Drag Race UK’s Blue Hydrangea is waiting for a proposal now marriage equality has come to Northern Ireland
The Belfast queen is ready for her happy ending after sashaying away from the competition.
By Will Stroude
We’re feeling particularly blue after Thursday’s episode of RuPaul’s Drag Race UK, which Belfast’s eternally sunny (and shady!) queen Blu Hydrangea eliminated from the series.
The 23-year-old blossomed during her six weeks in the competition, but was sadly cut down in her prime after her, erm, hands-on approach to the water bottle marketing challenge failed to impress the judges.
While Drag Race UK it’s just the beginning for social media star Blu, she’s ready for a happy-ever-after of a different kind after last month’s new that marriage equality will finally be a reality in Northern Ireland from 2020 – as we found out when we caught up with her following her elimination…
How are you feeling having watched your elimination episode back?
It’s been crazy. It’s kind of nice that it’s out there now – it’s kind of been the elephant in the room that I was going to go home at some point. It wasn’t that hard to watch or anything. I watched it with Cheryl and Crystal and it was nice to have their support going through it.
Do you feel like you deserved to go this week?
Yeah, I think everyone has their time – and if anyone was going to go up against Cheryl [in the lipsync] it was going to be their time! Especially in that particular situation, in front of Cheryl Cole to a Cheryl song. I think out of the five remaining I was definitely the one that if I was a fan I wouldn’t want to see as much of [laughs].
Baga did think she was going to be in the bottom two – was everyone else in the work room expecting that as well?
I feel like me and Cheryl didn’t expect to be lipsyncing against each other, but I’m kind of glad it was Cheryl who sent me home, because I don’t have any bitterness towards her and we’re so close. If it had been one of the other girls I don’t know how I would have reacted. She didn’t do it going ‘I’m going to destroy Blu Hydrangea’. We did it in a friendly way.
So were there queens that would have wanted to destroy you if given the opportunity?!
Oh absolutely – anyone else! Not in a bad way, I just think at that point Cheryl wasn’t in it to destroy anyone, she was there to prove herself. Whereas the other girls, they want to win and they were like, tearing my head off to do so! [laughs]
We saw you having a tough time towards the beginning of the series, saying you felt like an outsider, but you seemed to blossom as it went on. What was the turning point?
I think I was in the workroom looking around at the girls who were succeeding, like Baga, The Vivienne, Divina – all the girls with badges – and they were just going balls-to-the-wall. They weren’t afraid of putting it all out there, and I felt like I was hiding behind my shyness and fear of embarrassing myself. Whereas in reality, people aren’t going to be judging me for doing those things, if anything they’ll be judging me for not doing them, so I might as well do it and try and be proud of myself.
Well you certainly went in on this week’s challenge when you were fellating that water bottle. Graham did point out your parents would be watching – have you spoken to them since the episode went out?
Well my mum sent me a lovely little text saying it was hard to watch, but hard to watch because she was upset by [my elimination], not because of that – she didn’t mention that! But that was totally Graham Norton’s fault, he was like ‘do more, do more!’
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In fairness you did give us the amazing ‘despunk my balls’ moment in last week’s episode too – is this just the real, potty-mouthed Blu Hydrangea?
[laughs] I think if you put me in a room of drag queens I just get this raunchy, dirty mouth! But it’s not normally me, I’m normally a bit of a prude. [laughs]
I don’t believe that for a second. You’ve also become part of Drag Race history after scoring a UK Top 10 hit with the Frock Destroyers – how did that feel?
It’s incredible. My boyfriend’s a huge fan of Marina and the Diamonds and he was like ‘She doesn’t even have a Top 10, single, how do you have one?!’ But I can’t even sing, that’s the biggest gag about it. Like, Baga and Divina may chart with solo music, but that was never on the cards for me. It’s ridiculous. People try all their lives to get a Top 10 song and I just wander in paying homage to the Cock Destroyers and get one!
Is there anything you’d like to say to Mary Berry?
I just hope she doesn’t watch it, you know?! [laughs] And I hope I don’t ever meet her in person so I don’t have to have that awkward moment! Maybe I went quite far, but at the same time Ru’s only rule for Snatch Game is to make him laugh, and I did, so I was pretty happy with it. I’d like to have been more respectful…
As the only queen from Northern Ireland you were very outspoken about the political situation for LGBTQ people there. How did it feel to find out equal marriage will become a reality last month?
It was great. I’ve been with my partner for five years now, and we always said we wouldn’t get married until it was passed. And it’s nice that now not only us but the rest of Northern Ireland can do what they want, and not have people telling us how to live our lives. It feels a lot more free [in Northern Ireland], the gay bars are filled and we’re all having a merry old time celebrating. It was nice to bring it to the conversation – some of the girls didn’t even know it wasn’t legal.
So is a wedding on the cards for you and your partner?
Absolutely! Well, I’m the bottom in the relationship so he’s the one that has to ask me!
[laughs] So you’re waiting on a proposal then?
Yeah, well I always said I wanted it [to happen] in Disneyland so we’re going to have to wait for that holiday to happen.
We asked some of the queens before the series aired who the shadiest queen was in the workroom, and your name seemed to come up an awful lot as I recall… What do you have to say for yourself?
[giggles] I just think it’s Northern Irish humour, where no one is safe. I was even shady to RuPaul and I didn’t even mean it! I meant it all with love – I would never say anything nasty and hateful. It was all just me having a laugh with a wink and a nudge. That’s the difference between shady and hateful.
What’s next for Blu Hydrangea?
We’ve got the tour in the works and we’re travelling across the UK. I’m excited to meet all the fans and keep up my social media, my YouTube… There’ll hopefully be some more from the Frock Destroyers at this rate. People want it and we’ll give it to them!
Series two of Drag Race UK has now officially been confirmed – what’s your advice to someone who finds themselves in the workroom next year?
Be your 100 per cent authentic self. Don’t try and be something you think they want. I think if you have a unique selling point that’s always good. Be a tit and don’t hold back – I feel like if I’d not held back from the start I would have done way better.
RuPaul’s Drag Race continues next Thursday 14 November at 8pm on BBC Three.