Michelle Visage says her new BBC Three series shows her ‘warts and all’
Her new show starts on May 26.
Michelle Visage said she has “planted the seed” for a UK version of RuPaul’s Secret Celebrity Drag Race.
The spin-off series, currently available in the UK on Netflix, sees celebrities try their hand at strutting their stuff in drag, following the popular format of the main series, RuPaul’s Drag Race.
Visage, a judge on both shows, said the series is “so British”, adding: “I told the producers we’ve got to do it in the UK… I’ve planted that seed already.”
Her new BBC Three series, titled How’s Your Head, Hun?, starts on May 26 and sees the star “enlisting her husband as a cameraman and throwing open the doors of her family home”, to give fans a look at her life during lockdown.
She will also interview a range of celebrity guests and the first episode features Little Mix’s Jade Thirlwall, Dr Ranj Singh and her fellow Strictly Come Dancing alumnus, Susannah Constantine.
Describing the series, she said: “I welcome you to enter my world of lockdown in Los Angeles with my hubby David, daughter Lola, rescue pups Romeo and Daisy and, might I add that Lola’s boyfriend is quarantining with us as well! We don’t do anything the easy way.”
The Ireland’s Got Talent judge said she is as “as real as I can be on this show, warts and all. There is quite literally nothing to hide behind”.
She added: “I’ve got no glam team, I’m not sitting behind a desk judging anyone. It’s just me in my natural, very chaotic habitat. I’ll be checking in with some of my friends to see how their heads are doing through all of this as well because at the end of the day we are all doing mostly the same thing at any given time of the day and night.”
The first UK series of RuPaul’s Drag Race aired on BBC Three last year, with a second series set to air this year.
Speaking about the success of Drag Race in the UK, Visage said: “For me, it’s the reason I did Celebrity Big Brother all those years ago. I did it five years ago because A) I was a fan of the show since it was on Channel 4, I loved CBB for years and B) I thought you know what, every time I had come over there to perform it would sell out in five minutes.
“I felt like the Spice Girls, it was constantly just sell-out at all the bars and clubs and I thought to myself this queer culture in the United Kingdom deserves their own version of this show.
“And it took five years to get it done but it got done and I knew it would be a hit. Look I rarely know when something is going to work, but I knew it would work because I knew the passion, and the need for the lovely British LGBTQIA to have their own version.
“I knew it and that’s why when it happened and it hit, I felt a little bit validated. I just knew it in my heart of hearts. Because the British people are so special and they deserved to have their own version of Drag Race and it was, that series one, was brilliant.”
BBC Three’s How’s Your Head, Hun? is on BBC iPlayer on May 26 from 6am BST.