mother (and Athena’s drag daughter), Season 16’s Morphine Love Dion.

“We’re working on so many shows coming up,” she said. “Obviously, I have Juicy and past contestant Morphine…We’re taking a Dion tour of the world on the road…and visiting every city.”

She also said she’s hoping to get back on television and, as always, she’s “fighting Bianca Del Rio in my free time.”

RuPaul’s Drag Race airs Fridays at 8 p.m. on MTV.