What is Valentina’s net worth? 'RuPaul's Drag Race' All-Star named 'fan favorite' instead of Miss Congeniality

Meet Valentina, the queen who stirred quite the controversy during her season!
PUBLISHED MAR 25, 2021
Valentina was doing drag since 10 months before Season 9 (@allaboutvalentina/ Instagram)
Valentina was doing drag since 10 months before Season 9 (@allaboutvalentina/ Instagram)

For the queens on 'RuPaul's Drag Race', making a lasting impression on the show is vital – it dictates how your career could pan out from there on out. A lot of the queens go on to have massive fan followings, solely because of all the love they receive. Each season crowns a Miss Congeniality. Before Season 10, this title was decided based on fan votes, but due to a hacking issue, it later was decided by the contestants themselves.

Up unto Season 10, all the Miss Congenitalitys were picked by fans – so when Valentina was crowned with the title on Season 9, it created quite an uproar among her castmates, seeing that they thought she was anything but. So, what is the tea that went down back then?

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Valentina was doing drag since 10 months before Season 9


James Leyva, who goes by the stage name Valentina is a drag queen, singer and performer. They identify as non-binary. The drag queen was one of the youngest during their season and had only been doing drag for around 10 months, before being selected to be a part of the show. Their style and exceptional makeup skills won them a massive fan following and they were also expected to be one of the front-runners.

Valentina has some rather infamous moments from Season 9


Valentina has had quite a few run-ins when it came to her time on 'RuPaul's Drag Race', from contestants to RuPaul himself. The most famous one has to be when Valentina was lip-syncing against Nina Bo'nina Brown, but refused to take off the face mask she had on. When RuPaul stopped the performance and asked her to take it off, she famously replied 'I'd like to keep it on, please'. Obviously, the judges were having none of it and she had to take it off, only to reveal that she did not know the lyrics of the song. It resulted in her subsequent elimination and the whole scene went down in 'Drag Race' history fame. But Valentina's time on the show gave us a lot more dramatic moments, such as when Aja delivered her iconic monologue during 'Untucked' on Episode 3.

The monologue called out Valenta on the fact that the judges loved her, regardless of what she did, much to the other queens' chagrin. And then, the Season 9 reunion, when the queens called Valentina out for addressing her fans when they began sending online hate and bullying the queens of the season. All of this ultimately resulted in the queens agreeing that Valentina's award for Miss Congeniality should be renamed to fan-favorite, seeing that they thought she was far from congenial during the season

What is drag queen Valentina's net worth?


Although Valentina placed 7th on Season 9 of 'Drag Race' as well as on 'All-Stars' season 4, she has gone to make it quite the name for herself as a drag performer. Her Instagram page has a follower count of 1.5 million. The performer is a model and even produces music. So it comes as no surprise that Valentina's net worth is an estimated $1 to $5 million, as reported by Celebs Age Wiki.

Catch all the new episodes of 'RuPaul's Drag Race' Season 13 on VH1 every Friday at 8/7c. For more information, check your local listings. 

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