we spoke to the DIVA herself from Drag Race UK, Cheryl Hole, about how she’s dealing with lockdown, her thoughts on the season 12 drama, and what her first DragCon L.A would have been! enjoy
Hey Cheryl! It’s good to see you. How are you doing?
I’m fab darling how are you?
We’re getting there! So let’s get into it. First of all, how are you dealing with lockdown so far?
I’ve got to be real with you, when it first happened I was absolutely devastated. I didn’t really know what to do and how to continue working, but it actually refreshes all [of] your creativity and gets you thinking outside the box. For my entire drag career all I’ve done is go to a bar, go to a club and then start performing, whereas now ive had to rewind and go, well how can I carry on performing but staying in quarantine? So these online digital drag shows, filming yourself doing performances, its really shown me that I’ve got a lot of skill sets to freshen up (laughs)
What’s the first thing you want to do when you’re allowed to leave the house?
I am dying to go to a restaurant. I didn’t realise how much I have missed having tap water poured into glasses, I have missed it so much, because when you’re on the road you basically dine out all the time. And, im not knocking my fiancé’s cooking what so ever because he is a bloody chef, and I can’t cook for shit. But I just miss going out and enjoying a restaurant with a candle on the table. I guess I could but a candle on the table now but its not the same.
What advice do you have to any there artist who are also in this position?
I mean, I’m very fortunate that I was given such an amazing platform with drag race that made my reach a lot wider to the UK, and the worldwide audience. I think now so man people are online watching shows, Im personally doing my best to shine a light on all my drag sisters that haven’t been on drag race and say “Please go watch my sisters show”, “please go support their YouTube content”, “go listen to their podcast”, because it now gives people an introduction to artists that they haven’t had the chance to see. All I’ve got to say to people is keep creating content, keep showing your best work and keep people engaged because thats the only way people are going to see what you’re doing.
Speaking of Drag Race, you were on the first season of Drag Race UK. How did it feel to be one of the first 10 queens to showcase UK drag to audiences who had maybe never experienced it before?
So, I have to say when I saw they were casting for season 1 I was like… fucking finally (laughs). And then I was like, okay I’ve got to do anything I can to get on this first season because, I don’t want to say that my entire drag career has built to this moment, but every drag queen sort of aspires to be on Drag Race. We’ve all watched Drag Race for years and years, Ive been to the clubs, I’ ve seen the girls you know? So I just knew if I got the chance to showcase my stupidity and my drag on this platform I would be over the moon, and when I got the call I was like “oh shit”, like this is reality.
I have to say that quarantine has given me the chance to kind of take it all in because, we filmed, we prepared, we were announced and then it exploded, so I didn’t really stop until we were all locked inside our houses so I could reflect and go “what a crazy bloody year its been” (laughs).
If you were ever to return for an all star Eason what would you want to show the fans that you didn’t get to show them the first go around?
Right, I’m gonna put all my cards on the table. I want to show that I can actually produce a good look (laughs). Because, when you’re getting ready for drag race you’re under pressure and lets just say I didn’t bring my A – Game with my runways, so I would literally sell a kidney just to show that I have some good looks!
So season 12 is almost over in the U.S. Have you been watching?
Of course! I watch it on Netflix every week!
What are your thoughts on the season so far, I think they’ve had a rough go of it pretty much from the cast announcement onwards?
My heart goes out to them because if I had to do my entire season without going to clubs to watch the show at viewing parties, and I had to just sit online and say “Ooh, well I would’ve shown you this performance”, Like I enjoyed, in the process of Drag Race, lip-syncing to the numbers that I didn’t actually lip-sync to in the clubs. It’s like, if I had to lip-sync this is what I would’ve done. But these girls are really turning it out, they’re putting me to shame with the online content they’re putting out, I mean…they’re doing music videos and here I am lip-syncing against a cream wall (laughs).
I think its a real shame for them because they’ve been waiting for this moment for so long, and its nothing like they expected it to be, and with all stars right around the corner their moment will be over pretty soon.
Well, I feel sorry for the All Star girls as well because they couldn’t actually have a promo look. My heart goes out to both of them because they can’t really fully enjoy their season. Somebody put a post up the other day that was like “If this didn’t happen then we would’ve had an all stars promo blah blah blah”. And I’m like…look, we can’t dwell on it. Im just glad the season 12 girls got an official promo and got to have a press week because everybody knows the all stars girls. They know what they can do, whereas the season 12 girls needed to be introduced and its so great that 12 of them are absolutely loved and adored…
Yes…12 of them are. So are you working on anything at the moment? Anything you want us to know about?
I am just keeping myself busy, Im pretty much in drag every singe day working on projects or filming stuff, trying to turn out new looks 9lsughs). I’ve also got a new digital drag show, so I’ve done 2 already, and I did ‘#stayathome with the Holes’ because we were promoting staying at home and having a camp old show but I thought look, lets switch it up, and seeing as Chromatica is on its way im doing a ‘Going Gaga in lockdown’ show, and its a full show of Gaga numbers so that we can all pretend they we are in a club…’nother club, ‘nother club, bus, plane, no sleep (laughs). And thats on May 30th on with PEG.
You got to experience DragCon UK This year before all this madness started, what was that experience like for you?
So we all went to DragCon NYC last year, but obviously people had only seen our meet the queens, so a lot of them didn’t know us prior, and its very hard to gage a person. Like, straight away you can think ‘I love that person, they’re an absolute DIVA’, and then 4 episodes in they could be an absolute dickhead, so you can’t really gage how it’s going to go. But once your entire season is over you know who you want to see and who you don’t. I was completely oblivious to what was happening at DragCon. I didn’t know that the line to my booth wrapped around the booth 3 times and I was just sitting in there feeling so blessed that people were standing in line. Somebody even came up to me and told m they had been waiting for over 2 hours and I was amazed. I was expecting a couple of people, maybe sell a few t-shirts, I didn’t expect to get the love that I got, and I left that weekend truly overwhelmed but blessed that I had so much love and support. People love to pit you against each other and say “Oh Cheryl only has this amount of followers compared to Baga” but its like…I don’t care. I could have 10 followers as opposed to 100,000 and I wouldn’t care because you know that those 10 people love and support everything I do.
Sadly this month would’ve marked your first ever DragCon L.A but that had to be canceled. What were your plans for your booth?
I was going to make sure that the Diva’s in L.A knew who an Essex queen was, we were gong to have that booth decked out. My booth at DragCon UK was like a welcome into Cheryl’s lounge, so it had a tacky feature wall with wallpaper, and in L.A we were going to do Cheryl’s boutique, so it was going to be like Gemma Collins boutique, but if it happens then at the next DragCon we may or my not be doing Cheryl Hole’s salon, Spray tans, Vajazzle’s, the whole lot.
And finally, as queer people a word we use with a lot of power is ‘Pride’. What does pride mean to you?
For me pride is not giving a fuck what anybody is saying about you, just owning everything that is true to you. Saying “This is how I am”, and I’m not quoting the greatest showman, but saying “this is me”. I believe that you should never doubt anything about yourself, just believe in yourself and believe that you are a fucking star.
Huge thank you to Cheryl and her team and all of our readers for making this interview possible! be sure to check out Cheryl’s new show ‘Going gaga’ on May 30th only on PEG.
DragHUH! 