Dancing with the Stars’ Blu Hydrangea prayed not to be gay
RuPaul’s Drag Race UK star Blu Hydrangea. (Getty)
Dancing with the Stars contestant Blu Hydrangea has opened up about trying to pray away their sexuality while growing up as a gay person in Northern Ireland.
RuPaul’s Drag Race UK star Hydrangea, whose real name is Joshua Cargill, is competing on Ireland’s Dancing with the Stars alongside professional dancer Simone Arena.
The 28-year-old drag queen shared, as reported by the Irish Mirror, that the show has changed their audience from being “very much queer” to “more little old ladies”.
During her winning run on Drag Race UK vs the World in 2022, Hydrangea confirmed that their pronouns “out of drag are he/ they and in drag, she/they!”
Speaking to Sunday World on Sunday (17 March), Hydrangea, who grew up in Northern Ireland, shared their struggle with being accepted as a gay person throughout their childhood.
They said appearing on Dancing with the Stars has enabled them to inspire other people, who may be in a similar situation as they were, to “be as fabulous as me if they want”.
The non-binary artist shared that they had taken extreme measures to try and fit in: “I remember I used to pray, ‘Please fix me.’”
She went on: “My teachers in school would make passive-aggressive comments about queer people and stuff like that.
“And I remember my dad would make jokes about ‘you better never bring a man home.’ That’s the things that were ingrained into me… there was definitely a fear about being myself.”
They said, on reflection, they think their dad was “scared” they would grow up gay, but seeing as it’s not changed them as a person their dad was able to accept them “almost immediately”.
“…Because he knows me and he loves me and it didn’t change anything about me,” Hydrangea said.
How did this story make you feel?
