“I’m dead important now,” jokes (?) Lill. Over the course of Drag Race UK’s sixth season, which has been lauded as one of the franchise’s best, the Manchester queen has accumulated a die-hard following thanks to her edgy aesthetic and dry sense-of-humour (as well as her word-for-word homage of Geri Halliwell’s iconic and Oscar-worthy appearance on Sex and the City). “Everyone’s just been dead nice. I’ve loved it,” Lill says of her fan-favourite status. “I thought I’d be getting death threats and all sorts, but no, just marriage proposals!”
To the distress of aforementioned fans, we were forced to say “ta-ra!” to Lill this week following her performance in the roast. While she elicited a few cackles, particularly when she fumbled her joke about La Voix’s “incontinence pads”, Lill faced the lip-sync smackdown with Rileasa Slaves to the beat of David Guetta’s ‘Crazy What Love Can Do’. As a result of being “smothered” by her Marilyn Monroe-meets-gimp ensemble, Lill was unable to deliver a lip-sync to the best of her ability and was told to sashay away.
“Oh my god, that is the most uncomfortable I’ve ever been in drag in my entire life, like, ever,” she tells GAY TIMES. “I felt like I was being smothered and I couldn’t hear anything because, when you have the mask on, it muffles everything. The mask kept filling up with sweat, I’d have to pull up the mouth and empty a pool of sweat out of my face. It was disgusting. But I lived to tell the tale! I’m still here. At least I didn’t suffocate.”
Read ahead (or watch below) for our full exit interview with Lill, where she discusses her “overwhelming” final episode, fan-favourite status and, in a rather surprising turn of events, why she doesn’t think RuPaul should let queens change outfits for the lip-sync.
Lill, I really saw you in the top four…
Well, you’re no psychic are ya?
I never get it right. Congratulations on making the top five of RuPaul’s Drag Race UK season six. How does that feel?
Yeah, fab. I mean, I don’t think it could have gone any better for me, really. I got to show off my outfits, managed to make my way through all the challenges, and some of them were extremely difficult for me. I’m really happy with how it went.
Which challenges were the hardest for you?
Any of them with choreography. I’m just absolutely rubbish at choreography. I’m definitely dyslexic. I mean, I’ve never had a test for it but I definitely think I am. I still don’t know left from right. I can’t ride a bike. I definitely can’t learn dance routines. I think that was the hardest one. And then there was the Rusical, which has a lot of choreography in, so that was difficult.
You did well in the Rusical, though!
Yeah, I did pretty good. I was still bumbling at the end as Cilla [Black] trying to remember the dance routine, but they had some quite clever camera trickery, so you couldn’t see how rubbish I was.
Are there any plans for your Cilla to return in some form?
Some of the queens kept their outfits from the Rusical, [but] I didn’t really like mine, so I didn’t keep it. I did pinch the shoes – don’t tell anyone at the BBC. But, then I was walking over a bridge on the way to a gig and the heel got stuck in a hole and ripped the entire shoe in half. So, now I haven’t even got the shoes. So, Cilla’s not coming back anytime soon, I don’t think. Not that Cilla, anyway.
You’ve become such a huge fan-favourite this season. Is that something you ever expected when you sashayed into the werkroom?
I just didn’t know what to expect, to be honest, but it’s been so surprising how much everyone’s rallied around me to support me. It’s gone off online. I didn’t expect it. Everyone’s just been dead nice. I’ve loved it. I thought I’d be getting death threats and all sorts, but no, just marriage proposals!
Let’s talk about this final episode because your roast did have some hilarious moments, especially when you fumbled it. You didn’t seem too phased, either, and brushed it off. Why were you so content at the time?
I guess you’ve just got to roll with it, haven’t you? If it goes wrong, everyone knows it’s gone wrong. There’s no point making it go even worse, so you might as well have a laugh and get on with it. It was a bit intimidating, especially with La Voix there. This is what she’s known for. I thought, ‘I’m just going to have a laugh and see what happens.’ And it actually turned out pretty good.
I love the Drag Race moments that aren’t intentionally funny. For example, one of my favourite moments in herstory is Monica Beverly Hillz being unable to read her lines in the Draggle Rock challenge….
“Sunlight, sunlight on the skin!”
Do you have a favourite moment like that from seasons past?
Well, that was a good one. Also, “Keep those balls away from my face!” That one’s good. “Girl, how look how fucking orange you look!” There’s so many out there, so many meme moments. I kind of like the earlier American seasons the best, so seasons five, six and seven. They’re my favourites, the ones I like to rewatch.
I will always love Darienne Lake’s “big girl walking down the dirty street…”
Oh my god, so funny. “With my dirty feet!”
In the lip-sync against Rileasa, you were a bit restrained…
Oh my god, that is the most uncomfortable I’ve ever been in drag in my entire life, like, ever. Having the latex body suit on, first, makes you really hot. Then having the mask on, having a collar over it, so you can’t even take it off in a hurry if you need to… It was just really claustrophobic. I had these shoes on that I’d never worn before, that were like stiletto PVC boots with a skinny little heel – and I’m not exactly a slight gal, am I? I’m quite robust, let’s say. So, my feet were absolutely killing me from the second I put them on. I felt like I was being smothered and I couldn’t hear anything because, when you have the mask on, it muffles everything.
The mask kept filling up with sweat, I’d have to pull up the mouth and empty a pool of sweat out of my face. It was disgusting. But I lived to tell the tale! I’m still here. At least I didn’t suffocate. [The show] was good to me, I should probably say that. When we were doing critiques and stuff, they kept pausing and checking like, ‘Lill, are you still alive? Do you need a stool and stuff?’ But obviously RuPaul’s there so I’m not gonna be like, ‘Yeah, get me a chair!’ like a grandma. I was like, ‘No, no, no, I’m fine,’ when, really, I was absolutely dying inside.
Considering you could’ve dropped dead any minute, you put on a pretty f**king good performance.
I mean, I dunno if the skirt reveal was… I don’t know if that was [actually] a reveal just because I needed to get some air circulation in my body again. Any excuse to get one layer off!
With all that in mind, do you think that, moving forward, RuPaul should let queens change into appropriate lip-sync outfits?
No, I think that spoils some of the magic, doesn’t it? You want to see queens lip-sync in ridiculous outfits. That’s half of the fun of it. So, I don’t think she should. And it’s her show, she’s been doing a lot of series and she needs to keep herself amused somehow, doesn’t she? If she needs to do that in cruel and unusual ways, then so be it.
How did you feel when RuPaul said, “Rileasa, shantay you stay”?
Well, I was overwhelmed anyway just by what I was wearing, and having to lip-sync in it. So, in the moment you don’t really have time to process what’s going on. Then what I was thinking at the time was, ‘Shit, I’ve not thought of anything [to say]’ because when you leave you do a little exit line and say something funny. That’s why when I leave I just say ‘ta-ra!’ because I didn’t think of anything. But if I had to lose to anyone, I’m glad it was Rileasa because I’m just obsessed with Rileasa. I think she’s so fab. We’re going on tour together soon, in December, and I think there are eight or nine dates all over the UK. Me, Rileasa and Kyran. So, I get to spend loads more time with her soon. I guess I’ll take out revenge on her on the tour.
There’s been so many fan-favourites that have exited in fifth place such as Ongina, BenDeLaCreme, Katya, Lemon and Vanjie. What’s it like to be in the company of those queens?
All the ones you’ve mentioned, I think, are really fab. So, that’s good. It’s nice that I’m hearing the ‘fan-favourite’ title banded around. I mean, I’m not going to lie, that does feel really good. Who needs to win when you’ve already won? Especially because, before the series out, I was like, ‘I don’t know how I’m going to be perceived.’ My biggest worry was not coming across as genuine. I didn’t want to come across like I was pretending to impress someone, or just not coming across as myself. So, I’ve had loads of messages saying, ‘You can tell that you’re a genuine person,’ and just saying really nice things about my character.
It’s wild to me that that was a concern to you, as you’ve come across so genuine and I think that’s one major reason why fans have fallen in love with you.
Yeah, I don’t know why! It literally was my biggest concern. I knew my looks were going to be dead good. I knew I was going to be shit at some stuff because, like I said on the episode, I’m not delusional. There’s this thing on Drag Race where you have to be delusional, you have to believe in yourself. But also, if you know what your pitfalls are and just ignore them, then you’re going to look like an absolute fool when something goes wrong.
You’ve been incredible to watch this season, from your Snatch Game – which could’ve been a win – to your Rusical and then the makeover. Again, that could’ve been a win and, like many viewers, I fell in love with your mum. How is she coping with her newfound fame?
She’s loving it so much. We had to do the photoshoot – all these photoshoots that we’ve had to do for Instagram, I’ve literally been doing them the day before. I’ve been so disorganised! So, obviously I had to get my mum in the day before the episode came out to do the photoshoot, and we hadn’t had the outfits on since the last time we wore them. Oh my god, as soon as you get her back in the outfit, she was loving it again. Dunno! I need to have a proper chat with her. I’ve not really spoken to her since last week. That’s bad, isn’t it? We’ve texted a couple of times, but I need to give her a proper call.
I can’t believe you’ve left your mum hanging with her new celebrity status.
I’m dead important now. Sorry mum, you’re gonna have to wait. No, everyone’s obsessed with Lola. She’s a celebrity. She’s the famous one.
The makeover has been praised as one of Drag Race‘s best-ever episodes. What did you think of that response?
I think it’s the highest-rated episode Drag Race has ever had, so that’s insane. It’s so fab that our families were the ones there with us and it came across so well. It’s nice seeing how people become who they are when you meet their family or friends, you get more of a glimpse into why they are the way they are. Also, I was not expecting my mum to be there as well, I thought it was going to be my friend Joe. My friend Joe’s got this massive ginger beard. I’m not supposed to tell anyone, but what are they gonna do? They can’t kick me off now, can they? So I told my friend Joe, ‘You’re going to have to shave off your big beard’ and we had this whole thing planned out. He was like, ‘I really don’t wanna do it, but I’ll do it for you.’ Then my mum walks in! But, I’m so glad it was my mum. I wouldn’t change it for the world now. It’s just dead special that we had that experience together.
You haven’t been in contact much because she’s planning to steal your thunder.
Maybe. Hope not. I want to come up with a double act for us together. Like in Chicago, they come on in the end with guns. That would be fab. Obviously, we’d have less dance moves – or very simplified ones – because my mum’s as bad as me at dancing. That’s the thing though, every time I had to lip-sync I was like, ‘I can finally dance and have fun’, which is what I should’ve been doing when I was trying to learn choreo. It was a weird experience overall, to be honest.
Not only are you a fan-favourite, you’re a lip-sync assassin too!
It’s mad, that. Every time we got put in the bottom and I got to lip-sync, it was the most fun thing. You just thought, ‘Oh sod it, I’ll just have a laugh now.’ Either you go home and you’re like, ‘I might as well go out on a bang’ or think ‘sod it’ and you just let go, and that’s what lets you stay. So, I actually loved doing the lip-syncs. I guess I love performing anyway, so that’s probably why.
What’s next for Lill? Aside from your tour with Rileasa and Kyran and upcoming double act with Lola Buzzcock…
Apart from that, I’m doing Danny Beard’s Christmas Cabaret Show. Then, I guess just working on stuff for DragCon because DragCon’s in January, isn’t it I’ll be there working on all my merch. I just want to sell loads of stuff now. I’m thinking of coming up with, I don’t know, selling stuff that makes me feel luxurious. I already want to do a makeup remover. It’s called ‘Bitch Be Gone’. I also need to look into cosmetics laws and stuff. Am I allowed to just sell stuff like that? I dunno. Yeah, working on those little bits and bobs. Probably be doing loads more cabarets, working on more clothing – all of it, really. I’m sure loads of fun things are going to materialise.
Drag Race UK season 6 is streaming in the UK on BBC iPlayer.
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