To say Blu Hydrangea is a Drag Race fan would be an understatement. She was only 11 when she started watching the show on a small screen and a low volume to ensure her mother would not hear. “I wanted to ingest every single second of drag content I could,” she says over Zoom, looking like an out of this world vision in an orange costume and a choker in her signature blue.
“Back then, I had to wait a whole year before getting new Drag Race. I can never have enough of it, and I've watched every season, Down Under, Thailand season two, I just finished Italy, I love them all.” Ahead of returning to the franchise to compete in BBC Three’s upcoming Drag Race UK vs The World, she was even an admirer of fellow-competitor Pangina before they met in the werkroom. “Pangina Heals was so mysterious; we did not know what she could do as she was a judge before and has never competed. We did not have a point of reference. But I definitely clicked with her because I'm such a massive fan-gina. I was the only girl on the set who had watched Drag Race Thailand, and I adored it. It's another level — they set themselves on fire on that show literally.”
After signing up for this new season, Blu says she invested much more money than she did in 2019. Back then, she says, no one knew what to expect from the launch of Drag Race UK, so they didn’t spend as much money on their costumes, hair and accessories as US competitors are rumoured to (Vice has reported that contestants can spend anywhere from $4,000, around £3,000, on the low end to upwards of $20,000, around £15,000).
“Now that we've seen the success of the show, I felt more confident this time around being able to invest in costumes because I wanted to do well,” explains Blu. “I also knew what I could gain from it. We've all seen the success of people like Bimini [from series two], who now has more than 900,000 followers, modelling contracts...” Blu, who finished fifth in her season, went back to the competition with the hope of doing better and impressing the jury. “Ru and Michelle know what we can do, and they want us to be more elevated from that, so we almost have to work slightly harder to impress them. But obviously, I did not envy the girls who had never stood in front of RuPaul. ââWe did not have the initial shock I had in season one when I was like: ‘That's RuPaul! My idol!’”
The bar just kept getting higher throughout the competition, she says. “The judges had harsher critiques than when I was on my season. They’re looking at us through an expert lens. But I also think this is even higher than All-Stars. It feels like a season with the best from each part of the world brought together. It’s an epic All Stars, so I think RuPaul and Michelle came for blood and did not let us off the hook for small details.”
Who was her most significant competition in the series? “Everyone is a massive competition,” she says. “If you look at the cast, they are all the fan favourites of each international season.” Still, after listing many queens, she singles out Jimbo, the Canadian contestant who made the whole world laugh while in lockdown in 2020, as particularly “intimidating”.
“Massive tits, massive ass and super-tall. It was important to have that mental thing realising that you're there for a reason too, but that's tough to do when you're in a room full of people who are all so epic.”
The young drag queen felt honoured to be representing all her fellow LGBQT+ Irish people on screen too. Half her family did not know about her sexual orientation, non-binary identity, and occupation as a queen during her first participation. “Drag is not easy, and being on Drag Race is hard too. You’re really putting yourself right there. Once you have done that, you have to be this kind of advocate for young queer people, and I love that. It’s my favourite part of the job.”
RuPaul’s Drag Race UK Versus The World starts at 9pm tonight on BBC Three and BBC iPlayer. New episodes every Tuesday
