Ireland AM presenter Paul Ryder has told how homophobic bullying forced him to quit school.
The Ringmasters Drag Race host, 35, revealed he was branded a “joke act” auditioning for X Factor before rising to fame on Ireland’s Got Talent. Dubliner Paul left secondary school as he couldn’t take the “mental torture” of being picked on for being different.
He said: “I suffered so much at school I had to leave in the middle of fifth year as the bullying got so bad. I never needed my Leaving [Cert], it hasn’t come up.
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“I left school because of homophobia – I’ve had more jobs than I’ve had hot dinners. There was a bit of pushing and shoving, I wasn’t left for dead but can you imagine five and a half years of the mental torture.”
Paul, who started working in panto with TV colleague Alan Hughes at 16, said staff picking on him was not unusual either. He revealed: “The teachers... they’d make snide remarks at me when I appeared in papers.
“It was a rugby school so if you weren’t playing rugby you were nobody. But a good work ethic will get you far further than what a teacher says to you.
“I’m living proof that you can succeed without it.” The entertainer said he’d rather forget his “horrid” X Factor audition. He said: “Drag wasn’t accepted. They got me to gussy up and stand in the 3 Arena amongst a room of people who just kept staring, making a mockery and laughing and pointing at me because I was the joke act.
“That as a performer who was in an LGBTQ circle and feels quite confident, that’s terrifying and knocks the confidence out of you. It was at a weird time, Drag wasn’t mainstream so everyone who was different when it came to the X Factor was a joke act.
“I was about to quit drag before I entered Ireland’s Got Talent and it pushed me to keep going. Michelle Visage had judged the Ringmaster’s Drag Race a few years before. I knew I’d have a friendly face.”
Paul said homophobia is still rife in Ireland and we need Pride to help spread equality. He added: “I know everyone thinks why do you need Pride, sure the marriage referendum happened.
“It’s not just about that, it’s about what’s happening in the country at the minute. It’s about optics and showing that everybody needs to celebrate themselves.”
Though he’s now confident, the hurt haunts him. He said: “I still meet some of those bullies today and I go ha ha I win, that’s a bigger message for me than anything."
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