“I feel like LeBron James,” says Onya Nurve, the Cleveland based drag queen who will compete in the finale of season 17 of RuPaul’s Drag Race on Friday.
Onya — aka Justin Woody — will go head to head with fellow queens Lexi Love, Sam Star and Jewels Sparkles in the highly anticipated season finale, where America’s next drag superstar will be crowned.
Through the last 15 episodes of the beloved reality competition show, Onya has become a fan favorite, winning four maxi challenges and creating iconic moments with her cast mates.
“Getting on Drag Race was always my goal,” says Onya. “The fact that I am living something that I wanted to do only four years ago is just amazing to me.”
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Onya came onto the Cleveland drag scene in 2021 and hit the ground running ever since performing and competing around the area. In 2024, she was cast as the first Cleveland-based queen on Drag Race since Akashia in 2009.
“Cleveland has been amazing,” she says, “the support here has been amazing."
Clevelanders aren’t the only ones rooting on Onya Nurve. Back in February, a video of pop superstar Ariana Grande went viral on social media where she named Onya as one of her top three queens for the season.
“When I saw it I think I screamed like the Browns won the Super Bowl,” Onya says. “It was an out-of-body experience that it almost didn’t even seem like a real video.”
Onya’s recognition has been well-earned following her striking performances throughout the season. In each episode of RuPaul’s Drag Race, queens compete in a mini and a maxi challenge and present a themed runway look for the main stage. These challenges test the queens’ singing, dancing, acting, sewing, design and comedy skills. The two contestants voted to be in the bottom by the panel of judges must “lip sync for their lives” for a chance to stay and send the other queen home.
“I think the sewing challenges were my biggest challenge going into Drag Race,” says Onya. “I don’t consider myself a seamstress so I knew that was going to be a big challenge for me but I think I overcame it in real time.”
Overcome she did, placing in the top three of the first design challenge of the season. But, Onya shined on the main stage runway where she flaunted her looks with her signature attitude and charisma.
She says all of the looks she brought to the stage this season hold a special place in her heart but she specifically references an outfit she wore on the seventh episode. The runway theme was “Nailed It!” and Onya graced the stage with a '90s throwback ensemble complete with an airbrushed t-shirt, denim shorts, a long bandana-patterned train and a hair show-inspired wig adorned with fake nails.
“It was just something that I would wear whether or not I was on Drag Race and it felt like 100% me. But it was harder than I thought to get an airbrushed t-shirt in 2025,” she jokes.
Onya, a former cook at Doinks Burger Joint on Cleveland’s East Side, says she was happy with her life before the show, but being on Drag Race has given her a level of financial freedom she previously dreamed about.
Still, she hasn’t forgotten about where she started.
“Something I am looking forward to doing is scratching the backs of those businesses that scratched mine. You know what I mean? Doinks is definitely one of those places, they sponsored me before I even started filming,” she says.
Onya says that being on Drag Race has reaffirmed her love for drag and its ability to spread messages of love and joy.
“[For me] drag has always always been work, work, work, but I think after getting on the show I’ve learned that it’s about the joy of it all and at the end of the day, it’s drag, and it's not ever that serious.”
Onya plans to do drag full-time after the show and says she’s excited to continue performing and hopes to even be in a Broadway show sometime soon. She also says she is excited to be back home in Cleveland for Pride in June.
“I give all the thanks to Drag Race because baby, I might be winning it,” she says.
You can cheer on Onya Nurve as she fights for the title of America’s next drag superstar on Friday, April 18 at 8 p.m. on MTV.
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