The first ever live guest for Changes!! Ella Vaday is the drag persona of Nick Collier and self-proclaimed “drag beast from Dagenham East” who dominated the UK’s third series of Drag Race UK, almost winning. In this special episode recorded in front of a live audience at the London Podcast Show, Nick explains how despite appearances he hasn’t always been so confident in his identity.
As a young boy Nick went through numerous challenging changes in quick succession and was always in denial about being gay unti much later in life. Here, he discusses how he came through these changes, came out to his family and starred in West End musicals like Wicked, Book of Mormon, Joseph and his Technicolour Dreamcoat and Cats. That is before the pandemic forced him to stop rehearsing for Hairspray and start stacking shelves in Morrisons. It was then that Nick honed his skills as drag queen Ella Vaday, on instagram, in lockdown before applying for Drag Race, the rest, as they say, is history! This is a conversation about identity, gender conditioning, starting things later in life, believing in yourself to overcome setbacks and how we can change the world if we can just allow ourselves to to live our truth!
Changes is now a deaf friendly podcast and you can access transcripts here, spread the word! https://www.anniemacmanus.com/changes
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