Rainbow Crew is an ongoing interview series that celebrates the best LGBTQ+ representation on screen. Each instalment showcases talent working on both sides of the camera, including queer creatives and allies to the community.
Next up, we're speaking to Drag Race UK season five star Kate Butch.
Eight weeks in, RuPaul has sent Kate Butch running back down that hill with her surprise elimination in Drag Race UK's makeover challenge. This close to the finale, it's fair to say that season five's most beloved comedy queen wasn't given the chance to reach the Wuthering heights that she deserved.
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This woman's werk isn't done just yet though. Post-elimination, Digital Spy caught up with Kate Butch to discuss her surprise exit, what she needed from the judges, and how another queen almost let her win the lip-sync.
We share your Kate Bush obsession, so we'd love to hear in your words why she's so special to you as a drag artist.
Kate Bush is one of those rare artists who does what she wants to do on her own time in her own lane. And she doesn't care what you think about whether it's good or bad or completely bananas. I just love that. I love that she's camp and theatrical and quirky and weird and all of these different things muddled into one.
So many great UK queens, yourself included, have been eliminated in the makeup challenge. There's a lot of talk online comparing your exit to Cheryl Hole's and Dakota Schiffer's too. There's almost a makeover challenge curse going on by this point.
It's always a weird episode, I find. I'm still unsure what the criteria is for the judging. The way that I was approaching it was kind of like Naomi Smalls doing Sonny and Cher and Crystal Methyd's Bert and Ernie. They don't have to be identical, but they have to be in the same kind of universe?
I really wanted to highlight the chosen family aspect of it. The fact that I was randomly allocated Xan, who is very much all about their chosen family was kind of serendipity. I was really glad that we got to show that on the TV.
What does "family resemblance" even mean at this point? It feels so vague in the judging.
I'm still not sure, because I don't wear the same clothes as the people in my family.
What was going through your mind during that lip-sync? We love 'This Hell' so much.
I love the song as well. I had hoped a little bit that Rina [Sawayama] would be a guest judge. Never mind.
I was in quite a lot of different mindsets. I was like it's DeDe third lip-sync. It's my first. I love this song. I've loved it since it came out. I'm in the jacket and it feels like quite a motorbike-y song if that makes any sense? But I'm gonna have fun with it. I'm going to do what I do.
I know that DeDe is an incredible lip-syncer, but watching it, I do think I gave her a good run for her money.
Not to be shady to anyone else, but we were very surprised when your name was chosen to sashay away. Even DeDe looked surprised. What was it like watching that moment back?
DeDe was very set on winning that challenge, so I think it absolutely knocked her not winning it and clearly being in the bottom with me. In the Untucked, she kind of whispered to me... She was like, "I want you to win and I'm just gonna let you have it."
And I was like, "Oh, how very lovely. How very kind."
I looked away and I looked back and she was getting a pair of scissors, cutting up a dress so she could do the splits in it. And I was like, "She got the confidence somewhere. God bless her."
Part of my thinking was maybe because it was for charity, we would both stay because it was a nice episode and we all had a lovely time being friends with each other? Hey-ho, it wasn't to be.
Can you talk us through why it was so important and special to see Switchboard highlighted and celebrated in this episode?
It felt like such an honour and privilege and quite a big responsibility to make sure that our makeover subjects had an amazing time and we could honour their work and tell the world about the charity.
If people don't know about Switchboard, or if they know a couple of things, it's not just for people who are maybe struggling with their mental health, like I had previously thought it was. Even if you want to know where's the nearest queer venue in your town, or if you're a family member of someone who's just coming out, it's an incredible resource that really deserves this platform.
The judges obviously liked you and enjoyed a lot of what you had to offer, but they were a bit savage sometimes when it came to describing your looks. You did seem to take it all in really good humour though. How do you feel about it all now, looking back?
I call myself the Comic Sans of drag for a reason [Laughs]. I know what I look like. I know what my strengths and my weaknesses are. I set out to just make the judges laugh because I think there's been enough seasons of Drag Race where if you can make Ru laugh, there's more longevity for you in the competition.
I was just excited to show the judges what I do and get some kind of feedback, maybe some constructive critique, but they never really said, "Here's how you could make your makeup better." They would always say to DeDe, "You need to just soften this and do this." I was like, "I'm right here. I'm standing next to her. She does not need the help."
Hey-ho. The only negative critiques I ever got, watching it back, were visual, aesthetic-based. And in my opinion, that's the easiest thing to fix. You can buy nice dresses. I mean, for the most part, I didn't, but I've heard you can.
They didn't have anything negative to say about my performances, my comedy, my wit, any of that. So it was as good as it could have been, I think.
Those kind of things are so key to your artistry, absolutely. You did have some great looks, especially the greyscale one. That was extremely iconic.
I liked what I brought. I think was really nice snapshot of where my drag was at that point in time. It's a little time capsule. Some things I will keep from it. Some things I will never wear again. It is what it is.
If you had the chance to talk with the judges right now, what would you like to say or ask them?
I would ask lovely Alan Carr or Joel Dommett or even next week's guest, Aisling Bea, "Can I please open for you on tour? Can I sit on Graham's sofa, please? Can I just be friends with all the lovely comedy people we got to meet?"
Hustling.
So looking back, was there any particular moment that you wish had been included in the edit that we didn't get to see on screen?
In this most recent episode, me and Xan had a lot of very deep conversations. We spoke about our mental health a lot. We found we had a lot of similarities there. And it would have been nice for me to have had at least one sad little mirror chat.
I would have liked to have shown that more serious side to me. I have recently released a little single, a cover of 'This Woman's Work', which ties in to mental health issues and the services that Switchboard provide. So I am glad that I got to show a different side of me with that.
Is there a particular mirror chat-style issue you'd like to raise here now that you didn't get to discuss on the show?
I had a couple of them. We talked about pets in the pet shop runway. About the fact that getting a dog changed my entire family and came at the right time for where my family was and made our lives 100% better.
I also talked about going to panto with my nan. Me and Ginger had a nice conversation. That didn't make it in and she's recently passed away. So we spoke about that, but I get that I was there to be the funny one, wasn't I? I was there to be silly and funny. I'm glad because that that's what I do in my shows. So I'm glad that people got to see the silly funny side of me, first and foremost.
What would you like fans to take away from your time on Drag Race?
I kind of wanted in a very small, minimal way to make people question what kind of drag should be allowed on Drag Race? What I do, I would class as "Bastard Drag". Stupid, camp nonsense that's not out to be the most fashionable thing ever. It's not gonna be in Vogue or whatever. But hopefully, it can open people's minds.
If they can get over me being on a runway, maybe they can finally accept seeing kings on TV or drag in-between things. So hopefully, like a little Trojan Horse, I maybe put a ladder down for people who never thought that they would be able to be on Drag Race, because I never thought I would be.
And what about you? What did you take away from your time on Drag Race?
Well, firstly, I stole a lot of things. I took a couple of lovely wigheads, but don't tell anybody [Laughs].
I just took away a lot of incredible friendships and connections. I do a lot of hosting, bingo, quizzes. It's a lot of solo work, and I don't have a huge drag family. I don't have loads of drag friends, but now I do and I've learned so much from them. I hope I've given them some guidance and help too. It's just been so lovely to get to know these amazing, amazing queens.
RuPaul's Drag Race UK airs on BBC Three in the UK and streams on WOW Presents Plus in the US.
Interested in talking about all things Drag Race? Visit our dedicated sub-forum.
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After teaching in England and South Korea, David turned to writing in Germany, where he covered everything from superhero movies to the Berlin Film Festival.
In 2019, David moved to London to join Digital Spy, where he could indulge his love of comics, horror and LGBTQ+ storytelling as Deputy TV Editor, and later, as Acting TV Editor.
David has spoken on numerous LGBTQ+ panels to discuss queer representation and in 2020, he created the Rainbow Crew interview series, which celebrates LGBTQ+ talent on both sides of the camera via video content and longform reads.
Beyond that, David has interviewed all your faves, including Henry Cavill, Pedro Pascal, Olivia Colman, Patrick Stewart, Ncuti Gatwa, Jamie Dornan, Regina King, and more — not to mention countless Drag Race legends.
As a freelance entertainment journalist, David has bylines across a range of publications including Empire Online, Radio Times, INTO, Highsnobiety, Den of Geek, The Digital Fix and Sight & Sound.
