T H E BE S T- SEL L I NG GAY M AGA Z I N E

O c t o b e r 2 02 0

HENRY
GOLDING
Hollywood’s new
leading man on his
powerful gay role

Jim Parsons
Zachary Quinto

THE
Matt Bomer
Andrew Rannells

BOYS
Charlie Carver
Robin de Jesús
Brian Hutchison

THEBAND
Tuc Watkins
Michael Benjamin
Washington IN
attitude.co.uk £5.50

The story behind the

biggest queer film ever
 This issue
October 2020

p96

Travel
83 JUST THE TICKET
p42 The latest travel tips and news
84 GOING VIRAL
p106 How the travel industry is
Agenda weathering the storm whipped up
by Miss Corona
11 EDITOR-IN-CHIEF’S LETTER 92 HOT HOTEL
12 ATTITUDE LOVES Fritton Lake, Norfolk
What we’re thirsty for this month
18 THE RULES Active
For becoming an LGBTQIA+ pop
star 96 FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE
19 THE BIG ISSUE Go into the wild with Soviet stallion
Surrogacy and the law Alexander Abramov
20 COLUMNIST – JONNY WOO 102 MATT LISTER
The importance of gay sex clubs Fitness in focus
22 BIG IN A WIG 104 A PROBLEM SHARED
Fagulous Dr Ranj is always here for you
24 CARS p110 105 MENTAL HEALTH
Bentley Bentayga Our wellness series with
p28 psychotherapist Owen O’Kane
Features 106 REAL BODIES
Beauty influencer Keith Paris takes
28 HENRY GOLDING a stand for his fellow amputee
The Crazy Rich Asians star opens brothers and sisters
up about his first gay role in new
film, Monsoon Social
42 THE BOYS IN THE BAND
On song with the starry cast of 110 LIFE LESSONS
Netflix’s adaptation of the 1960s play Trinity The Tuck
56 MOHSIN ZAIDI 112 REVIEWS
The criminal justice barrister on the Books by Uli Lenart, films by Guy
catharsis of writing A Dutiful Boy Lodge, music by James Barr
58 WILL YOUNG
Reflects on how he wrestled with, Style
and learned to overcome his gay
shame 116 CRUSH
62 CYNTHIA NIXON Tuning out and unique jewellery
On identifying as queer, politics 117 WARDROBE
and her TV return in Ryan Murphy’s Winter basics
Ratched 118 LET’S GO OUTSIDE
68 BRIGHT LIGHT BRIGHT LIGHT Transitional style
Rod Thomas lets it shine with an 132 FASHIONLISTA
album for the LGBTQ+ community Outerwear
74 BUSINESS PROFILE 133 GROOMING
Waggel’s Ross Fretten Looking trim and smelling fine
78 THREE BEST BUSINESSES 134 NAOMI SMALLS
Pawfect pet products It’s a Smalls world after all
146 FAVOURITE THINGS 139 CIAO BELLO
Róisín Murphy Sizzling swimwear

8 OCTOBER 2020
Love In The New Normal

E XCLUSIVELY S AME S EX R EL ATIONSHIPS

bloomandcadogan.com
 Meet
Gary Simons, art director
The calm and big skies of IT’S A KNOCKOUT!
the beach have always been Nicola Adams makes

the
an escape for me. Living in Strictly history as part
Brighton, I’m lucky enough to of the show’s first-ever

team
be able to get my fix as often same-sex couple
as I want. During the summer
months, I’ve loved going for WAKANDA FOREVER
long runs along the beach, Chadwick Boseman.
before jumping in the sea to Rest in Power
cool off. Perfect.
HOW DO YOU JENNY FROM THE
LIKE TO UNWIND? LGBTQ BLOCK
J-Lo spreads love for
her trans nibling
Mohsin Zaidi, author and barrister
A well-told story can transport you somewhere HRH LESLIE JORDAN
else and reading is the surest way to take my …on Cardi B and Megan
mind off things. The best books have both Thee Stallion’s WAP is
mirrors (so you can see yourself in them) and everything. Watch + repeat
windows (so that you can learn something
about the way others live). If a book can do this, THE ONE AND ONLY
not only am I transported, but I’m engaged. SPARKELLA
Channing Tatum cancels
toxic masculinity with new
kids’ book
Tom Stichbury, features editor
Whenever cobwebs of anxiety gather in my

UP &
mind, I reach for my tennis racket and unleash
my inner Rafael Nadal (minus the bulging
biceps, sadly). There is no better way of blowing DOWN
off steam than smacking the shit out of a ball —
it really is, ahem, ace.

WHAT WE’RE ROCKING

AND BLOCKING

P R I N T / O N LINE / TAB LET / M OBILE BACK TO THE OFFICE

Editor in chief Cliff Joannou
cliff.joannou@attitude.co.uk
Features editor Tom Stichbury
thomas.stichbury@attitude.co.uk
Sub editor Verity Willcocks
vwillcocks@gmail.com
Art director Gary Simons
gary.simons@attitude.co.uk
Designer Laurène Pineau
laurene.pineau@attitude.co.uk
Fashion and grooming director
Joseph Kocharian
joseph.kocharian@attitude.co.uk
Fashion assistant Sacha Dance
sacha.dance@attitude.co.uk
Head of partnerships Mike Buckley
mike.buckley@attitude.co.uk
Commercial manager Andy Goddard
andy.goddard@attitude.co.uk
020 3598 6741
Account manager Joanna Hill
joanna.hill@attitude.co.uk
01342 872041
Sales executive Tom Doyle
tom.doyle@attitude.co.uk
01342 872 043
Managing director Darren Styles OBE
Commercial director Craig Lewis
Operations director Nigel Russell
Events manager Lesley Harris
No more Zoom meetings
in our underwear
Subscriptions Enquiries
attitude@warnersgroup.co.uk
01778 392005 LEAVE JEFFREY ALONE!
Jeffrey Bowyer-Chapman
Warners Subscription Department deletes Twitter after
Freepost, PE211, Bourne, being harrassed by Drag
Lincolnshire PE10 9BR
Race fans
Attitude is now available through the
RNIB Newsagent service, which delivers
the latest news, magazines and stories PPE POLLUTION
in a range of formats to people with sight loss.
To subscribe to RNIB Newsagent, call the helpline The sea is full of
on 0303 123 9999, or email them at: COVID rubber gloves
helpline@rnib.org.uk. rnib.org.uk
and face masks

Web editor Will Stroude
will.stroude@attitude.co.uk
Social media producer
Joseph Ryan-Hicks
joseph.ryan-hicks@attitude.co.uk
Travel editor/staff photographer
Markus Bidaux
markus.bidaux@attitude.co.uk
Sports editor Mark McAdam
mark.mcadam@attitude.co.uk
Editor at large Matthew Todd
matthew.todd@attitude.co.uk
attitude.co.uk
Attitude, The Cowshed, Ladycross Farm,
Hollow Lane, Dormansland,
Surrey RH7 6PB
attitude@attitude.co.uk
@attitude.co.uk
Copyright © Stream Publishing Ltd 2020 all rights reserved. No
part of this magazine may be reproduced in whole or in part TRUMP VS BIDEN
without the written permission of the publishers. Unsolicited
contributions must be accompanied by a stamped addressed This is going to get messy
envelope if they are to be returned. We cannot accept
responsibility for unsolicited manuscripts and photographs or for
material lost or damaged in the post. Letters submitted to Attitude FORGOTTEN
or its editors are assumed to be intended for publication in whole
or in part. The mention or appearance or l keness of any person or PASSWORDS!
organisation in articles or advertising in this publication is not to
be taken as any indication of sexual, social or political orientation How can we be expected
of such persons or organisations. Newstrade distribution by
Intermedia Brand Marketing Ltd, Unit 6, The Enterprise Centre,
to remember so many
Kelvin Lane, Manor Royal, Crawley, West Sussex RH10 9PE. Tel: different combos of
01293 312001. Published by Stream Publishing Ltd. Printed by
Wyndeham Bicester letters, numbers and
punctuation?! HELP!
@attitudemag @attitudemag

10 OCTOBER 2020

R
elationships are tricky. Whether platonic, sexual or romantic,
they require patience and nurturing if they’re to evolve.
As we change and grow, so do our connections with
people, and encouraging each other’s mutual growth is the test of
any relationship — be it with a partner, friend or family member.
Sometimes we irk our boyfriend if we’re having a rough day. We may
irritate friends with our habits. Or family members can rile us with a
simple comment.
Lucky as I am to have a caring birth family, they don’t know as much
about my personal life as my chosen family — the friends we allow
into our lives. That’s not because I love my biological
family any less, but our chosen families understand
and see us in a way in which our parents and “Friends
siblings may struggle to.
For some LGBTQ people, friends are lifelines,
are lifelines,
replacing families that may shun or shame them.
replacing
Our social networks become a safe space we can families that
escape to. It’s one of the reasons I find Mart Crowley’s may shun us” in our lead story: “There are times when we’re brutally
play, The Boys in the Band, so absorbing.
When the curtain rose on the first performance
of the play in 1968, Crowley could not have possibly imagined the
impact it would continue to have on gay culture five decades later. The
play’s first run was a hit and enjoyed more than 1,000 performances,
before being made into a film in 1970. Then, the recently formed Gay
Liberation Front, who were championing queer pride and visibility,
protested against the original film’s depiction of queer men who they
considered to be self-loathing stereotypes. With queer representation
only recently being addressed in any meaningful way, LGBTQ people
have often noticed a disconnect between the queer stories they see on
screen and their own experience.
Nuance is vital for context, and the fact is, life for many gay men in
the late 1960s was challenging at best. Stonewall’s uprising had yet to
occur. The Pride movement wasn’t even an idea. Relationships were
On cover
Photography Scott Everett White
© 2020 Netflix
Editor
in
Chief ’s
Letter
conducted in secret, and if discovered could have cost a person their
livelihood. When homosexuality was mentioned in the news, it was in
reference to sinners and degenerates.
The Boys in the Band – now a major Netflix movie from uber-producer
Ryan Murphy with an all-star cast – features a range of characters who
are at varying degrees of balance with their identity. Critics’ attention
often focuses on the two, maybe three ‘self-loathing’ characters, while
the other urgent topics are too often brushed over: substance abuse, love,
desire, monogamy vs open relationships all feature – subjects that are as
relevant to gay male identity today as they were in the late 1960s.
Yes, the story takes a mean turn. And as anybody who
has ever clashed with a sibling or had a cross word with
a friend will know, we can be exceptionally harsh to the
people we love the most. Sometimes when we’re hurting
or lost, we take it out on the people closest to us because
we try to push away the love we feel undeserving of.
As actor Andrew Rannells says of his own friendships
honest [with each other] in a way that nobody else is, in a
way that’s sometimes cool, and sometimes is not.” (p. 42)
It seems we don’t like to look at ourselves too closely in a mirror.
The Boys in the Band raises some vital questions that are as
pertinent to us today as they ever were: how do gay people support
each other as a community? What’s behind our often sassy/bitchy
defence mechanism? What pressures are there to define our lives by
heteronormative standards? How safe are we from homophobia?
As the old adage goes: “plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose” –
“the more things change, the more they stay the same.”
@CliffJoannou
Photography Dennis Leupold
Creative direction Joseph Kocharian
Styling Evan Simonitsch
(Left) Henry wears top by Levi’s; (right) Henry
wears shirt and shorts, both by Tombolo
Location Hotel Casa Del Mar, Santa Monica
OCTOBER 2020 11
 L VES

LEVI’S X LEGO
Now this is what you call a perfect
fit — iconic heritage brands Lego
and Levi’s have assembled to put
the fun back into fashion. The
two powerhouses have created
a customisable Lego breastplate
for Levi’s vintage stonewash
classics, where you can make
patterns and pictures out of your
favourite building bricks. From
the trucker jacket and the classic
Levi’s 501 jeans to sweatshirts
and hoodies, the opportunities for
self expression are endless. The
collection launches on 1 October.

levi.com

12 OCTOBER 2020
 L VES

THE MALE GAZE:

STRIKERS & DEFENDERS
Work up a sweat from the footy
field to the locker room with these
drama-fuelled four films from
Germany, France and the UK.
Exploring how team rivalry can spill
over into teacher-pupil relationships,
high-school crushes and brotherly
compassion, the movies’ stars
include Matthieu Lucci, Pierre Prieur,
and Brit actors Harry Jarvis and
George Somner. Ball play has always
been our favourite game… Available
worldwide on Amazon Prime Video
and Vimeo.

newqueervisions.com

OCTOBER 2020 13
 L VES

BANG & OLUFSEN

There are few things we like more
than a big package… deal, and
Bang & Olufsen are guaranteed
to keep size queens satisfied with
their latest offering. To mark the
release of their new floor stand
— even this is seriously swish —
the Danish designers are pulling
together the super-sonic Beosound
Stage soundbar and an LG OLED
CX series 4K screen television
(pictured) for just under £3,500.
As cinematic experiences go, it
measures up very nicely indeed.

bang-olufsen.com

14 OCTOBER 2020
 L VES

CDLP HOME
CDLP are continuing their
very successful foray beyond
underwear with their latest
capsule collection, CDLP Home.
Pleasingly blurring the line
between lounge and casual
wear, the range is fronted by
singer/songwriter Sébastien
Tellier (pictured). The bearded
Frenchman dons gorgeous
short and long suits in navy and
burgundy, as well as beautiful
robes, for both indoors and out.
Ooh la la, indeed.

cdlp.com

OCTOBER 2020 15
 L VES

LOCKE LIVING
The home-meets-hotel concept
has been given a touch of class
with Locke Living’s aparthotels,
which recently opened its fourth
London property in Bermondsey.
Available in eight locations across
the UK and Ireland, each beautifully
designed apartment comes with a
fully equipped kitchen and comfy
seating area to make guests feel
right at home — perfect for a longer
break. The properties also offer
communal work spaces, fitness
facilities and exhibitions featuring
local artists. Rates at Locke Living’s
newest property, Bermonds Locke,
start from £99 per night.

lockeliving.com

16 OCTOBER 2020
L VES

IRIS PRIZE LGBT+

FILM FESTIVAL
Organisers of the Iris Prize,
Cardiff’s annual celebration of
LGBTQ stories, are only weeks
away from taking the 2020 festival
online. If you live in the UK and
have ever wondered what the Iris
Prize is all about, this year you
can enjoy the full programme for
free! The festival runs from 6-11
October with a paid catch-up
service running for three weeks till
31 October. The winner bags the
£30,000 Iris Prize to fund their
next short film project. Will you be
able to spot the winning flick?

irisprize.org

OCTOBER 2020 17
 ‘L’ IS FOR LEWKS. Get yourself an iconic
…for becoming an LGBTQIA+ pop star
By Le Fil
lewk, like Conchita’s beard, Christeene’s shit-
stained bodysuits or Brooke Candy’s sex alien
schtick. Do it on the cheap by sticking together
Poundland bargains or sifting through Sink the
Pink’s lost property box!

‘G’ IS FOR GETTING AROUND. Flirt with

bigwigs on LinkedIn, double-tap sexy guitarists
on Instagram or hook up with a straight ally
to spread yourself about. Get your face seen
and be a networking harlot. It’s all about being
‘B’ IS FOR BALLS-OUT ATTITUDE. You gotta have professionally promiscuous, schweetie darlin’.
big ol’ ones to smash through those patriarchal
walls that keep us queers out of the industry.
Imagine you are Miley’s wrecking ball and giant
hammer. If it doesn’t work the first time, give your
hammer a lick and try again.

‘T’ IS FOR TABLOID SCANDAL. If you’re in the

closet, don’t rush to come out. A well-timed
“exclusive” story could bag you a hefty pay
cheque or maybe a number-one single. “Let’s
go outside”, indeed.
Turning up the ‘Q’ IS FOR QUEERS UNITE! It ain’t all about
volume as a loud and competition or catfights, us rainbow warriors
proud queer pop star, need to lift each other up. So, support your
Le Fil also performs LGBTQIA+ artists: give us streams, follows,
with party collective likes and all your money (I’ve got a new
Sink the Pink and he Patreon account *cough* plug).
recently spiced up
his life by going on
tour with Mel C. The
lusciously locked
British Chinese ‘I’ IS FOR INVESTORS. Also known as sugar daddies
singer hits a new or mommies. Making and promoting music is expensive
high note with work, so don’t be ashamed about asking for money.
latest single, It’s your business to invest in, so if you need to stack
Put Your Money shelves or sell your used thongs on eBay, do it!
Where Your
‘A’ IS FOR AN AWESOME SONG.
Mouth Is (out
There is no point doing any of the
now). Here are
above if you don’t have a killer
Le Fil’s top tips
track that gets people moving as
for making it
much as an Eat Out to Help Out
in the music
meal deal does. Make songs from
industry as
random ingredients on the menu,
an LGBTQIA+
government slogans or bad chat-
artist. Wear
up lines from Grindr — turn that
those rainbow
trash into treasure!
stripes proudly,
hun! ‘P’ IS FOR PITCH PERFECT. Whether it’s Adam
Lambert or Anohni, K.D. Lang or Kim Petras,
lefil.co.uk
your queer faves can actually sing. Give the
patreon.com/
neighbours some of your best whistling dog
iamLeFil
notes and sit back and watch those bricks come
flying through your window. Did I say bricks? I
meant gold discs!

18 OCTOBER 2020

MAYBE
BABY
Surrogacy law is an uneven
legal playing field for
would-be LGBT parents, says
Annah Cheatham,
Associate of
Gay Lawyers,
a division of
Giambrone
A
lthough surrogacy has flung open
the door to LGBT couples and single
individuals wanting to start a
family, from a legal perspective, Britain is
lukewarm to the practice. The law governing
surrogacy in the UK, the Human Fertilisation
and Embryology Act 2008, was drafted when
surrogacy arrangements were tolerated but
not encouraged, and this means that surrogacy
in the UK is a leap of faith, with would-be LGBT
parents encountering several obstacles.
For instance, although surrogacy is legal in
the UK, any surrogacy contract is unenforceable
— instead, all parties have to trust that the
agreement will be fulfilled. The law also states
that the birth mother is the child’s legal parent,
and if she is married or in a civil partnership,
her spouse will be the child’s second parent
at birth. To be recognised by law as the child’s
parents, the would-be parent or parents have
to apply for a parental order after birth. The
default position for this is
that there must be a genetic “In Thailand,
link between the child and the
proud new parents (that is, one
commercial
person must be either the egg surrogacy is no
or sperm donor). If there is no longer permitted”
genetic link, then adoption is
the only option for obtaining parental status.
Furthermore, British law also states that
paying a surrogate to carry a child is illegal.
Although reasonable expenses are permitted,
there is no definition of “reasonable” — the
family court decides and authorises payments
prior to making a parental order.
With this in mind, it’s not surprising that
some pursue surrogacy abroad, but it remains
an area of law that varies considerably around
the world. Some countries do not have specific
laws addressing surrogacy; others ban any
commercial contract, but allow compassionate
surrogacy where no money changes hands;
BIG IS S U E
RAINBOW BABIES:
Could a change
in the law make
surrogacy easier for
would-be parents?
and other countries have a total ban on any
kind of surrogacy. Where commercial surrogacy
is allowed, the situation varies considerably.
Another problem is that countries who once
adopted a liberal approach to surrogacy have
now back-tracked. In Thailand, for instance,
commercial surrogacy is no longer permitted;
only altruistic surrogacy is allowed – and
is restricted to Thai couples only. Similarly,
Cambodia, Nepal, Mexico and India have banned
commercial surrogacy for foreigners.
Before embarking on surrogacy overseas,
potential parents must be careful to sweep
away any foreseeable legal
complications. Absolutely all
angles must be considered,
including the nationality of the
baby and how the immigration
process to bring the child
into the country of residence
works. Nobody wants to be at the border with a
newborn to find that a large number of hoops
have to be jumped through before the baby can
enter the country. It is imperative that parents
observe the correct processes so that they are
recognised as the legal parents of their baby.
Back in the UK, the minefield that ill-
considered surrogacy poses was starkly
illustrated in a matter that Gay Lawyers dealt
with. The firm was instructed by a gay couple
regarding their surrogacy arrangement. The
married men wished to have a child. However,
one partner was an older man, which ruled out a
surrogacy agency. Instead, a close mutual friend
offered to act as a surrogate for the couple.
Conception was achieved by the surrogate
mother employing a do-it-yourself procedure.
The baby was born and an application for
a parental order was requested. The delighted
couple took possession of the child and the
application for the parental order was imminent
when a DNA test of the presumed parent
revealed that he was not the father. On hearing
about this, after much consideration, I felt that
there might be a legal remedy. However, a further
bombshell erupted when the other proposed
parent was unwilling to bring up a child that
had no genetic connection to the couple, and the
baby was handed to the authorities.
Surrogacy will always be an emotive
issue and there have been some regrettable
and spectacular failures, including cases of
surrogates refusing to part with the baby and
prospective parents rejecting disabled children.
However, in the UK, there may finally be
hope on the horizon. Published last year, the
Law Commission’s report of interim proposals
into surrogacy includes the creation of a new
pathway to legal parenthood, which would
allow the intended parents to be the child’s legal
parents from birth, improving certainty both for
them and the surrogate. It is hoped that the final
report will contain proposals that will bring
the law in line with today’s thinking about this
sensitive and complex area.
a.cheatham@giambronelaw.com;
giambronelaw.com
OCTOBER 2020 19
 In my view

# IN STA M A N THIS
ISSUE
ANTHONY GILET AMROU AL-KADHI MAX WALLIS JONNY WOO
@jd_delatorre

JERSEY BOY JD DELATORRE IS A

WRITER BASED IN NEW YORK –
AND WE THINK YOU’LL AGREE, HE
SCRUFFS UP VERY NICELY INDEED
Wouldn’t mind having a taste
of what’s at the end of that
rainbow!
Rub-a-dub-dub, damn, what
we’d give to join this mighty fine
man in that tub.
Not all heroes wear capes.
Sometimes they parade about in
pants — and we totally approve.
Save our sex clubs!
“We are pleased to announce that, from next
Tuesday, groups of up to 30 men can meet under
railway arches in Vauxhall for wild orgies.”
That’s one announcement I’d love to hear
from Boris Johnson on our sporadic, not-sure-
when-they-are-happening, doctor-the-figures,
shift-the-blame, lie-lie-lie
COVID-19 updates. (BTW, does “In sex dens, you
anyone else find the guy who
does the signing hot?!)
get every body type,
It’s not really the opening dick size and age”
of nightclubs that will mark
the end of the corona crisis, but the rebooting of
London’s gay sex clubs. “Ah, but they are just sex
clubs, who cares if they reopen?”, some will say.
I bloody do, along with thousands of men
who use these clubs, backrooms and saunas. But
I don’t see any ‘SAVE OUR SEX CLUBS’ campaigns.
Sluts, unite!
Of course, gay men will take things
into their own hands (and holes) and
open-air sex clubs are back to the
glory days of the 1990s — so I’ve heard.
(I’ve not made it up that hill in north
London. Yet.) Apparently, dusk is the
time to go. But as glorious as blow jobs
beneath the stars may be, it does come
with the dangers of scratches, stings…
and even threats of violence.
Are sex clubs worth the fight?
Even today there is an air of
secrecy and misplaced
shame around them.
Sex clubs saved my
sex life in sobriety.
Trying to pull
when sober in
a bar is not the
thing, and we
all know that
apps can be
a minefield
of body, race,
age, and HIV-
shaming.
Now I
know sex
clubs are
not necessarily drug-free, but it’s much easier
to negotiate your parameters around safer sex
choices at a Sunday-afternoon shagfest in a
club than when you’re drugged up at a party in
a south London flat. Sex clubs aren’t perfect, but
they feel more honest.
I’ve banged on about the
joys of nudity before, and in
my socio-anthropological
research of Europe’s sex dens,
you get every body type, dick
size and age in clubs where
you check your coat, jeans, shoes and pants at
the door. Much of the gay scene is ageist. As we
get older, we can feel less attractive, less relevant.
As nightclubs spit us out and bars cater for
younger, fiercer queens, gay men can be faced
with isolation, and fears of a life on the shelf
become very real. Sexual intimacy
is as important to those in their
middle or later decades as it is for
a twenty-something.
Many of the country’s
queer venues will have been
completing the beast of an
application form for access
to the government’s Culture
Recovery Fund. I really hope
our sex clubs have done the
same. They have been a part
of queer (and even straight)
culture reaching back to
early civilisations.
So, lip-syncing
or shagging? I’m
quite partial
to a club that
offers both.
Hmmmmmm,
there’s a
thought. In the
meantime, until
our darkened
‘portals of perv’
re-open, catch
me in a bush
somewhere
around sunset…

20 OCTOBER 2020
 Fagulous
bg
Life really is a cabaret
for performer, comedian
and self-proclaimed
homosexualist, Fagulous.
Lighting up London’s queer
nightlife, they also do a
spot-on impersonation
of Liza Minnelli — show
us those jazz hands!
Describe yourself in three
emojis.
Describe your drag style in five
words.
Sequin-clad Kenneth Williams
wannabe.
What keeps you awake at night?
Did Donna Summer ever find out
who left the cake out in the rain?
What’s the worst thing someone
could say to you in bed?
“It’s far too big… I don’t know
why your landlord thought
a Super King would fit in a
London flat.”
How would (or does) your
Grindr profile read?
I’ll show you my jazz hands, if
you show me yours.
Biggest turn-on?
A man who can sing the Are You
Being Served? theme tune.
What is your safe word?
Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychw
-yrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch.
What’s your favourite sexual
position?
The one where I show them my
Liza Minnelli impersonation.
What would the film about your
life be called?
The Devil Wears Polyester.
What advice would you give to
first-time drag queens?
You should always have a
Shirley Bassey number tucked
up your… tuck.
What’s your spirit animal?
Carol Channing or one of Barbara
Cartland’s Pekingese dogs.
22 OCTOBER 2020
“The cocktail that best describes
me is Bucks Fizz: cheap, but with
high ambitions”
What makes you happy?
Attention.
What makes you angry?
Cheap plastic bin liners.
You’ve started a cult. What is it
about?
A congregation of homosexuals
dressed as Patricia Routledge.
The Kitty Monologues are
our scriptures, Keeping Up
Appearances our parables… you
get the gist.
Your house is on fire. Which
three items do you save?
My Liza Minnelli and Judy
Garland vinyls, my Boots
Advantage card and my home
contents insurance documents.
You’ve got 24 hours to live. How
do you spend your day?
I’d travel the length and
breadth of the country to visit
every John Lewis.
And what were your famous
last words?
“Do you think it’d be funny if I…”
What does your heaven look like?
A never-ending buffet! You’ll
find me fingering the Thousand
Island dip with a breadstick.
And hell?
An understocked Waitrose.
If you were reborn as any
famous person past or present,
who would it be and why?
Quentin Crisp. Why wouldn’t
you?!
You’ve been abducted by aliens.
What’s your parting message
to Earth?
“Make sure they use a high-res
photo of me when they put this
on the 10 o’clock news.”
What cocktail best describes
you and why?
Bucks Fizz: cheap, but with high
ambitions.
The best way to a man’s heart is
through his stomach. Discuss.
But the best way to my heart is
with your wallet.
@the_fagulous
 INVESTMENTS
MORTGAGES
PENSIONS
LIFE INSURANCE

STRAIGHT
ADVICE
ATTITUDEFS.CO.UK
01342 850 432

Attitude Financial Services Limited is an appointed representative of Quilter Financial Services Limited and Quilter Mortgage Planning Limited, who are authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. Guidance and/or advice offered is subject to the UK regulatory
regime, and is therefore targeted at consumers based in the UK. Enterprise Investment schemes (EIS) and Venture Capital Trusts (VCT) invest in assets that are high risk and can be difficult to sell such as shares in unlisted companies. The value of the investment and the income
from it can fall as well as rise and investors may not get back what they originally invested, even taking into account the tax benefi ts. Your home may be repossessed if you do not keep up repayments on your mortgage. The value of pensions and investments and the income they
produce can fall as well as rise. You may get back less than you invested. Tax planning is not regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. Tax treatment varies according to individual circumstances and is subject to change. Registered company name: Attitude Financial Services
Limited. Registered as a Limited Company in England and Wales No 11695594. Registered Address: Woodlands House, Beeches Lane, Cowden, Kent TN8 7LA
 CA R S
Words Darren Styles

Bentley Bentayga make your 80-year-old mum Queen for the

day? She very much enjoyed looking down on
everyone, but then don’t all queens?
To say it is big, and it is clever, is just the half of it. Bentley’s facelifted On the move, there’s a surprise. Progress
SUV is also supremely smart at delivering simple pleasures is as emphatic as you’d guess, our car’s
4-litre, twin-turbocharged V8 producing a

T
o describe the Bentley Bentayga as big is jewel-like, the grille could be nothing but a
neither surprising (most Bentleys have
girth and substance), nor anything less
than obvious – few cars can square up to a
full-fat Range Rover and ask “Is that all you’ve slide into the vast passenger cabin and the
got?”. It’s well known that the only man-made
structures you can see from space are the
Ancient Pyramids of Giza, the islands of Dubai
and a Bentayga parallel-parking.
And, I know, in the days of eco-this-and-
that, the chances are – at first glance, anyway
– one might recoil at a car of such scale. A
grand SUV dripping in decadence might not
feel like what the world needs now, even if
there’s a brilliant hybrid model and the car is
built in the UK’s first carbon-neutral motor
factory. But details matter, and the devil is
within them here.
This is the second iteration of the Bentley
Bentayga, freshly and successfully reworked
to look crisper than the first and more akin
to its Continental GT (coupé and convertible)
and Flying Spur (saloon) cousins. From a
nose less bluff, through newly creased sides
that reduce visual mass to a tail made more
elegant, the exterior restyle is a notable
advance. Headlamps are crystal-cut and
whopping 542bhp, plenty to move even a
leviathan at an absurd lick. A Bentayga thus
Bentley and, stood alongside, you feel in the equipped will hit 60mph from standstill
presence of majesty. in just 4.4 seconds and run to 180mph. But
Open a hefty, hewn-from-solid door and this car isn’t about maximums, it’s about
minimums. Minimum fuss and minimum
notion of royalty is enhanced further. All drama, in any conditions.
about is quilted leather, hand-stitched by And this is the really smart bit. The
artisans, with the same hide enclosing just Bentayga features something called
about everything you touch. No cow gave its Bentley Dynamic Ride and, stay with me,
life for a seat or steering-wheel covering – the it’s the world’s first electric active roll-
leather trade is a by-product of the beef and control technology. In layman’s terms, this
dairy industries – but I’d bet your average means a suspension system that reads the
bovine would likely have done so gladly had levels of cornering force the car is under
they an inkling of this end result. and automatically (and instantly)
This is one huge living room of a counteracts it. So, instead of this
space, made more luxuriant on big, big car rolling like a ship in
our test car’s spec by having a storm at each bend in the
two individual seats in the Bentley Bentayga road, it stays absolutely flat
rear rather the traditional // 4-litre // twin-turbocharged and level, maintaining
bench to accommodate V8 // 542bhp // 568lb/ft torque an air of calm within the
three people. The result // 0-60mph in 4.4 seconds // car no matter the level
is private-jet sumptuous top speed 180mph // 21.2mph of duress. The extent to
rather than scheduled combined // 302g/km CO2 // which the outside world
first class, and we from £146,700 // is suppressed is truly
rather like that. My mum, bentleymotors.com astonishing.
especially, as what else do you Turns out Mum was wrong.
do with a loaned Bentley but It is big, and it is clever.

24 OCTOBER 2020
 INVESTMENTS
MORTGAGES
PENSIONS
LIFE INSURANCE

We’ll
cover
it
ATTITUDEFS.CO.UK
01342 850 432

Attitude Financial Services Limited is an appointed representative of Quilter Financial Services Limited and Quilter Mortgage Planning Limited, who are authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. Guidance and/or advice offered is subject to the UK regulatory
regime, and is therefore targeted at consumers based in the UK. Enterprise Investment schemes (EIS) and Venture Capital Trusts (VCT) invest in assets that are high risk and can be difficult to sell such as shares in unlisted companies. The value of the investment and the income
from it can fall as well as rise and investors may not get back what they originally invested, even taking into account the tax benefi ts. Your home may be repossessed if you do not keep up repayments on your mortgage. The value of pensions and investments and the income they
produce can fall as well as rise. You may get back less than you invested. Tax planning is not regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. Tax treatment varies according to individual circumstances and is subject to change. Registered company name: Attitude Financial Services
Limited. Registered as a Limited Company in England and Wales No 11695594. Registered Address: Woodlands House, Beeches Lane, Cowden, Kent TN8 7LA
3 ISSUES FOR £3
THEN ONLY £3 AN ISSUE Saving more than 45%
CALL NOW
CALL 01778 392005 AND QUOTE ATT327
OR VISIT MYMAGAZINESUB.CO.UK/ATTITUDE/PROMO/BESTEVER

PRINT

Subscribe to Attitude — Europe’s biggest

and best-selling gay lifestyle magazine
– by direct debit on trial today and get
the next three issues delivered to your
door for just £3! That’s just £1 an issue
instead of the regular cover price of
£5.50, so saving yourself a tidy £13.50.
Better still, when the trial period
comes to an end, extend your
subscription automatically every six
months for just £3 an issue – saving
£15 each time: a discount of more than
45 per cent!
Every issue is delivered to your door,
in a discreet envelope, on the day it
appears in shops.
OUR BEST
SUBSCRIPTION
OFFER EVER
DIGITAL
13 issues for just

£19.99
Save almost 70%

The award-winning digital

version of Attitude is the only
mobile-friendly gay magazine
of its kind, available to
download and view anywhere
in the world on your mobile,
tablet or online.
Subscribe today! Enjoy a
one-year, 13-issue
subscription for only £19.99
and save almost 70 per cent
on the £4.99 single-issue
price (the equivalent of £1.54
an issue). This is our BIGGEST
saving as part of our BEST
EVER promotion and is
available for a limited
period only. You know you
*BOTH OFFERS END 31 MARCH 2021

want to…

POCKETMAGS.COM/OFFER/BESTEVER
OR VIA THE ATTITUDE APP
Henry wears shirt, by
Ralph Lauren Purple label,
shorts, by Polo Ralph
Lauren

28 OCTOBER 2020
 Henry Golding

Golding Boy
Crazy Rich Asians star Henry Golding
opens up about his new gay film role in
Monsoon, diversity in Hollywood and — of
course — those James Bond rumours
Words Thomas Stichbury
Photography Dennis Leupold
Creative direction Joseph Kocharian
Styling Evan Simonitsch
Location Hotel Casa Del Mar, Santa Monica

OCTOBER 2020 29
 n the day of my interview with Henry
Golding, my roommate suggests we re-watch
Crazy Rich Asians that evening — before
casually adding the caveat: “Well, we’ll
wait and see how the interview
goes — you might not want to
see him again.”
So, I am pleased to
report that Henry was a
thoroughly charming
chap, and I was able
to enjoy the cockles-
warming rom-com for
the umpteenth time.
Post-Attitude cover
shoot at the stunning
Hotel Casa Del Mar
in Santa Monica,
Henry cuts a relaxed
yet somehow still
impossibly dashing
figure in a black
baseball cap. The
British-Malaysian
actor begins our Zoom
chat with an update
on how he is adapting
to lockdown life in Los
Angeles, after moving
across the pond with his
wife Liv last year.
“It’s our first time living in
America. I was like, let’s do it while
I can work here, then, six months in:
lockdown,” he sighs. “There could be worse
places to be in quarantine than California, I
mean, you’ve got the sun and the ocean.”
30 OCTOBER 2020
He quickly applied the brakes to a short-
lived stint as a daredevil mountain biker,
mind: “I bought myself a mountain bike and
I hit up this YouTuber who took me on these
socially distanced rides. I did that solidly for
about two months and then I had my first
fall. It was downhill mountain biking and I
thought, hmm, maybe it’s not the best time
to go to the hospital right now, so I put the
cooler on it.”
Before catching his big Hollywood break in
2018’s Crazy Rich Asians (his acting debut, no
less), Henry was best known for his telly work
as the host of the BBC’s The Travel Show – but
he had long harboured hopes of getting an
acting career off the ground.
“I’ve always been a little sensible and
practical, [thinking] there will come a time
where I’ll be able to concentrate on it. Over
the years, it was like, not now, not now, and
then suddenly I said to myself, ‘Right, this
is the year I’m going to do it.’ I enrolled in
an acting group in Singapore and then six
months in of already changing my direction,
I get this email from the BBC offering me a
job and I was like, ‘Well, if that isn’t a sign to
get back on track, I don’t know what it is,’”
he recalls.
Then Crazy Rich Asians director Jon Chu
reached out with the offer of a lifetime – not
that Henry made it easy for him. “I initially
turned it down a couple of times because I
was like, ‘Nah, I’m not an actor,’” he chuckles.
“Jon got me on Skype and said, ‘This is an
amazing opportunity, I’d love for you to read
for this role we have in mind for you, it’s the
lead, Nick Young.’ >
 Henry Golding

Henry wears shirt, by

New & Lingwood, shorts,
by Ralph Lauren Purple
Label, necklace, by Cartier
Henry wears shirt, by
New & Lingwood, shorts,
by Ralph Lauren Purple
Label, necklace, by Cartier,
trainers, by Adidas,
sunglasses, by Ray-Ban

32 OCTOBER 2020

“I was like, ‘Whoa! Shit! I better pull up my
socks and get on board that.’”
Henry became so committed to the cause
that he cut his honeymoon short in South
Africa. “Five days into the trip, they [the
studio] called, ‘Hey, we need you to come
out and do a screen test.’ I told them, ‘Erm,
I’m kinda in South Africa,’ and they said, ‘We
promise this is going to be the last hurdle,’ he
says. “The rest is history.”
The rising star insists his wife doesn’t hold
a grudge. “I’ve made up for it with other trips,”
he smiles. “It paid off.”
Paid off is putting it mildly. The
blockbuster, co-starring Constance Wu,
Michelle Yeoh and Awkwafina, grossed
over $230million worldwide and has seen
Henry rocket to the top of casting wish-lists,
including landing the plum lead role in the
upcoming film, Monsoon (read our review on
page 113).
Directed by Hong Khaou – who earned a
Bafta nomination for his 2014 debut, Lilting,
with Ben Whishaw – the delicate character
study follows a young gay man named Kit
(played by Golding) as he returns to Ho Chi
Minh City in Vietnam to find a resting place
for his parents’ ashes.
Kit hasn’t been back there since he was six
years old, when his family fled the country in
the aftermath of the Vietnam-American war.
Struggling to make sense of himself in a place
he is no longer familiar with, he ends up on a
journey of self-discovery that sees him cross
paths with American designer and bona fide
fittie Lewis (Parker Sawyers), who is wrestling
with his dad’s legacy as a veteran Vietnam
Henry Golding
soldier. If you like your cinematic romances
to be as light and fluffy as cake mixture, this “I’m so happy
isn’t the one.
Coming from a mixed cultural background to have a broad
himself, 33-year-old Henry says the part spoke
perspective of
the world, of
to him on many levels. “I’ve always struggled
with the sense of identity and ownership
east and west.
of my identity, so growing up in the UK but
obviously looking different, and spending
time in Malaysia but not being able to speak
the language. There is no concrete sense of I have found
belonging,” he reveals.
“The journey that Kit goes through is a sense of
that he feels British, but he isn’t because
identity and
belonging in
his parents came over on the boats from
Vietnam. They never spoke about the past
myself”
and he has no notion of ligament to Vietnam,
so when he’s searching for a resting place
for his parents’ ashes it leads him back to try
to understand their history and in doing so
understand his own history.
“He feels like an alien at the beginning and
it’s so overwhelming, especially a place like
Vietnam. It reminded me of the time I moved
back to Malaysia. As you journey through with
Kit, you see him soften, he allows himself to
be at peace,” Henry continues. “It resonated
with me so much.”
That feeling of displacement never goes
away, Henry adds. “A lot of people feel it if
you’re of multi-cultural heritage. But now I’m
at a stage where I don’t really care if I don’t
belong because I feel as though I’m global.
I wouldn’t want to put up barriers, like, ‘I’m
this,’ ‘I’m Asian,’ ‘I’m half white.’ I’m so happy
about having such a broad perspective of the
world, an understanding of east and west. I >
OCTOBER 2020 33
34 OCTOBER 2020
 Henry Golding

Name wears xxx xx x

company, xx xx xxx xxxx xx
xx xx xxxxxxxx xx xxx xx xx
xxxxxxx

“Love is
love… it
doesn’t
matter
if you’re
black,
Latino,
gay,
straight,
bi…”

Henry wears jacket

and trousers, by
Brunello Cucinelli,
top, by by Mr. P

OCTOBER 2020 35
 have found a sense of identity and belonging
in myself.”
The movie provides all the feels when
Kit hooks up with Lewis – and there is no
shortage of fizz between Henry and Parker.
“When I was talking to Hong in LA, he
already had Parker in mind for the role and
so I Googled his name and his image and
was like, ‘Damn, he’s handsome, he’s tall, he
works out, I could be in worse positions!’”
CHEMISTRY:
Henry with he exclaims.
Parker Sawyers in “We hit it off. Parker is such a lovely guy. It
Monsoon
felt so natural and Hong created a really safe
environment on set and that’s what you hope
for as an actor on any production. I think my
wife was more excited about Parker than I was
– trust me, she was loving it.”
In keeping with the rest of the film, the
sex scenes are stark and tender; there isn’t
a sudden splurge of WAP-level horniness.
“Hong, myself and Parker, we’d sit down and
talk, ‘What do we want, what do we need,
what kind of mood do we want?’ You have
two instances where the fireworks are going
off, right, the first where it’s really lust, it’s
heavy and, you know, kind of rough, and then
you have another part where he’s later in his
journey and he’s feeling at peace as he opens
himself [up] to more than just something
physical and you see the tenderness in the
love-making,” Henry explains.
“He’s almost blossoming as a young man
because he’s allowing himself to be who he is.
Before he understood what Vietnam meant to
him, he was always very guarded and closed off.”
Kit’s sexuality is not at the forefront of the
character; yes, he is gay, but it isn’t a ‘reveal’
36 OCTOBER 2020
accompanied by any fanfare. That was part of
the appeal for Henry, who is more than aware
of the ongoing conversations around cis
actors playing LGBTQ+ roles. Indeed, he brings
the issue up.
“We live in times where it is a sensitive topic
to have a straight actor play a gay role. From
my point of view, with this particular role, it
was the fact that his journey wasn’t hinged
on the fact he is gay. It’s almost like, yes, he’s a
young gay man, but the bigger issue is who he
is as a person,” Henry begins.
“A lot of people were like, ‘Are you worried
about having love scenes with a man on set?’
I was like, ‘No!’ I come from an understanding
that love is love… you know what I mean,
it doesn’t matter if you’re black, Latino, gay,
straight, bi, it’s that feeling of yearning and
that return of that.
“It didn’t phase me. I’m going to accept this
role because of the journey it represents in
this man. It’s not a journey into his queerness,
it’s a journey into his history.”
However, Henry acknowledges that the
scales of casting opportunities need to be
rebalanced and that certain parts probably
should be reserved for LGBTQ actors.
“At any possible point should you have
authenticity in your casting? A hundred
per cent… a lot of the time, these insensitive
castings happen and it’s almost a mockery of
the culture, you know, put a straight guy in a
wig and put some fake boobs on him.
“I feel as though when it comes to
important historical figures, characters that
are defined by being from that community,
you really need to take a moment to think, >
 Henry Golding

Henry wears
top, by Levi’s

OCTOBER 2020 37
 Henry wears jacket
and trousers, by
Brunello Cucinelli,
top, by by Mr. P

38 OCTOBER 2020

this is important for a true member of the
LGBTQ community to be a part of… [But] at the
same time you don’t want to close off roles
completely. It goes the same route as, ‘Can
a member of the LGBTQ community play a
straight guy? Is that right or wrong?’ You get
those weirdos who say that.”
It is a tricky subject to navigate, but Henry
is appreciably unfazed. “They’re conversations
that need to be had. You can’t turn a blind eye,
you need to keep people in check, that’s the
most important thing,” he notes.
“The question has to be asked of me: why
did you even consider this role? This should
be the case. It can’t go unquestioned because
there lies a problem in itself. You need to hold
people responsible for their decisions.”
Henry mentions, too, that the biggest
mentors in his life when he was growing up
were gay men. “I was a hairstylist from 16
till 21, when I left to do television stuff in
Malaysia. All the men around me were these
proud gay men. It was never an issue for me of
having to try to understand what it was like,”
he says.
“I keep in contact with most of my pals
there. The salon I worked at was in Duke of
York Square in Chelsea. I had this amazing
stylist who taught me pretty much through
the start of my adult life. His name was
Cristiano Basciu, a little Italian guy, teeny
tiny, who just wore Dolce & Gabbana the
entire time.
“Having a window as a 16-year-old who
grew up halfway around the world, but also
grew up outside of London [Surrey], it gave me
an understanding of my own sexuality. I’m
Henry Golding
straight, but it doesn’t mean that I can’t love
other people. It was a beautiful young adult “We live in
life… it’s interesting because you don’t know
people’s histories with any community, but times where it
people make presumptions, ‘Oh, he’s just doing
is a sensitive
topic to have
it for the money, it doesn’t matter to him.’
“It was some of the greatest times of my life
a straight guy
growing up with these iconic mentors.”
Apart from one incident, that is, where
he accidentally snipped a child’s ear – eek.
“Because I was young, I would always get play a gay role”
clients for blow-outs and stuff, but I’d also get
the clients’ kids. I remember I had these two
siblings, a boy and a girl, and I was cutting
the boy’s hair, and as siblings do they’ll make
fun of the other one… he turned his head as I
was doing scissor [work] and I nicked his ear,”
Henry shudders.
“The ear has so many blood vessels that it
just [makes a gushing sound]. It was the worst
memory of my life, this kid bleeding profusely.
The kid was fine, but wow, it was the most
horrific moment of my career as a hairdresser.”
It hasn’t stopped him from wielding
his scissors again. “I cut my wife’s hair in
quarantine. She was so desperate, and I was
like, ‘All right.’ She hates my haircuts, though,
and always takes the piss!”
With action flick Snake Eyes: G.I. Joe already
in the bag, Henry will soon turn his attention
to the Crazy Rich Asians sequel. Well, hopefully.
“I live two blocks from Jon [Chu], we’re very
good friends, almost like brothers, really, and
he gives me updates if I ever ask because I
always get asked – everybody wants to know,”
he teases.
“He says the challenge really is getting the >
OCTOBER 2020 39
 “Why the hell scripts in shape to go against that first film.
You don’t want to make a script for the sake of
can’t we have making a script, you need to make the script
as good, if not better, than the first movie
a black Bond, because there are expectations now.
an Asian Bond,
“The second and third books are a little
difficult to adapt because they go all over the
a mixed-race
place, so it’s about finding a through line…
Everyone is raring to go, but we want to get
Bond…?” the writing down.”
The film – based on Kevin Kwan’s book of the
same name – was the first US studio production
to feature a majority-Asian cast since 1993’s
The Joy Luck Club. It was a giant leap forward
for Asian representation and storytelling, and
Henry is positive about the strides being made
in terms of diversity in Tinseltown.
“Black Panther was a huge moment for
the black community, the Asian community
had Crazy Rich Asians, the Latino community
will have In the Heights – Jon is doing Lin
Manuel’s show focusing on the community in
Washington Heights,” he lists.
“All of these moments are coming and
hopefully they’re opening the floodgates, the
doors for writers, producers and directors
to consider characters of colour or [just]
characters, it doesn’t matter what their
background is… it doesn’t matter if they are
black, Latino or Asian… we want to be at a
stage with normality where it’s normal to see
different heritage, but not have to question
it. What was it like being an Asian actor? How
about just being an actor?”
As I prepare to wrap things up, I force
myself to ask the question Henry faces in
every single interview: how does he feel
40 OCTOBER 2020
about rumours he should be the next James
Bond? I’m pretty sure I even eye-rolled while
asking it.
“It does seem to be a question that always
comes up. It was definitely from Crazy Rich,
maybe [the scene with] the white suit coming
out of the park. [And] because I’m Asian and
everybody’s fighting for a diverse Bond –
sorry, white guys,” he grins.
“I don’t know. It’s an honour to even be in
the conversation. It’s one of the greatest film
roles ever, you’d be stupid to be like, ‘I don’t
want to do that shit.’ Fuck, no, it would be the
wildest ride. I’m super excited to see Daniel
Craig’s last venture… but isn’t it great that we’re
having that conversation? Isn’t it great that
people are like, ‘OK, now’s the time, why the
hell can’t we have a black Bond, an Asian Bond,
a mixed-race Bond, a non-distinct Bond?!’”
To be fair, he does look hot in a tuxedo.
Given his whirlwind rise to fame, Henry has
become used to rubbing shoulders with A-listers,
but there is one man with a penchant for tight
green bodysuits adorned with ping pong balls
that he will never fail to be starstruck by…
“I always geek out about Andy Serkis. He’s
legendary. I think he is a phenomenal actor
and he is the nicest dude. Every time I see him
– he doesn’t know who the hell I am – I go
up to him, ‘Andy, I’m a huge fan.’ He’s the only
person I’ve done that to,” he gushes.
Bet that moment was really, ahem,
precious… “Oh, damn…” Henry groans, with a
fully deserved shake of his head.
Monsoon is released in cinemas and on digital
on 25 September
 Henry Golding

Henry wears shirt, by

Ralph Lauren Purple Styling Evan Simonitsch at
Label, shorts, by Polo the Wall Group
Ralph Lauren, sunglasses, Grooming Frankie Payne at
by Ray-Ban Opus Beauty using Oribe
 THE BOYS
ARE BACK
IN TOWN
With an all-star and all-gay cast, a new Netflix film
adaptation of seminal play The Boys in the Band
entertains and provokes in equal measure
Words John Harris Dunning
Photography Scott Everett White © 2020 Netflix

CLASS OF 2020: The

all-gay cast of Netflix’s
The Boys in the Band
THE BOYS IN THE BAND
I
t’s a muggy day in 1960s New York
City, and in a shabby-but-cool
apartment, two gay men, Michael
and Donald, prepare a birthday party
for their friend, Harold. Easy banter
reveals their closeness as they limber
up for the night ahead. What could possibly
go wrong? Well, now that you ask…
The Boys in the Band is a key moment in the
history of gay rights. In 1968, this play, written
by young unknown Mart Crowley, blew the
lid off the gay experience, taking it out of the
closet and positioning it firmly centre stage.
Literally. A birthday party becomes a cathartic
emotional meltdown for a friendship circle,
allowing the audience an insight into the
workings of a complex group of nine (mostly)
gay men.
Having worked on a number of film and
television productions in a junior capacity,
Crowley met and was befriended by actress
Natalie Wood (Rebel Without a Cause). Spotting
his talent, she hired him as an assistant,
allowing him to concentrate on writing his
play. This brave show of ally-ship by Wood
was to bear spectacular fruit. Drawing heavily
on his experiences and inspired by his own
close friendship circle, Crowley’s play was
absolutely fearless for the time. Crowley was
baring his soul. It was funny — but there was
agony here, too. At one point, drunken lead
character Michael says, “If we could just not
hate ourselves so much…”
No one was more surprised than Crowley
when the play became an overnight
sensation. It became the ‘must-see’ play of
the moment, enjoying a run of more than a
thousand performances.
It’s unusual for an important play to repeat
that achievement in the cinema, but that’s
what happened when The Boys in the Band
was first adapted for the silver screen by
William Friedkin in 1970. This brilliant young
maverick had recently adapted Harold Pinter’s
The Birthday Party as a film. Not shying away
from the gay content that many others found
too hot to handle, he directed it with the same
unsentimental humour that Crowley had
brought to the stage production. Friedkin’s
next film, The French Connection, won five
Academy Awards, and was followed by his
masterpiece, The Exorcist. He later returned to
exploring gay content in 1980 with the highly
controversial Al Pacino vehicle Cruising, some
44 OCTOBER 2020
of which was shot on location in New York’s
heavier S & M bars.
There have been two high-profile recent
revivals of The Boys in the Band — a classic,
and still divisive, play — one in 2016 in
London, and another Tony Award-winning
version in 2018 on Broadway. This latter
version boasted a high-profile, all-gay cast,
and has now been adapted into a film for
Netflix, directed by Joe Mantello.
“With a revival, there’s always that question
of, ‘Why now?’” says Mantello. “I think this
material’s got an unfair rap on what it’s about.
There’s a general criticism that it’s about
self-loathing. When I look at it, I see all sorts
of instances of bravery, tenderness, and grace.
Shame isn’t front and centre — although it’s
certainly part of the story, given the world
these men live in. And let’s face it — a film
about nine saints isn’t terribly compelling.”
It’s hard to grasp the initial impact of a
play like this about the gay male experience
now, 52 years after its premiere. Here were
“I OBJECT TO PEOPLE WHO
SEE THESE CHARACTERS AS
SELF-LOATHING”
JOE MANTELLO
characters that had previously been relegated
to the shadows, standing in the spotlight and
using the ‘c’ word — right up there, onstage.
Homosexuality was still illegal in the majority
of states in America, and police harassment
was commonplace. Gay men were living in a
state of siege. Involvement in the production
was at great cost to the cast and crew. During
the play’s run, a police raid on the nearby gay
bar the Stonewall Inn while they screened
Judy Garland films fuelled a riot that
would mark the dawn of international gay
liberation. (Ironically, The Boys in the Band was
named after a quote from one of Garland’s
most famous films, A Star is Born. In it, James
Mason tells Garland, “You’re singing for
yourself and the boys in the band.”)
“When I was researching the society in
which the characters were living in,” says
Mantello, “I read a front-page article in The
New York Times from the time where they
referred to homosexual men as ‘deviants’
and ‘perverts’. These characters would have
been bombarded with these kinds of words
every day, so I object to people who see
these characters as self-loathing without
contextualising the world in which they were
living in, the images they were being shown,
and how they were being framed in society.
Once you see that, it’s easier to forgive them
their foibles.”
The context in which they would have
lived was also a key for Matt Bomer (Magic
Mike, American Horror Story, The Sinner, Doom
Patrol), who plays mild-mannered Donald.
“This is a play about a generation that had
no role models, or horizons to look to that
weren’t circumscribed by oppressive societal
impositions,” says Bomer, “and yet [the writer]
Mart ended up becoming the most amazing
role model you could ever hope for in a gay
man. He was happy. He was fulfilled. He was
funny. He was charming. He was intelligent.
He was worldly-wise. Not mean or cruel. He
was an amazing example of what it means to
be a gay artist in maturity.”
The play originally opened against a
backdrop of social and political upheaval
in America; Dr Martin Luther King was
assassinated ten days before the play opened,
and racial tensions were high. The fact that
Crowley had included a black man as the
character Bernard added to the controversy;
this was a time when segregation was still
very much a part of the gay experience, even
in New York. This was no statement. Just as
he’d put the personal before the political in
creating all his characters, Bernard was based
on an important sexual encounter he’d had
back home in Mississippi.
“I asked Mart why he included him in the
play,” says Michael Benjamin Washington (30
Rock), who played Bernard in the Broadway
production, as well as in the upcoming film.
“He shared a very special story about a young
man that he knew a long time ago, a black
man that was a friend of the family. Including
a black, gay male into this white tribe and
into these narratives that are usually carried
by people of European decent, I think it was
really brave of him.”
As quickly as the play was lauded, it was
attacked — and from unexpected quarters. Of
course, there was the indignant heterosexual
reaction, as was to be expected, but many
involved in the fight for gay liberation felt
that the play didn’t show their experience
in a positive enough light. The feeling was
echoed across the Atlantic when the 1970 film
version was picketed by members of the Gay >
THE BOYS IN THE BAND

FRIENDLY EXES: Michael

(Jim Parsons) and
Donald (Matt Bomer)

OCTOBER 2020 45
 ZACHARY
QUINTO

Liberation Front in London, who handed out from something — but there’s an evolution
leaflets to patrons as they left the screening. of thought, and progress. I don’t see the men
These accusations have returned to haunt in this story as self-loathing. We always make
the play over the years. “There’s never going the star the outside force that we are pushing
to be one answer for an entire group of against —the white straight man that’s
people,” says Washington. “It’s like when the outside looking in at these gay men – but
film The Help came out and there was a lot of these gay men are not looking outside. They
uproar amongst black people that we don’t have their own agency.”
want to see ourselves as maids, we’ve come Mantello raises the point of how
too far for that — but I venture to say there all-encompassing it can be when a gay
are a lot of domestic workers in Mississippi artist creates something about queer life.
right now who still exist in that same “We’re not allowed to just investigate a
‘HAROLD’ paradigm, and still experience those same particular story about a particular night
racial tensions as those characters did in the with a particular group of characters. We’re
ZACHARY ON ‘HAROLD’ 1950s. I don’t think we ever fully come away automatically policed about it, and have to
“He is the honorary of the party,
and probably the most self-aware
of the guys. He’s someone who has
transmuted his self-loathing into
power. He knows himself completely
through and through, for all of his
shortcomings and all the things about
himself that he hates.”
HOW IS THE FILM’S DEPICTION OF
GAY RELATIONSHIPS IN THE 1960S
RELEVANT FOR GAY PEOPLE TODAY?
“I feel like there’s a representation
of so many different people in these
characters. Things have changed,
definitely, we’ve come a very far
distance, but there are still many
stigmas and reservations attached
to gay male identity and this piece
goes to the heart of that. What does
it mean to accept yourself as a gay
man in the world? And it means
something different in 1968 as it does
in 2020, but there’s still a reckoning in
ourselves and the world around us.”
WHAT DID YOU LEARN ABOUT
YOURSELF?
“I’ve done a lot of work on myself, you
know, deep-diving. Playing this role and
seeing what a challenge it was for these
characters to accept themselves, and
to love themselves made me grateful
for my personal experience and
growing up in the time and in the world
that I grew up in, for being able to arrive
at a place where I am genuinely able to
accept who I am. It made me feel proud
of my journey and the resonance of
that journey for other people.” STEP IN TIME: The
boys display their
dance moves

46 OCTOBER 2020
 THE BOYS IN THE BAND

not only defend the creative choices we’ve
made, but also defend the piece itself,” he
says. “I don’t think our straight counterparts
have to do that. When you look at a play
and film like Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?,
you can look at that through the lens of
on Broadway with this,” he says. “Those were
all beautiful depictions of relationships and
gay men. I feel like things are getting better,
with more people sharing their stories. More
producers and directors are giving more
opportunities to gay writers and storytellers,

addiction, or as a couple who play games
and drink heavily — but the couple don’t
represent all heterosexual couples. They’re
allowed to exist on their own terms.”
Andrew Rannells, who plays the
philandering Larry, is part of a wave of actors
who are out — and have always been able to
be out. “I’ve been very fortunate to be a part
of shows like Girls, The New Normal, then I was
JIM PARSONS
and that’s what’s making it better. Something
like Boys in the Band having to represent
everyone — it’s an impossible task.
“Mart wasn’t trying to represent everyone
— he’s telling the story of these nine men on
one particular night. I think that’s why it was
applauded, and why others shied away from
it, thinking, I don’t see myself in that. Well, I
love Ozark, but I’m not a money launderer. I
feel that we need to give ourselves permission
to tell all sorts of stories. And if some of them
aren’t pretty, that’s OK, too. They don’t have to
always represent the best parts of us.”
One of the play’s greatest challenges was
its enormous success. This wasn’t just an
important gay play; it was the only important
gay play of its era. And as such, it was expected

“THIS PLAY IS ABOUT A ‘MICHAEL’

GENERATION THAT HAD
NO ROLE MODELS”
MATT BOMER
to be all things to all people, a frankly
impossible task.
The lead character Michael is clearly an
alcoholic, and his nosedive from amusing
host to vituperative harridan as the party
progresses makes for uncomfortable — and
compelling — viewing; hardly the poster boy
for a revolution. But then why should he have
to be? This is the conundrum of all minority
representation — how does one weigh the
importance of emotional honesty and
genuine personal experience against public
perception? Look at towering gay talents,
writers Tennessee Williams and Truman
Capote, for instance, who would have been
only slightly older than Crowley’s characters.
Both battled crippling alcoholism, and
died of alcohol-related causes. They weren’t
necessarily role models for the young gay men
who followed them, but no one can deny the
importance of the legacies they left behind.
Would we benefit from airbrushing the
darker tones out of their lives, or are we better
served taking the good with the bad, and
acknowledging the difficult circumstances
JIM ON ‘MICHAEL’
“He is a screenwriter from the South,
living in New York. In this specific
instance, he is hosting a birthday
party for his friend Harold, and
that’s why he has brought everyone
together. He’s also currently sober
and not smoking.”
WERE YOU APPREHENSIVE BEFORE
TAKING ON THE ROLE?
“I didn’t know the play. I didn’t know
the difference between The Boys
in the Band and The Band Played
On. I was like, ‘What?’ I was a little
flummoxed when I first read it. I
remember speaking to [the director]
Joe Mantello and he said, ‘Think of
it through the prism of an Edward
Albee play or a Virginia Woolf’. It’s
hard to lay a finger on why it was so
effective. Maybe it was my own mind
not allowing a group of gay men to
behave a certain way. When I looked
at the play in that way, the desire to
play that role became irresistible. And
what excited me was the desire to
figure out the reasons why.”
>

OCTOBER 2020 47
 BRIAN
HUTCHISON
‘ALAN’
BRIAN ON ‘ALAN’
“Alan is the catalyst for much of the
conflict in the film. Alan is a lawyer
and the former college roommate of
Michael [Jim Parsons], and he calls
Michael, saying he’s in New York for
the night, really needing to speak with
him. So, Alan’s arrival at the party is
met with various degrees of irritation
and caution since Alan is straight,
and married to a woman. This party is
supposed to be a place where these
guys can let their guard down and be
themselves, and Alan is a threat to
that. He represents so much of what
these other guys had to hide from in
their world in 1968 and they resent
him for being there uninvited.”
HOW IS THE FILM’S DEPICTION OF
GAY RELATIONSHIPS IN THE 1960S
RELEVANT FOR GAY PEOPLE TODAY?
“We’ve come a long way regarding
relationships — I’m married, as are a
few of the other actors, like Jim and
Matt, which was unthinkable in 1968,
or even 1998. Clearly, these guys are
wanting to connect, it’s so much of
what the film is about — the desire
to belong to a group and to find
love without having to hide. We see
Hank and Larry in a relationship, and
trying to learn how to communicate
better. The world until very recently
was geared towards heterosexual
relationships. It was bold for men
and women of that era to make a go
of being committed to a same-sex
partner, since the potential loss was
so great — one’s job, livelihood, family,
social status.”
48 OCTOBER 2020
both these brilliant and sensitive minds
were forced to endure, living in a hostile
society? “All humans experience addiction,”
says Washington. “Every single person has an
addiction, whether it’s alcohol, sex, money,
spending, or whatever your particular drug of
choice is. When your past walks through the
door, what do you reach for? And who do you
become when you use it?”
Robin de Jesús, who reprises his Broadway
role as the fabulously femme Emory in the
film, points out how much of the plot is
about other issues, “So much of The Boys in the
Band is about alcoholism, but people don’t
really pick up on that,” he says. “It always
comes back to criticising these characters
as self-loathing gays — but I think if you’re
watching it with those eyes, there’s another
conversation you should be having with
yourself. As gay men, we deserve to be messy.
We deserve to have stories where we’re not
perfect. The past was fucked-up. We cannot
go back to that shit. We can no longer find
the behaviour of society as acceptable. We
have to lean into our own in empowerment
and believe that we are worthy of the same
happiness that every other heterosexual/
cisgender person is entitled to as well.”
The bitchiness of the characters has
also drawn criticism over the years. So
much a part of the fabric of gay culture,
it was honed to a fine art by the New York
queens recorded in the documentary Paris
is Burning, and later popularised by RuPaul’s
Drag Race: “The library… is open!” But the gay
community has also always been divided
about its value — is a cutting barb disguised
as playful banter something to be celebrated,
or simply a defensive mechanism that
betrays our insecurities? Zachary Quinto
(Star Trek, American Horror Story) plays the
scene-stealing Harold in the film. He’s a fierce
character who’s unafraid to turn his caustic
wit on anyone – including himself. “ I’m a
32-year-old, ugly, pock-marked, Jew fairy,” he
announces in one of his opening lines.
De Jesús identifies with this behaviour, to
some extent. “As a kid, I was self-deprecating.
I protected myself by making fun of myself
before anyone else could,” he admits.
“Whatever weapon you were going to use, I
was going to steal that shit from you and use
it first. When I first encountered it, I thought
it was so malicious, but I eventually realised
there was also a creativity to it that makes
it really stimulating to watch.” Ultimately,
though, he sees it as the result of people
under duress. “I think that it’s the product of
really scared and vulnerable people having
to put up a front to protect themselves. It
came from us trying to protect ourselves, and
our hearts.”
Quinto, on the other hand, admired
his character’s acerbic tongue, and saw it
as something of an asset. “When a person
is consistently dismissed, put down and
alienated, I think there comes a point beyond
which they’re no longer interested in the
veneer of pleasantry or politeness,” he says.
“The kernel of the gay tendency toward
bitchiness is about seeing things for what
they are and calling them exactly that.”
The process of doing the play on Broadway
and then shooting it was a voyage of
discovery for the whole cast, giving them an
opportunity to confront their most personal
experiences. Jim Parsons (The Big Bang
Theory), who plays the party host Michael
“AS GAY MEN, WE DESERVE
TO BE MESSY. THE PAST
WAS FUCKED-UP”
ROBIN DE JESÚS
with masterful sensitivity, was no exception.
“I realised that being gay and growing up
around people and in a culture where that
wasn’t celebrated — where it was reviled, in
many ways — had an impact on me. Happy
as I am, I’m still working out the fear I grew
up with: that by revealing who I really am,
I will somehow lose the love of the people
who are important to me. This story wasn’t a
direct reflection of my time, and things have
changed rapidly for gay people over the last
couple of decades, but even now, there’s that
residual [feeling].”
The darker themes of addiction, narcissism,
fear of ageing and lack of self-esteem may
not have fitted well with early gay liberation’s
wish for positive role models, or gone down
well with later critics who felt that portraying
them was somehow regressive – but the
reality is, they remain important issues for
the gay community even today.
“I think it’s as relevant today as the 1960s,”
says de Jesús. “Back then you were literally
protecting yourself from violence – but the
beauty of today is that we’ve evolved: we >
THE BOYS IN THE BAND

CELEBRATE: The plot

centres on a birthday
party for Harold

OCTOBER 2020 49
 MATT BOMER

BEST SHOT:
Mantello directs
Jim Parsons,
who plays
Michael

‘DONALD’
MATT ON ‘DONALD’
“Donald is the long-suffering, ever-
faithful ex/close friend of Michael, who
is trying to see beyond his current life
circumstances, but doesn’t necessarily
make the best choices for himself.”
HOW IS THE FILM’S DEPICTION OF
GAY RELATIONSHIPS IN THE 1960S
RELEVANT FOR GAY PEOPLE TODAY?
“It’s important to understand the
context. It’s months before Stonewall
erupted a few blocks away from where
the movie takes place. These men had
no role models to look to as an example
of how to be, how to live. Thankfully, we
live in an age now where our community
can say, ‘I’m going to be OK. I can have
this life if I want.’ Whereas these men
are all trapped together in a space
society has imposed on them.”
WHAT DID YOU LEARN ABOUT
YOURSELF?
“There are aspects of Donald I relate to.
He’s looking for something, he’s trying
to make better decisions, he wants a
great relationship with Michael — maybe
more — but knows that’s only ever going
to happen if he’s sober. He’s in this
deep analysis but still exposing himself
to toxic environments. He’s trying to
leave the city and its temptations, but
he is living with his parents, who are his
greatest source of pain. He is looking
to find a better life; he just doesn’t
know how to find it. There are aspects
of that that I struggled with in my
twenties. There weren’t a lot of people
in the entertainment industry who
were openly gay and successful, and I
was trying to be my authentic self, and
exposed myself to toxic environments
because I didn’t know any better — I
didn’t have the self-love at the time.” PLAYBACK: Director
Joe Mantello at work
on set

50 OCTOBER 2020
 THE BOYS IN THE BAND

ROBIN DE
SMALL TALK:
Charlie Carver
(Cowboy) with
Mart Crowley
JESÚS

‘EMORY’
ROBIN ON ‘EMORY’
“A sort of courageous, femme, radical
queen. He’s way ahead of his time as
someone that’s well aware of their
authenticity and sexuality. He refuses
to compromise himself in a world that
wants to reduce him.”
WERE YOU APPREHENSIVE BEFORE
TAKING ON THE ROLE?
“The only apprehension I had in the
past is having played a lot of femme
gay characters, sometimes the optics
get very reduced because sometimes
people think being femme or femme
gay is only one story and there isn’t
diversity within that, or layers. But I’m
over that. Straight guys never have to
worry about playing straight, but as a
gay man, only playing gay can still be
incredibly diverse.
“In terms of the play’s history, I feel
it is the product of our wanting to be
somewhat heteronormative or policing
one another. And the chance we have
with the movie is to correct that
image. If you watch the movie with a
truly open heart, what you actually
CR. BRIAN BOWEN SMITH/© 2020 NETFLIX

see — other than Michael’s character

and Donald, who are self-loathing — in
the rest of our characters is not that
DREAM TEAM: The Boys in we are self-loathing, but that society is
the Band cast (back row), the antagonist who has shamed us and
with director Joe Mantello
(front, left) and the work’s made us feel that we aren’t equals.”
creator, the late playwright
Mart Crowley
>

OCTOBER 2020 51
 CHARLIE
CARVER

‘COWBOY’
CHARLIE ON ‘COWBOY’
“Cowboy is a young hustler introduced
to the group as a birthday gift for
Harold. He’s the only true stranger
to everyone, but his youth and open
heart quickly endear him to some and
make him a target for others. Despite
his relative innocence, his non-
judgmental nature makes him quite a
good listener and points to a different
kind of knowingness.”
WHAT DID YOU LEARN ABOUT
YOURSELF?
“Traditionally, Cowboy is played by a
towering hunk. I had trouble finding
my way into the character when I
felt limited by an idea of the ‘right’
physicality. I’ve struggled with how
my looks fit into my sense of self — I
GLAD TO BE GAY:
don’t think that’s a particularly unique Gloriously femme
experience as a gay man — and I Emory (centre) is played
by Robin de Jesús
didn’t feel ‘hunky’ enough for the part.
Which led down a pretty important
path of self-discovery: I was forced to still have the same problems, but we can get visibility — a huge step forward in the last five
confront that shit head-on. I had to deeper into the nuances of them, like with or ten years — there’s come increased violence
find a different way into the character the iPad zoomed in. So maybe nowadays against trans people — particularly black,
and then trust that it was enough. To it’s not as much about physical violence — trans women, and trans women of colour. As
find an effortless kind of confidence. although that’s still an issue, especially for gay white men, maybe our challenges have
And you know where that stuff our trans community — but it’s also about diminished slightly, but we owe it to one
comes from? I think it comes from emotional sustainability. How do we support another to stand up on behalf of each other.
taking joy in other people. Cowboy each other? So I think there’s absolutely a Violence against one of us is violence against
loves everybody in that room of men, parallel with today.” all of us. It’s a complicated issue and we’ve
regardless of whatever prejudices Over 50 years since the play first opened, come far — but we still have a way to go.”
those characters hold against society is still facing the same challenges The very fact that the play has been staged
themselves or other people. People to progress. Quinto says of the current US countless times over the years, along with
light up when met with affection. They president. “Our country is being driven into the success of the original film and the
reveal their beautiful selves to you, the ground by an administration which is current Netflix adaptation, is a testament
and you sparkle in return. I think a lot permeated by this patriarchal-white-male, to the ongoing relevance of The Boys in the
of good can get accomplished keeping heterosexual, homophobic, trans-phobic Band. One of the reasons behind its relevance
that in mind.” mentality,” he says. “Persecution still exists. is the profoundly human portrayal of the
It has shifted slightly into different factions characters. The idea of a chosen family has
of our community. With increased trans always been central to the gay experience,

52 OCTOBER 2020

and this feeling of intense camaraderie
is intensely apparent here. Beyond the
squabbling and insults, there remains an
unbreakable bond between these men, an
unshakeable loyalty that’s deeply moving.
“There’s nothing like doing the play on
Broadway to standing-room audiences every
night to confirm that it still has resonance
today,” says Quinto. “Mart painted all of his
characters with this very specific brush so
that they’re reflective of people we all know in
our lives.”
Although the story unapologetically
documents the gay experience in a specific
time, many will recognise themselves and
their friends in the characters: the shy one,
the bitchy one, the peacekeeper, the Romeo,
the argumentative couple, the stirrer… we’ve
all been there. The genius of Mart Crowley’s
creation — and perhaps the play shares
this with all truly significant art — is that it
remains a universal story, one that continues
to resonate with all kinds of audiences. “I
think the play is timeless,” says Rannells. “I
look at my own group of friends, and there
are times we’re not very kind to each other.
There are times when we’re brutally honest
in a way that nobody else is, in a way that’s
sometimes cool, and sometimes is not.
“Stepping back from the play itself
and looking at the original actors, I’m
extraordinarily grateful for what they did,
and how brave they were. Over 50 years ago, it
was a leap for those men to be a part of this.
While it was a huge success in many ways,
many of them felt the ramifications of being
in it for the rest of their lives. We’ve all made
our choice to live as honestly as we can — and
we are only able to do that because of people
who came before us.”
Viewing the film highlights how far gay men
have come over the intervening decades — but
“THIS PLAY MADE ME
GRATEFUL FOR GROWING UP
IN THE TIME I GREW UP IN”
ZACHARY QUINTO
that doesn’t mean they aren’t currently facing
challenges, both socially, and more specifically
within the entertainment industry. “I’ve done
a lot of work on myself over the years, and I
feel grateful for that,” says Quinto. “Being in
this play and seeing what a challenge it was for
these characters to love themselves made me
grateful for my personal experience, and for
growing up in the time I grew up in. For being
able to arrive at a place of genuinely accepting
and loving who I am.”
But the fight is far from over, Quinto
continues, “There is a mentality outside
of capital cities in America that equates
homosexuality with diminished masculinity,
which is simply not the same thing. It’s
simply not. I do think that’s changing. When
you see this group of us in this film, and you
see the other projects that we’ve done, it’s a
way to keep the conversation going and to
keep moving things forward.”
There are definitely more opportunities for
gay actors than ever before — but there’s still a
price to pay for being out. “We’re living in a day
and age where there are actors and athletes
THE BOYS IN THE BAND
MICHAEL
BENJAMIN
WASHINGTON
‘BERNARD’
MICHAEL ON ‘BERNARD’
“Bernard is an intellectual in New
York City, he is a librarian, he is a
quiet, more repressed spirit. I think
people will call him a wallflower, the
guy in the room that can be in the
room and doesn’t need to be ‘on’ and
get all the attention.”
HOW IS THE FILM’S DEPICTION OF
GAY RELATIONSHIPS IN THE 1960S
RELEVANT FOR GAY PEOPLE TODAY?
What’s interesting about Boys in
the Band is the relationship that
these men have. It is a fraternity of
sorts, but under the guise of ‘you are
illegal, you are a felon for what you
feel.’ So, to find a tribe that you can
come together with platonically is
very fascinating to see, that there is
no one definition of gay, relationship,
attraction and the things we try to
chase from our past.”
WHAT DO YOU WANT PEOPLE TO
TAKE AWAY FROM THE FILM?
“It’s very important to see how it’s
received, that’s a real barometer of
where culture, society and civilisation
is — particularly American civilisation,
these are American characters in a
New York space.”
>
OCTOBER 2020 53
 ANDREW
RANNELLS
‘LARRY’
ANDREW ON ‘LARRY’
“Larry thinks of himself as the life
of the party, most of the time. But
Larry and Hank are the only two in a
relationship, so there is a traditional
side to Larry as he’s willing to engage
in that. He struggles with that, to
make it all make sense. He wants to
have his own life, but he’s obviously
very much in love with Hank, but he
struggles with monogamy.”
HOW IS THE FILM’S DEPICTION OF
GAY RELATIONSHIPS IN THE 1960S
RELEVANT FOR GAY PEOPLE TODAY?
“I feel like there is still this idea of
a chosen family for these men. But
unfortunately, sometimes you treat
the people who are closest to you
the worst.”
WHAT DID YOU LEARN ABOUT
YOURSELF FROM THE CHARACTER?
“I’ve mostly been in relationships, I’ve
usually had a long-term boyfriend, so
there was a lot to draw on from that.
I think what I learned is to be more
aware of how you treat your friends
and how you treat the people closest
to you. There are certainly bad nights,
and it wasn’t the light-hearted party
the characters were hoping for. But
if I took anything away from playing
Larry, it was how you treat the people
closest to you.”
54 OCTOBER 2020
and public figures who are openly gay and 2018 Broadway show, and then for the film
have been unafraid to acknowledge that,” says adaptation, is clearly apparent on-screen. “It
Bomer, “but without a question, there’s a trade- was such a freeing experience to get to tell
off, in my experience. I came out at a time when a story with an entirely gay ensemble and
it was very risky to do so — I had a studio film creative team,” says Bomer. “There are often
that was about to premiere, and a television times on set where I am the only openly gay
series coming out. But to me it was more person there, and I’ve learnt how to manage
important to be my most authentic self, both that and do the work — but it was so nice to
for my family, and for myself. I wasn’t trying to have this collective experience together and a
be a role model, nor am I now, but I thought if shared sense of who we are, and who we want
it could help just one person, then it would be to be, and an understanding of each other. I
worth it. But to say that didn’t cost me certain think that really informed the work.”
things in my career would be a lie. It did. To me Parsons agrees. “So many members of the
that trade-off was worth it. But it hasn’t been
some fairy tale — no pun intended.”
Coming out still isn’t a decision lightly
made. “I’m triggered sometimes when I hear
people complaining about someone not
coming out of the closet, or someone coming
out at late age,” says de Jesus, “because you don’t
know what they’ve been through. There still
is a risk in certain families. Families are what
create you, and keep you alive, and give you
“COMING OUT IS A RISK
IN CERTAIN FAMILIES. THE
STAKES ARE HIGH”
ROBIN DE JESÚS
your moral compass – and for some people
that structure is put in danger by coming out.
It’s not just about being your authentic self
– it can also be about potentially losing your
love structure, and that is deep, and heavy, and
dangerous. The stakes are high.”
Parsons was living an openly gay life,
but made the decision to come out publicly
in 2012 when he was enjoying enormous
popularity in his role of Sheldon Cooper in
The Big Bang Theory. He was surprised by the
impact of the process. “To suddenly publicly
be part of a large group that has been — and
still is — maligned at times, with hateful
things being said about them by other public
figures — there was a sense of happiness and
strength for me that I couldn’t have predicted.
As soon as it became a story, it made me feel
very strong, and I think in this day and age it
only helped career-wise. I certainly have never
felt it hurt my career — at all. It probably even
helped me be a better actor. There’s always
more layers of yourself you can share.”
The extraordinary intimacy and chemistry
of working with the all-gay cast for the

original cast died of [Aids-related illnesses],
and didn’t work again, and had to hide their
sexuality even while they were doing this
ground-breaking gay play. So the camaraderie,
and the shared view of the world, and having
everyone in his own unique way being a part
of that — I’ve never experienced anything
like it before. It led to us becoming a kind
of family. There’s just a specific bond unlike
anything else I’ve ever been a part of.”
It’s a sign of the confidence of
contemporary gay culture that it can return
to a story like this with more forgiving eyes,
enjoying it free of the weight of unrealistic
expectations, and sending it out into the
wider world. On a platform like Netflix, the
film will reach millions of viewers across
hugely diverse cultures, both LGBTQ audiences
and otherwise. “I think it’s going to strike a
chord with people,” says Quinto. “I’m thrilled
that we get to share the story with such a wide
range of people. At the end of the day, it’s a fun
romp, beautifully shot.”
The Boys in the Band is on Netflix from 30
September
UNINVITED GUEST:
Straight friend Alan
(centre, played by Brian
Hutchison) with Michael
(left, Jim Parsons) and
Hank (Tuc Watkins)
THE BOYS IN THE BAND
TUC WATKINS
‘HANK’
TUC ON ‘HANK’
“Hank leaves his wife and children
to be with Larry. He gives up all that
he has because he can no longer live
an unauthentic life. Early on, Ryan
Murphy suggested that Hank is the
‘Golden Retriever’ of the group. He’s
more quiet, centred than some of
the others because he’s already been
through his pain.”
WHAT DID YOU LEARN ABOUT
YOURSELF FROM THE FILM?
“I learned that I have limitations, but
awareness of those limitations makes
me more useful in other areas of my
life and the lives of those around me.”
WHAT DO YOU WANT PEOPLE TO
TAKE AWAY FROM THE FILM?
“The characters in this play are
evidence of what can happen to
people who are not allowed to be
who they truly are. Telling a person
they’re not OK affects the people,
families and children that stand next
to that person. I believe we are all
here to make each other feel safe. I
hope to make others feel safe to be
themselves around me.”
OCTOBER 2020 55
 ON
THE
RECORD
releases his autobiography, A Dutiful Boy,
that has brought back difficult memories,
W
hen I was first asked by Attitude to
produce a piece about the writing
process, I felt both gratitude and
dismay. Gratitude, because for a first-time
author to be invited to write for one of the
largest LGBT publications in the world is
humbling, and dismay, because, to me, the
idea we have of the ‘writing process’ comes
with an indulgent nostalgia that masks the
reality of what it can be like to write a book.
The most damaging thing about this
fictitious image of a writer? Its potential to
scare away people from our community with
powerful stories to tell.
My book, A Dutiful Boy, is full of intensely
personal memories, including one from my
teenage years, when I sought out an exorcism
to expel the gay from within. You might think
that in order to delve so deeply into myself
that I’d need to be in a cabin by a lake, with
an old typewriter, wearing a cardigan and on
my fifth cup of coffee — but actually, I was in
a wig and a gown. (And no, unfortunately, I’m
not a drag queen, but a criminal barrister.) I
was in the Crown Court waiting for my case
to be called. That is the reality of the writing
process for me, and, I think, for many other
writers — holding down a job and finding
mostly small windows of time between work
and seeing friends to do something that feels
important and urgent.
I must say straight away that this is not a
complaint, but it is necessary to dispel the
idea that there is any magic in the writing
process. The magic lies not in the process, but
in you, the writer.
That is not to say that it isn’t an emotional
56 OCTOBER 2020
As criminal barrister Mohsin Zaidi
he muses on a cathartic writing process
and why he believes every LGBTQ person
has a story to tell
journey. Writing about the scariest thing I’ve ever had to do – coming
out to my Pakistani Muslim father – was almost as frightening as the
act itself, because it requires an honesty that isn’t always kind to its
subjects. Publishing these stories takes the fear to a different place,
because something that was private and difficult, then becomes public,
but remains difficult.
It isn’t always hard, though – in fact, it’s mostly quite the opposite.
An unexpected benefit of writing this book was the chance to become
re-acquainted with songs from my past. Music doesn’t just fill me
with emotions, but it is my companion when I am going through
them; it always has been. Writing about things that happened in
the past came with the joy of dusting off old tunes that had spent
so much time with me – songs such as George Michael’s Too Funky,
which oozed a sensuality I couldn’t grasp, or, later on, Baby One More
Time, which my dad caught me dancing to as a young teen. Research
suggests that people who
suffer from dementia are able “PUBLISHING THESE
to reconnect with themselves
when they hear important S TO R I E S TA K E S T H E
songs from their past and, FEAR TO A DIFFERENT
although I am no doctor, I PLACE”
am sure there is something
in this. Listening to songs from long ago helped me go back to those
places, to that time and to those feelings (it also helped with the
playlist for my upcoming wedding).
I’m sure I have learnt a lot from writing my autobiography, some of
which I can articulate, but most of which I might never be able to. Writing
about something that happens to you is a bit like having it recorded
and watching it back. It can look and feel very different from the way it
did when you were living it. Suddenly, the entire scene becomes clearer,
a different vantage point offers itself up to you. You can then, if you are
lucky, understand more easily why people reacted in a certain way.
It helped me understand why my parents didn’t do certain things,
like embrace me for who I was straight away, or why they did certain
things, like not let go of me, when it was the easiest route out of the
problem we faced. This perspective becomes possible because in the
recording of it, through writing it down, those things aren’t happening
 MOHSIN ZAIDI

to you any more, but to another person that

you once were.
As well as the opportunity to reflect
carefully, what really stays with me about
writing is the transcending power of stories,
especially in our divided times. Tell someone
that homophobic and transphobic hate
crimes have more than doubled in the past
five years (they have) and they will listen. Tell
the same person that you know at least two
close friends who have been the victim of
hate crimes (I do) and they can more easily
empathise. But our stories don’t have to be
about violence and victimhood. (But if they
are, so be it.) The famous and wonderful
writer, James Baldwin, was once asked by
an interviewer, “When you were starting out
as a writer, you were a black, impoverished
homosexual. You must have said to yourself
‘Gee, how disadvantaged can I get?’”
His reply? “No, I thought I hit the jackpot.”
The queer community is rich with
characters and experiences that others would
be privileged to learn from. Society’s image
of an artist, whether it’s a writer, a singer, a
painter or a poet, too often lives on a pedestal.
As long as it remains there, we risk missing
out on the most important art that we need
today. However your creative side manifests
itself — and we all have one — being a
member of our community means you
deserve congratulations because you’ve hit
FEEL THE FEAR: the jackpot. The only question that remains is
Writing about coming how you plan on using it.
out to his Pakistani
father was almost as
scary as the event A Dutiful Boy, published by Square Peg, is
itself, says Mohsin
out now

OCTOBER 2020 57
 WHERE
THERE’S
A WILL
Despite being one
of the most high-
profile gay men in the
country, Will Young
was wrestling with gay
shame. Here he talks
to former Attitude
editor Matthew Todd
about his new book,
which looks at how he
overcame his trauma
EDWARD COOKE

58 OCTOBER 2020
 WILL YOUNG

I
t’s nearly 20 years since a handsome 22-year-old man won what was then the
nation’s biggest TV talent show and then promptly came out — one of the first
celebrities to do so at the beginning of their career. Since then, Will Young has
continued to be one of the most popular performers in the country, releasing
a string of hits from seven studio albums (four of which went to number
one), appearing alongside Judi Dench in Mrs Henderson Presents, and winning
plaudits for his appearances onstage.
But underneath the success and glossy pop videos, Will was struggling with
low self-esteem and compulsive behaviour. I first met him when I was deputy
editor of Attitude back in 2002, and then again in 2009 as editor, when he guest-
edited an issue of Attitude. I didn’t know then that both of us were struggling with the
trauma of having grown up gay in a world which had invalidated us.
Since then he has become an anti-bullying and mental health advocate and has talked
about the nervous breakdown that he suffered out of the public eye.
I wrote my book about gay shame, Straight Jacket, and discussed this with Will on his educated 22-year-old, someone who did
podcast, Homosapiens, in 2016. This month, he releases a new memoir talking about actually know his mind, and they didn’t
his views on ‘gay shame’ and how he overcame it. His book, To Be A Gay Man, charts his like that. People don’t like that in the
awareness of his sexuality from an early age, the messages he received from the world music industry to an extent, but I was
about it, his experiences at school, and then navigating life as a gay pop star and dealing not having any of it. I used to see these
with the trauma that so many of us carry — often without knowing it. journalists and I’d think, poor you, you
This interview was conducted after the death of his twin brother, Rupert, but we have probably don’t want to ask me. Everyone
chosen not to ask him about it. knew about it: “Just wait till the final is
over, then do it.”
I liked that you talked about the impact
Brian Dowling had. 2001/2002 was a cultural
You’ve written a book — give us an idea of had to stop for self-preservation, which turning point because he won Big Brother as
what to expect. I expected. Mostly, I’d say it was quite an out, gay guy, and then you won Pop Idol
It tracks my life and where shame for empowering — in particular, things and came straight out.
being myself would come in, particularly like I had felt guilty as a teenager for Brian is openly gay and he was crowned
linked to being gay. I start with the fact masturbating about people. I thought the winner, then I was the winner and I
that I fancied Bobby Ewing in Dallas. that was evil. I was 15 years old; it’s what came out and no one attacked me. It was
Why did I like my mother’s jewellery? everyone else was doing. I hadn’t realised major. Absolutely major. I think Brian
Why was I interested in art and why did I’d hung onto that for 30 years. Dowling was actually the beginning.
I read a lot? At every turn, that kind of You write about the time during Pop Idol, People don’t give him the credit. It was
thing was shamed by society, extending when the media knew you were gay, but your a major thing for me, watching him at
through my education, lack of role record company shielded you from it. How university on this massive show, seeing
models, homophobia at school, going was that experience? that everyone likes the gay guy. It made
to university, hearing people say “I’m I think I was quite hardcore then. I must me think, maybe it could work for me,
glad the Admiral Duncan nail bomb have been nervous, but what I didn’t like after all.
happened, they deserved it anyway”, was the whole furore around it. I’d say, You say that had someone like Olly
through to being famous and gay and “No, don’t tell me what to say.” I was an Alexander been around when you were a
people threatening to stab me, and a top kid, you wouldn’t have absorbed so much
radio breakfast show presenter being shame growing up…
abusive and homophobic, and how I don’t think I would have done.
that whole thing adds up to an inner Particularly him. It would have been a
dialogue that isn’t true. It’s like someone beacon, really, and I am sure he’s been a
hacking me and programming me in beacon for people. So, no there weren’t
the wrong way because of my sexuality role models. If they were gay, they were
— and it was fascinating to do. And then normally outed in some way. When
how I got out of it. I didn’t realise I had Freddie Mercury died of Aids, there was
the whole thing that “Aids is the gay
it [the shame]. It festers and comes out
in other ways and all sorts of different “I DIDN’T REALISE I HAD plague and it’s all their fault anyway”,
thoughts and behaviours. SHAME. IT FESTERS or George Michael, who gets outed and
Was it painful to write? AND COMES OUT IN ALL arrested in a public toilet, or someone
There were definitely moments where I SORTS OF BEHAVIOURS” being overtly camp and overtly funny, >

OCTOBER 2020 59
 or someone like Peter Tatchell, being
vilified. There wasn’t really anyone not
being chastised in some way. I can’t really
think of anyone. There was no one for
me. It would have made life a lot easier.
We’ve both had a lot of therapy to work on
shame and its effects. What worked for you?
Group therapy. I was doing therapy
in Oxford and one day I passed a very
nerdy boy playing a harp in the high
street. These three lads in the street were
giving him grief. I thought I’d diffuse
this situation, and they turned on me
and started threatening to kill me,
shouting “Faggot!”, so I started shouting
at the top of my voice: “These boys are
calling me a faggot and a bumeater!
Now they’re threatening to stab me!”
They didn’t know what to do. The whole
street turned on them. Straight men and
women were threatening them. I was in
treatment and brought it up with my
therapist and he kind of used it to bring
the shame out of me. I sort of ended up
rising from the ashes. That really did
purge a lot of it for me.
You have this unique experience of being
STEVE SCHOFIELD
very famous and everyone knowing
you were gay after Pop Idol. What was
60 OCTOBER 2020
“THE AMOUNT OF
PEOPLE I’VE HEARD
SAY ‘I DON’T KNOW
WHERE I FIT IN. I FEEL
LIKE AN OUTSIDER’”
that like? For instance, you moved to
Cornwall for a while. How was that, being
gay, there?
Quite early on, I went to the local pub,
which was run by a gay couple. I had my
friend’s hen party at my house, and the
pub were having a big barbecue on the
moor in a marquee. I turned up dressed
as a granny. I ended up singing with
the band, a farmer propositioned me,
someone told me how they found their
son in the hayloft with a man. I thought,
this is the place to be! These guys running
this pub, they’re the ones on the frontline,
not me mincing about in my Audi in
London. I felt really safe there. I did used
to feel quite visible and vulnerable. After
Pop Idol, I remember going to my local
and I felt wary for a time, even though I’d
been going there for years.
You talk of the abuse you sometimes got. Do
you still get it now?
No. No one would dare now. I’m a different
person now, too. Partly because of the law.
Partly that moment in Oxford. My energy’s
a lot different now. Also, I don’t think
people do that as much now. I would not
take that. I had a few times, once when
I walked out of a bar and someone said,
“bloody queer”. A few times in airports,
but it doesn’t happen any more.
What was it like when you did your first
Attitude cover in 2002? Was that strange?
Yeah, it was. Almost in part because
of my PR team – “don’t do this, don’t
ask that”. Even before it started, I was
probably branded “difficult” because
it was probably difficult for the people
around me. As an openly gay pop star, I
didn’t know how to be. I didn’t want to be
lathered up and in my jocks. Now, I’d love
it! That wasn’t me, so that wouldn’t have
worked. I didn’t feel [like] a good enough
gay. I remember thinking, oh, gosh,

they’re all so much better gays than me. I
hadn’t even had anal sex then. I think lots
of people who have gay shame think that.
I would also find a lot of gay men who’d
be like, who does she think she is? There
was quite a lot of bitchiness towards me.
Quite a lot of gay pop stars weren’t very
nice about me. That was sad, actually.
I thought maybe they might like me
[laughs]. Elton John was amazing. He sent
me flowers. That was quite unbelievable,
a very exciting day for me. He is lovely
and super cool.
What would you say to someone struggling
with gay shame or low self-esteem?
I’d say they are totally not the only
person. The amount of people I’ve heard
say, “I don’t know where I fit in. I don’t
know if anyone likes me, I feel like an
outsider.” This all makes sense to me, let’s
have a look at your history. So often once
we share with someone else, 50 per cent
of it is shame, I find. Shame hides us. It’s
like a black, tarry substance. What gets
shame is shining a light on it. It doesn’t
exist in the light, so you go to a group
where you feel safe, friends you feel safe
with and talk, talk, talk the whole time
and look at your life and what happens
to you, it all makes sense. It doesn’t come
out of nowhere.
You talk about when Chris Moyles shamed you
on Radio 1 for being gay. Has he ever apologised?
Yes, I think he might have rang me, and I
spoke to him and I hadn’t heard it. I said,
“Oh, gosh, I’m sure it’s fine.” Then I got
sent the transcripts and I wouldn’t take
his calls after that. I thought, fucking hell
that was just so nasty.
No one talks about the fact that there would
have been kids listening to that.
That’s the thing. That was the number one
breakfast show in the country. You had kids
being driven to school, kids having their
breakfasts, people in the workplace, it’s
affecting everyone. Thank God, people aren’t
allowed to be like that any more. I have no
problem with him. That was him then. If
that was today, they’d probably get rid of
him, potentially. However, I don’t think he
should be gotten rid of; I think everyone is
allowed to evolve and we should be a little
bit more forgiving, because otherwise we’d
all be hung out to dry. All of us. There would
be one thing in our lives at one point that
we’ve said that if we put it on Twitter now
would make us look like a prick. So, let’s
just be a little bit forgiving. But people
WILL YOUNG
need to choose now the areas that they
do it. JK Rowling, perhaps, did not choose
the best words or the best area to write
about her views on transgender people.
Be a little bit smarter than that. Or at least
if you are going to come across as stupid
in your views – in my opinion, it was just
stupid – I’d rather hear her say it, so I can
get a clearer idea. People need to be smarter
about how they say things. I cannot agree
with anyone’s views, but they’re allowed to
have their view and also, we should be more
forgiving. That would be my strapline if I
was running for Prime Minister.
What is next for you?
A makeup range. [Laughs] A covers album,
but of women’s songs and I want it to be
produced by a female producer, which
would be really cool. And I want to sing
Lisa Stanfield’s song, All Woman, which
is what I wanted to sing on World Idol,
where they got all the Pop Idol winners
from around the world, but they wouldn’t
let me. I’ve started writing for my next
studio album for 2022, which will be 20
years since Pop Idol, and I want to make a
documentary about that.
To Be A Gay Man by Will Young is out now
OCTOBER 2020 61
Words Amelia Abraham
 Cynthia Nixon

City
girl
With a starring
role in Ryan
Murphy’s Netflix
series, Ratched,
actor and activist
Cynthia Nixon
talks being queer,
LGBTQ+ rights
and politics

>

OCTOBER 2020 63
 I
f I told you that Ryan Murphy’s latest Netflix series focuses on Nurse
Ratched, the villainous character from One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest,
your first reaction might be the same as mine: “Sounds niche”. But
Ratched is a veritable mix of everything we’ve come to expect from
Murphy, the gay godfather of LGBTQ+ television who is currently
dominating the small screen. The show more than delivers — it has
the scares and gore of American Horror Story, the drama of Feud and The
Politician, and, importantly, like Pose, it centres on the kind of queer
storylines that we still rarely see. 
Set in 1947, Ratched sees Sarah Paulson take the lead as Mildred
Ratched, a nurse who scams her way into a job at a psychiatric asylum
in northern California, where dangerous experiments are taking
place on the human mind. Cynthia Nixon stars alongside Paulson as
Gwendolyn Briggs, the secretary to the Governor of California, who
funds the institution. Mildred becomes Gwendolyn’s love interest, but
whether or not the feelings are mutual, I won’t give away.
Over a video call one afternoon in late August, I chat to Nixon about
her role as she sits outside on her terrace. She is quarantining at her
summer house, but usually lives in New York
City. I tell her how genuine it felt to watch two
queer women playing, well, two queer women.
“I think it’s exciting for an audience on an
identification level,” she agrees, adding that
Paulson is a friend, something that drew her to
the project. “Part of my excitement was to work
with Sarah and giants like Judy Davis, Sophie
Okonedo and, of course, Sharon Stone – but
also to join the Ryan Murphy universe.”
When Murphy called her up and asked her to
be in Ratched, she was already a fan of his work
but wouldn’t call herself an aficionado. “There’s
just so much to see!” she laughs. “I certainly love Glee, and way back
I tried American Horror Story, but it’s just too terrifying — it gave me
nightmares. The People Versus O.J. Simpson series that Sarah did — I just
thought it was extraordinary.”
After their call, Murphy also showed Nixon the acclaimed Netflix
documentary he recently produced called A Secret Love, about two
elderly lesbians from Canada who kept their relationship hidden for
seven decades. Like most of us, Nixon was in floods of tears watching
it: “It just shows that, as good as fiction is, sometimes documentaries
are so much more powerful and intricate than anything that we
SAEED ADYAN/NETFLIX©2020
would invent.”
Murphy convinced Nixon to play Gwendolyn in Ratched by
explaining that while Mildred Ratched was the germ of the idea, the
show would be about so much more. “We all think of her as this great
literary and movie villain,” says Nixon. “He wanted to do a prequel
64 OCTOBER 2020
that shows how she got there – what is the backstory and trauma that
turned her into this cold person that we know? But also to ask, what is
it like to be a woman in authority?
“In the book and film, Jack Nicholson’s character represents the
spirit of the 1960s; fighting the status quo, being a bad boy. There are all
these men in this mental institution and the Nurse Ratched character
is essentially a castrating mother figure that they all rebel against, but
in the end, she has the authority. Really, the misogyny of the story is
very clear: that a woman in charge and telling you to get in line is cruel
to the core, a personification of evil.” On top
of this, Nixon continues, Ratched is set right
after the Second World War, a moment when
women and people of colour had been given
career opportunities that they’d never had
before. “All of a sudden, they felt part of the
working force, but as soon as the war ended,
MORE THAN
there was a great victory celebration – then
FRIENDS?: Sarah it was like, ‘The white guys are coming home,
Paulson as Mildred
Ratched and Cynthia all the rest of you, please go sit down’. I think
Nixon as Gwendolyn that’s buried into the series – I think he really
Briggs in Ratched
wanted to speak about what that was like,
particularly for women.”
Then, of course, there was the attraction of the queer storyline. “It’s
not that often you get to do a period piece that goes back and says,
actually, people of colour and queer people were there, participating,
and they’ve been erased from our narratives, so let’s go back and put
them in.”
As queer actors, Nixon says she and Paulson took their own
biographies and intertwined them with their characters. “There were
important things that Sarah and I, together, went in and said had
to be rewritten. From a realistic standpoint, ‘This is not what these
women would be doing, and feeling and saying’ – but also from a ‘we
need a little more romance’ standpoint. We definitely said: ‘From our
point of view, this is wrong,’ and they completely listened to us, which
was great.”
That Nixon would be drawn to a part that packages up queerness, feminism
and American history and politics should not come as a surprise.
She began acting in TV and film at the age of 12, made her debut on
Broadway as a teenager and in the early 1990s starred in the play Angels
in America, about the Aids crisis. In 1998, she took on the role we know
her for best: Miranda in Sex and the City, the landmark show which
captured the love and sex lives of four professional white women
in Manhattan. She reprised the role for the Sex and the City movie in
2008 and its sequel in 2010. Nixon married her wife, activist Christine
Marinoni in 2012, and in 2018, she ran for Governor of New York,
losing to Andrew Cuomo. She’s said since that she knew her chances of
winning were small, and that she has no regrets about running.
Although Nixon’s sexuality has been given many labels, she recently
clarified that she identifies as queer. “I could call myself a lesbian, gay,
bisexual. But none of them seems really particularly right,” she muses >
 Cynthia Nixon

“I could call myself a

lesbian, gay, bisexual,
but none of them seems
particularly right”
 “Falling in love with my wife was one of the
great delights and surprises of my life”

66 OCTOBER 2020

now. “To say ‘queer’ means, I’m over there, I don’t have to go into the
nuances of my sexuality with you. Falling in love with my wife was one
of the great delights and surprises of my life, but it didn’t seem like
I became a whole new person, or like some door had been unlocked.
It was like: ‘I have fallen in love with different people in my life and
they’ve all been men before. Now, this is a woman and she is amazing.’
So I feel like ‘queer’ is an umbrella term, and it includes my formerly
straight self, too.”
Over lockdown, Nixon has been isolating with her wife as well as
her kids, who she tells me have had a harder time than she has, due to
their missing school, prom, and friends. Her eldest child, Samuel, who
is in his early twenties, identifies as transgender, one of the reasons
that she was, when back in New York, attending protests, including
the Queer Liberation March in June as well as the Black Lives Matter
protests. “I feel like there are certain issues that the right wing seizes
on again and again. They won’t let go of abortion. They seem to have
let go of a lot of the anti-gay rhetoric and anti-
gay actions, but as they have sort of accepted
gayness, they have focused on trans people, and
on immigrants and on people of colour.”
In the face of such division, she believes the
LGBTQ+ community needs to be unified. “It’s a
really peculiar thing, how much they [the right]
try to separate us as a community. But [after
same-sex marriage was legalised] we saw a great
divide in our own community, too, between
those who thought, I got my wedding ring, I can
pass my money on to my spouse and not pay
taxes, so I’m good, I’m done, as opposed to, we
have so far to go for so many members of our community, we are still
so far from the promised land, we’re so far from having our full civil
rights. Trans people are a case in point, but also young, queer people of
whatever stripe who are still, were being, tossed out of their homes and
are living on the streets, many engaging in sex work to survive.”
As Nixon is so articulate on the subject of identity politics, and
representation, I ask her how she feels about the idea that Sex and
the City has not aged well. The show has rightly been criticised for its
handling of lesbianism, trans people, and race. “I haven’t of course
seen it in a while,” Nixon responds, “but, I mean, I think at the time
we were making it, I always felt like it was incredibly white and it was
incredibly privileged. So that was true at that time, too, it’s just that we
have a little more awareness now of the disjunct of that. But I think
it’s very well done. It’s very well written, and every episode is so dense.
I think that’s one of the reasons people like to watch it over and over.
There are so many subtleties that it bears repeated viewing because
you do still find new things in it.”
If the show were to be remade today, should Miranda be different?
“No – I mean, I think these three women who are not Carrie are very
much archetypes,” she answers diplomatically. “We used to say that
they were Hera, Aphrodite and Athena. We used to think of them
as three aspects of Carrie, and when she needed help with a brain
INSTAGRAM
problem, she went to Miranda; a sex problem, Samantha; and a love
problem, Charlotte. So, I think it’s configured exactly the way it should
Cynthia Nixon
be configured and if you made it today, I think it would still be that
way. The thing about Carrie is that she contains those three archetypes
within her.”
In the near future, Nixon will likely return to our screens as
Gwendolyn, given that Ratched has already been greenlit for a second
season. She is also set to appear in a show called The Gilded Age.
Developed by Downton Abbey creator Julian Fellowes, and following the
lives of wealthy New Yorkers in the 1880s, the show is due to air on HBO
in 2021. Nixon acknowledges that while it might be strange promoting
all of this work over Zoom, she’s very aware that she’s been luckier than
most during 2020. “We’re lucky that we have money in the bank and
that we have a place to go, outdoor space and stuff. Still, it’s lonely. And
there’s the uncertainty of it – watching our country teeter in such a
terrifying way.”
With that in mind, as we come to the end of our call, I ask Nixon
how she is feeling about the impending US election. “I’m obviously
very disappointed that Bernie is not the candidate,” she explains (she
backed Hillary Clinton in 2016, but Bernie Sanders as Democratic
candidate this time around). “I think he would have trumped Trump
and I think he would have provided the change that we need so
desperately in this country on so many fronts.” Now she is “of course”
supporting Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, she says, because “we can’t get
rid of Trump soon enough.”
Will that happen? “I’m hopeful and I’m
scared, like so many people. I’m scared that
people won’t turn out in big enough numbers.
I’m scared that Trump will do something
to try and steal the election, like, you know,
gutting the post office – all of these things
that he’s doing.”
Going to Black Lives Matter protests gave
WATCH WITH her a sense of hope, she reflects. “One of
MOTHER: At the
theatre with Max, her the few good things that has come out of
youngest son
the pandemic is our country’s sudden and
overdue focusing on racial injustice and
inequality and how many people have turned out in big cities and in
small towns, white people and people of all ages. We’ve never had a
mobilisation of Americans on this level before on any issue. This white
supremacy, as personified by Trump – although I can’t quite believe
how prevalent it is and am staggered how many white people in this
country feel they are getting the short end of the stick – I do feel like
that way of thinking is on the way out. But it is a mighty beast that is
hard to vanquish.”
One way to help vanquish it, she concludes, is to vote. “I’m really
hopeful that we will all turn out in November, because we have to. We
have to for our country and we have to for our planet.”
Ratched airs on Netflix on 18 September
OCTOBER 2020 67
LET IT S
Bright Light Bright Light, aka Rod Thomas,
explains why his new album is a love letter
to the LGBTQ+ community
Words Thomas Stichbury
mosquito darts into view and Rod Thomas, aka the
magnificently moustachioed front-person of one-
man band Bright Light Bright Light, isn’t happy.
“Eurgh, is that a fucking mosquito? Oh my God,
2020 is not the one,” he exclaims.
In his attempt to swat the pesky
bloodsucker, Rod accidentally knocks the
lid of his laptop, causing the camera to
zoom in squarely on his crotch. “Oh,
sorry,” he chuckles, while shifting the
camera back to his face. “I mean, it is Attitude, I suppose…”
Growing up in a small town in the Welsh valleys, 37-year-old
Rod relocated from London to New York seven years ago and he
continues to shine as, well, a bright light on the LGBTQ+ music scene.
Having already toured and recorded with idols Sir Elton John,
Scissor Sisters and Erasure, the singer-songwriter scored a new high
last year when he hit the road with superstar Cher (he still can’t,
ahem, Believe his luck.)
Next up for Rod is the release of his fourth album, Fun City –
featuring collaborations with Jake Shears, alongside a constellation
of rising queer stars – a pop-electro tour de force dedicated to the
LGBTQ+ experience, from the loves to the heart-piercing losses.
While bonding over our mutual appreciation of Michelle Pfeiffer’s
Catwoman in 1992’s Batman Returns (greatest film performance ever,
period), Rod reveals there is a track on the record inspired by our
favourite kitty girl.
“I don’t know if you clocked it, but You Make It So Easy, Don’t You is
the line she says when she meets the woman in the alley,” he smiles.
“She is the ultimate gay icon.”
Litter-ally couldn’t agree more.
68 OCTOBER 2020
So, what prompted you to move to New York?
I moved there for three months to see how it was and it was just
amazing. I was living with Del [Marquis] from Scissor Sisters and
met all these people that were doing such different types of music
to what I was used to and it was inspiring. In London, you’ve got
the pop factories and writing teams and, at the time, they were all
working on Marina and the Diamonds, Ellie Goulding and Sunday
Girl, female-focused, really cool, but quite similar pop sounds,
which I was also making myself. I thought it would be a good
experiment to try something else and ended up staying.
What is the most New York thing that has happened to you?
Last Easter, me and my friend were going to buy a bottle of rosé
in the West Village because we’re just fags [laughs]. We were
choosing some wine and being a bit silly and flirting with the
person behind the desk, then we turned around and Glenn Close
is behind us in the line, “Oh my God!”. You kinda see [famous]
people all the time, you know, I walked past Alicia Silverstone
while I was buying a cauliflower.
As if!
[Laughs] I saw this gorgeous woman smile at me and was like,
wow, it’s Alicia Silverstone, what are you doing on my shitty block?!
During our recent Pride at Home event, you performed a cover of
George Michael’s Spinning the Wheel – thanks again for that. Is he
one of your idols?
He’s actually, I think, the only music idol that I never got to meet…
He was also a role model because of the Outside music video.
Coming back from that police incident is the coolest comeback
I’ve ever seen a human being do, taking something that was
a negative and turning it into a celebratory cultural moment.
Absolute icon. >
BRIGHT LIGHT BRIGHT LIGHT

OCTOBER 2020 69
Your new album, Fun City, is out this month
[September]. What story were you looking to
tell with the record?
I wanted to make a record that had a
purpose, like, a soul behind it. I didn’t
want to just make a pop record because I
am socially conscious, and I am aware that
there is a lot that artists can do.
When we [myself and my queer dancers]
were on tour with Cher last year, there
was a moment on stage where I got really
tongue-tied and just blurted out, “As you
can see, we’re really gay” – because it was
three men wearing sequins. The whole
arena erupted with applause, it was crazy, I
didn’t expect it at all. That night, I got tons
of DMs and tags from lots of queer kids
that were at the show being like, “Thank
you for that, people don’t normally do that
in that big a public space in our country.”
That’s when I decided that the new album
was going to be for and about the LGBTQ+
community and experience.
It is about how queer people through
history have had to find ways to laugh,
celebrate themselves, stay strong, stay
creative and grow against the hurdles that
life has put up for them, whether that is
fighting for rights, or having rights taken
away. People like Sylvester, Bronski Beat,
George Michael and Hercules and Love
Affair; numerous artists have shown us
the power of music against adversity.
Disco [for example] comes from dancing
through pain. I wanted that to be the
backbone of the record, to do something
showing the joy and pain and struggle
and success of the community.
I’d argue that music is more of a tonic for
LGBTQ+ people than other sections of society.
I mean, the relationship between the gays and
their chosen pop diva is second to none!
I don’t know a gay person, say 28-plus,
who didn’t run out every week and buy CD
singles and go and look for their favourite
pop artist, whether that was Gina G or Björk.
I would buy those two in the same hand.
Everybody had that experience of looking
to music for joy, for distraction, for some
kind of escape from whatever they were
scared about at school, whether that was
queer bullying or not having friends, or
just seeing a world that was so much more
colourful than what you were surrounded
by. A lot of people grew up in towns or
villages that were quite grey in terms of
how they were built and populated with
70 OCTOBER 2020
cultural events, so they really did use pop
music as a way to connect with the world
in a way they weren’t allowed to do on a
day-to-day basis.
Speaking of pop music, what was it like to go
on tour with the legendary Cher? Did you have
much interaction with her?
We did meet her and she was lovely, but
she’s been doing this for so long and the
reality is with people of that level, they’re
not in the venue all day, they come in for
rehearsal, they do a show and then they
go home. So yeah, the time with Cher was
short, but she was really sweet, and it
was amazing to even be able to get to say
thanks or whatever.
“THE LGBTQ+
COMMUNITY IS A
VAST UMBRELLA;
EVERYONE IS
DIFFERENT, AND
TRYING TO WORK
OUT WHERE YOU
BELONG IS HARD”
You’ve also hit the road with Sir Elton, Scissor
Sisters and Erasure. Do you have a favourite
behind-the-scenes moment?
When I was on tour with Elton, we used
to go record-shopping for each other. I’d
be in a store and email him: Do you have
this George Michael record? I bought him
Faith on vinyl. Then he’d be in a store
and be like, Do you have this Phil Spector
Christmas record? We’d do little scavenger
hunts for each other, which was awesome.
With Erasure, I went into their dressing
room afterwards to say hi, and Vince was
just making Andy a piece of toast. [Vince
said] “Do you want a piece of toast, mate?”
and I was like, “I’m good, thanks.” The most
fun things for me are when you get to see
how fabulously normal everyone is, just
getting joy from having a piece of toast or
buying a record.
Exactly, it’s the appreciably banal details. Like
imaginegoingontourwithBeyoncéandhearing
that she’s struggling with an ingrowing toenail.
[Laughs] Everyone poops, everyone pays
the bills, it just gets lost behind the
stadium performances and the million-
dollar videos.
As you mentioned earlier, the album pays
homage to the LGBTQ+ community and our
rise against adversity. Is there anything in
particular you feel you’ve had to overcome?
Feeling like I belonged within the gay
community I think has been a bit of a
struggle. The LGBTQ+ community is such
a vast umbrella; everyone is so different,
and trying to work out where you belong
within that is hard, because it kind of
presumes that everybody queer gets on
with each other, which they don’t, and that
everyone is alike, which they’re not.
I’m one of these people that loves
nightlife and dancing and making music,
but I also don’t do drugs and I don’t go
to a place that a lot of people do, and at
some points nightlife was very drug-
heavy. People, often in London, called
me “boring” on more than one occasion
— on more than 10 occasions, probably.
I would be DJing and I was looked at as
the boring DJ, and it was really crushing.
I felt like even at some of my own DJ sets
at nights I was performing at, I wasn’t
deemed “cool enough”.
There is body-shaming as well. I felt a
lot of time that I’m not body-appropriate
for people in these spaces. I don’t go to the
gym in a way that a lot of people do, and I
know I am invisible to a huge section of
the LGBTQ+ community… It doesn’t matter
because those people don’t matter, but I
found that a huge struggle, feeling invisible
or not welcomed in queer spaces, even more
heart-breaking than not being welcome in
heterosexual spaces, because these spaces
are there for everybody that needs them.
That’s another reason why I wanted
to make this album queer-focused. The
message is: you should all be welcome
in the place you choose as your home or
your safe space, everybody deserves to
be welcome there and everybody needs
to check themselves to make sure that
they’re not being exclusionary.
Tell us more about your YSKWN! initiative,
which is all about lifting up queer artists.
I thought I’d set up a new label and use it as
a community-led thing where I give more
visibility to and amplify voices of queer
creators, businesses, and organisations. So,
while I don’t have the money to fund other >
BRIGHT LIGHT BRIGHT LIGHT

OCTOBER 2020 71
72 OCTOBER 2020

artists, I am trying to help them find a slightly bigger audience by
including them on a song or commissioning a remix, or by sharing
a fundraiser that people are doing, or shouting about the work
people are making — just trying to engage conversation, really.
It’s like you’re paying it forward.
If you’ve got a platform where you can do that, why would you not?
Elton does that with sharing other people’s work.
We are seeing more and more queer musicians stepping into the
spotlight. Was your sexuality ever an issue? Were you ever encouraged
not to be so ‘out’?
I don’t know if I would say I was encouraged not to, but I definitely
felt nervous about being open about it when I first started making
music, more so when I was releasing under my own name because
it was all so personal. But as soon as I started with the Bright Light
Bright Light moniker, I felt liberated in terms of being openly gay,
and over the past few years, I’ve been much more confident about
doing whatever I want to do and not really
caring about how that reads — if it’s too
gay or not gay enough, or whatever.
OK, let’s deep-dive into a few of your songs,
starting off with Sensation, your collaboration “WITHIN THE GAY
with pal Jake Shears. I imagine that was a
whole lot of fun?
EXPERIENCE,
He is one of my biggest inspirations. THERE IS ALWAYS A
When I was at Warwick University and GOODBYE, ALWAYS
had a radio show every week, I remember A LOSS, ALWAYS
finding Laura was on the playlist and
being like, who is this band, this is so
THIS WORRY THAT
amazing. Then watching them take over WE’RE NOT GOING
the British charts was life-changing, TO MAKE IT”
seeing at that point in time that a queer
band could have a number-one album, the
biggest-selling album of the year, without
having to tone themselves down. I think
that changed the world for a lot of queer musicians and it made a
little gay boy from the Valley feel like there was hope in the music
industry. Having Jake on the record is really important to me and
having him on a song about finding your people and realising that
there’s joy in the world, it had to be him because he did give me that
jump-start moment in real life as well. He is just a hilarious, lovely
man. Obviously, he is a crazy sexual deviant and [has a] bonkers
music pop-world persona, but he really is also the sweetest guy and
we geek out about horror movies. Every side of him is a joy.
Moving onto Good at Goodbyes, featuring Erasure’s Andy Bell, which is
about not being able to get over somebody. Am I right or wrong?
My mood board for the song was 1989’s Shirley Valentine, on a beach,
drunk on one or two more Cosmos than you should have had, and
you’re reminiscing about a lover who you know is really bad for you
and you need to get them out of your life, but you just can’t fucking
be bothered because you really love them and the sex was good, and
you still have that gorgeous nostalgia about your time together.
There are some people in your life you don’t quite want to close the
door on.
Are you seeing someone at the moment? Is the song autobiographical?
It’s not, no. I was trying to think about the different sides of the gay
experience, and part of my experience of gay life was delusion, over-
romanticising things…
BRIGHT LIGHT BRIGHT LIGHT
This Was My House is inspired by a friend whose parents had voted
for Donald Trump. Since Trump came to power, he has made it his
mission to roll back Obama-era LGBTQ+ policies, particularly against
trans people. Have you noticed a change in attitudes towards the
LGBTQ+ community?
New York is a bit different, but even here I do feel like the rolling
back of rights and [the] rise of anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric is palpable.
The most dangerous thing he is doing is enabling hate speech
and hate crimes. The broad message he is giving the country is:
fuck queer people, they don’t deserve to be seen as equal and they
don’t deserve protection. Black trans women and trans women
of colour, Latin women, are killed at such a disgusting rate and
nobody is doing anything about it. I don’t understand, other than
sheer spite, what this fucking man feels the need to do that for.
It really is being spiteful because he can and because he is rich
enough to do it, and to make people angry so that they still vote
for him. He is just doing it to make people
angry so that they will go up against liberal
voting. It is so disgusting.
Trump’s language and fucking Boris
Johnson and Michael Gove. Why do you want
your country to be so full of hatred? What is
the point? It is so shameful… I want them gone,
like Michael Gove needs to fall down a cliff, I
fucking hate that man so much, and I hate
Boris and his posh, homophobic bullshit. The
most depressing thing is you see the school
bullies in positions of power still having
locker-room jeers at people. How dare you?
How dare we be fed this myth that as soon
as we leave school and get our qualifications,
we’re free from the school bullies. We’re
fucking not, they’re everywhere and they’re
running the country.
The closing track, Saying Goodbye is Exhausting, attempts to process
the suicide of a friend. I was just listening to it on repeat while sat in a
café and it really got me, especially the lyric, ‘Over the hill, there’s a place
where none of this happened, over the bridge, you’re still looking up at the
sky.’ If it’s not too difficult, what made you want to address your friend’s
death in a song?
I’m gonna cry when I say this, [but] I don’t mind talking about it
at all, I’m just very emotional at the moment… It’s about losing
a friend who died way too young and trying to process that, but
also linking it back to how, within the gay experience, there is
always a goodbye, always a loss, always this worry that we’re not
going to make it, you know, the life expectancy of trans people,
the life expectancy of gay men and women across the world… I
just thought it was an important thing to include. I wasn’t going
to, because it was a bit too personal, but I hate the fact that there
is such a sense of loss, especially with the Aids crisis and how an
entire generation was just wiped off the face of the earth… The
song is about how in spite of everything we do to stay afloat, in
spite of everything we do to stay creative, you are still going to lose
people you care about, you are still going to lose more than the
heterosexual world does.
Bright Light Bright Light’s album Fun City is out on 18 September
OCTOBER 2020 73

Ross Fretten
uring lockdown, I got a puppy.
D
And as much fun as having little
Freddie in my life is, he comes
with a lot of responsibility. One
of the first jobs was finding pet insurance,
and after hours of research, I signed up with
Waggel, a new pet-only insurer. In June, I
received my first newsletter from them, which
celebrated Pride month with a very personal
story by co-founder and former The Apprentice
contestant, Ross Fretten. The letter spoke of
his LGBTQ journey and how his dog helped
with his depression and anxiety. Without even
knowing it, I had been supporting an LGBTQ-
owned business, so I called up Ross to chat
about why he created Waggel and his plans to
revolutionise the insurance industry.
How is Waggel different from other pet
insurers?
Insurance has this image of being, typically,
old, ex-banker types sitting around hedging
bets on medical bills. At Waggel, we have a very
different approach. As pet owners ourselves,
we wanted to create a better experience
for other pet owners. Neither I nor [my
co-founder] Andrew come from insurance
backgrounds. Our ambition for Waggel is
purely about creating a better experience for
our customers, and insurance is one of the
key criteria for doing that. Removing that
anxiety around medical bills and being able
to care for your pet is really important.
Waggel, ultimately, is all about the
aspirational side of pet ownership — we’re
trying to make it easier and more joyful for
young people to own a dog. There’s no other
insurer that caters for millennials; none of
them caters for people to take their dogs to
work in London. Other insurers can be run
by people who don’t understand technology
or what being digital means. They don’t
understand the core philosophy of being
user-centred or customer-centric, and building
features and products around what customers
actually want and what their natural
behaviours are, rather than trying to bend
customers to your whim as a service provider.
How do you appeal to millennials?
Millennials like me have very different
expectations from brands we interact with
74 OCTOBER 2020
BUSINESS PROFILE
Co-Founder of Waggel
Words Markus Bidaux
Photography Julian Victoria
and products that we buy and use compared
to previous generations. Typically, we crave
authenticity, sincerity and communication.
When we are buying products, we expect the
process to be very transparent so that we can
fully understand what we’ve bought, how it
works and how we can get the most value
from it.
In insurance, the terminology is all very
jargon-heavy and confusing, which is partly
by design and partly through a lack of care.
As a result, you end up with what I call a
‘grudge purchase’ — pet owners know that
they need it, but they don’t understand why
or how. Older generations are a little bit
more willing to put up with that, whereas we
millennials simply aren’t, we are a lot more
selective, and rightly so, about where we
spend our money.
At Waggel, we are trying to be as
transparent as possible. We strive to offer
“We started Waggel
because we wanted to
rip apart the insurance
industry and redefine it”
succinct and clear documentation for our
members, so they can really understand the
key bullet points: here’s what you’re covered
for and here’s what you’re not. There are no
‘gotcha clauses’, as I call them.
It also comes down to how you interact
with your customers, so your typical
55-year-old baby boomer with a dog expects
to call their insurance company and have
this horrible fight. It’s like extracting teeth
trying to get a claim paid, but we’d much
rather interact with our customers for our
mutual interest. We want to pay claims and
we want to make it easy for our customers to
understand how to make a claim, rather than
having these horrible conflict moments when
their claims are not getting paid out. Our
whole website is built around the concept of
simplicity and transparent communication.
I know it sounds really silly and simple to
say that, because you’d think these would be
the priorities of every insurer in the world,
but unfortunately that’s not the case. If
another insurer was doing that and they
were catering for the needs and requirements
of millennials, then we wouldn’t have even
started Waggel. We’ve done it because we
wanted to rip apart the insurance industry
and redefine it for our generation.
I really did not want to test your services so
early in my pup’s life, but I recently had to
make a claim on Waggel and it would only
let me insert a sentence on my dog’s case and
then the rest was to be dealt with between
Waggel and my vet.
Why should you have to do more? I
remember [making a claim] with a premium
market leader and having to put down
medical jargon that I didn’t even come close
to understanding or knowing whether it was
related to a previous condition I had claimed
for. There’s so much onus on the customer
to become a pseudo vet and then, if they
do get it wrong, the insurance companies
[have the opportunity to screw you over]. So,
per your experience, why? You’re not a vet,
and we really only ask for a sentence just to
[keep things in order] if you have multiple
claims. We want to make it as quick and easy
as possible for you: let us know you have a
claim and let us deal with the rest. That is
how all insurance should work.
What are the advantages of insuring your pet
with Waggel?
Waggel is as much about lifestyle as
insurance, for example, members get free
access to FirstVet, [an app allowing you to
video-call a vet, so you can avoid the vet’s
clinic when possible] and we have a behaviour
specialist on our platform, too. Health-
focused millennials are caring for their dog in
a more holistic way than the baby boomers. If
they have any concerns about their pet, rather
than going to a vet, which they wouldn’t
typically do for a behavioural issue, they can
log on to their Waggel member’s area and have
a free Zoom call with our in-house behaviour
specialist. So, they’re not just paying for
insurance with us; instead, we are providing
them with a more holistic service. Our
behaviour specialist has helped hundreds of
our customers already with everything from
separation anxiety to pet boredom because of >
 BUSINESS

CV
2017
Co-founder and chief product officer for Waggel

2017
Co-founder and CEO of Kibble - dog training
and wellness

2017
Head of product design for Carwow

2017
Appeared as a contestant on BBC’s The
Apprentice

2012
Worked for marketing and advertising firm
Ogilvy as a user experience architect and
product director

2012
Managed the athletes and press in the press
zone for the London Olympics

2011
Specialist mobile genius for Apple retail

2010
Consultant for Ravensbourne University’s
digital strategy and website

2006
Freelanced as a full-stack developer

2006
Content creator for MTV UK
BUSINESS
lockdown and showing how people can keep
their dogs happier when they’re confined to
the house together. On top of that, there are
the more aspirational lifestyle things we offer,
such as big discounts with our hand-selected
premium pet partners, and we support
our members with personalised advice
tailored to them and their pet to help with
PUPPYGEDDON, as we call it.
Your office must be full of dogs. How do you
provide a dog-friendly work environment?
We didn’t really take any formal steps to do so,
but what I do say to people is, “It’s not a free-
for-all.” If people work for us and they have
a dog, it’s not a case of, “You can bring it in
without question,” we expect them to behave
like Sailor, my dog — meaning, if they’re
disruptive or aggressive, they’re not welcome
to come back the next day, but we’ve never
had a single issue. Again, it goes back to that
holistic approach towards dog ownership —
all of our dogs get good food and training,
and they’ll take some proper exercise before
they come into the office.
What did you do prior to Waggel?
I was headhunted from university by
[advertising and PR company] Ogilvy. I was
there for five years as a user experience
architect, so my role was understanding
the wants and needs of customers and
ideating concepts for products that would
address those. I also worked client-side
with several companies, helping them with
innovation works. I was working on digital
transformation projects and showing how to
set up effective teams that could churn out
innovative products rather than just boring,
business-as-usual crap. I’d worked in the pet
industry with several clients and then I got
my dog and experienced it first-hand. I was
convinced I could disrupt the pet space and
make it better for people like me. I came up
with Kibble, the dog-training and wellness
platform, which I pitched on The Apprentice.
What did you take away from your experience
on the 2017 series of BBC’s The Apprentice?
The biggest takeaway from that is how
much business has gone forward. I truly
do believe that business used to be like it
is on The Apprentice — it’s about wheeler
dealer, haggling, old, old, old business. The
mentalities that go into it and blame culture
is all very toxic, and in tech it’s the antithesis
of that, I find. I said to the producers: “There’s
no way I’d ever accept the offer on the table
of £250,000 for half my business.” It’s a shit
offer that would never have helped me grow
and scale the business I wanted. I went on it
mainly just for publicity for Kibble.
What happened to your dog-training app,
Kibble?
When I was fundraising for Kibble, I met
Andrew Leal, who was looking at pet
76 OCTOBER 2020
PET RESCUE: Ross
credits his dog,
Sailor, for improving
his mental health
insurance. We thought, let’s put the two
together as pet insurance with a lifestyle
membership, and here we are.
What do you wish you had known before you
launched Waggel?
What I share with young entrepreneurs is
to be confident in what you need, how you
need it, what the trajectory looks like, what
the roadmap looks like, and so on. Just
don’t compromise — I think there’s a lot of
investors out there who see that as a strength,
rather than stubborn immaturity. I wish I
had known that when I was younger. I mean,
“I had a 20-year battle
with mental health, and
getting a dog was the
biggest turning point”
generally speaking, it’s gone pretty well, so
there is nothing I look back on with regret or
that I would have done differently. But some
extra confidence in the early years would
have helped massively. We all struggle with
imposter syndrome, after all — the important
part is to know that we all do. Those of us that
thrive simply overcome it or persevere in the
face of it.
During Pride month, you sent a Waggel
newsletter which included a piece by
you about being gay. Clearly, this was not
tokenism or a yearly rainbow wash. Why
did you decide to make your waving of the
rainbow flag with Waggel so personal?
Waggel is a personal thing for me and it
wouldn’t exist if I hadn’t had the experiences
that I did as a LGBTQ youth. Ultimately, it
was those experiences that I think launched
me into a very long, 20-year battle with
severe mental health issues at times. It was
getting a dog that was absolutely the biggest
turning point for me in that battle — I’d
never ever have been able to get on top of
it until I got a dog and it slowly removed a
lot of that loneliness and anxiety that I had.
LGBTQ youth over-index massively when it
comes to mental health issues, and there’s
plenty of science to show that dogs can
often massively reduce the symptoms. If I
can make dogs more accessible to people
that otherwise couldn’t have them by
helping them feel more equipped to have
and take care of a dog properly — which
is a big deterrent for dog-owning — and
through that helping them achieve a better
quality of life and be happier and healthier
mentally, then I’d feel like I had contributed
something significant and meaningful to
the world that I can be proud of.
What is next for Waggel?
In Q4 this year, we’re launching some initiatives
that are going to help humans achieve a
better quality of life with their pet. We’re
going to tackle issues such as mental health,
productivity, masculinity — all rich topics that
millennials are very curious about right now.
There’s so much science that shows all the
positive impacts that a dog can have on one’s
mental health, particularly with problems
like depression and anxiety, and that having
a dog in an office can improve productivity
and creativity. Some of the content will be in
collaboration with household names and we
will supplement that with the experiences of
our Waggel staff and member submissions.
Hopefully, what we can also help our
members do is grow as people and self-
actualize through their dogs by giving
them this really rich, beautiful, gorgeous
content that educates, inspires and gives
them actionable steps that they can take to
ultimately become a more fulfilled person.
waggel.co.uk
Get married with a difference
Add a meaningful touch to your wedding day by raising money
for Cancer Research UK and help bring forward the day when
all cancers are cured.

Wedding favours with a difference

A unique way to thank your guests, whilst donating to
Cancer Research UK. Impress your guests with our exclusive
collection of pin badges, tie pins and more.
Ask for donations instead of gifts
Set up a fundraising page so your guests can easily donate
and help support vital cancer research.

Visit cruk.org/weddings Together we will beat cancer

Cancer Research UK is a registered charity in England and Wales (1089464), Scotland (SC041666), the Isle of Man (1103) and Jersey (247).
©Cancer Research UK 2020.
BUSINESS
OF
THE
BEST...
Paw-fect Pooch
Products
Man’s best friend deserves only
the finest, so here are three
of the best LGBTQ-owned
businesses that will help you
pamper your pooch
Words Markus Bidaux
OFF THE
LEASH
Holler, Brighton’s
contemporary pup boutique,
was launched in 2019 by partners Cian
and Ryan. They sell their own in-house-
designed collars, harnesses and leads
as well as other premium brands such
as cosy beds from Danish company
Tadazhi, quirky, fair-trade, crochet toys
designed by Ware of the Dog in New York
City, and gorgeous leather gear (for the
dog!) by London’s Vackertass.
“Holler enjoyed a flying start. Nothing
prepared us for such an amazing
reaction,” says Cian. “We were able to
launch our online store earlier because
of it and we are already expanding
Holler’s range to include winter wear
and beds for this coming season.”
holler.store
78 OCTOBER 2020
proper food for pets.
“Being a successful
entrepreneur who is
lesbian feels very rare,”
admits Henrietta, “Being
from a minority group
really means bringing
CHOW HOUND something unique to the conversation
When Henrietta Morrison’s beloved or project — more and more employers
terrier Lily fell ill and was suffering and investors are seeing the commercial
from sore, itchy skin, she knew she benefit of this, which is the trigger that
had to change what Lily was eating. will push things forward. It was so much
Unable to find the right food on fun when Lily’s Kitchen had a float at
the shelves, Henrietta started London Pride last year — there was such
cooking Lily homemade meals using a family feel, which was very uplifting. I
vegetables from her own garden love it when brands use their position to
until she returned to health. Inspired make a difference.”
to do more, she worked with vets
and nutritionists to create nutritious, lilyskitchen.co.uk
TOP DOG
Dog behaviour expert Leon Towers, who
starred in Channel 4 shows Embarrassing
Pets and My Gay Dog and Other Animals,
provides dog training to the masses,
including virtual house calls.
“A lot of people don’t take mental health
in dogs seriously, but it is very real and
they do suffer from depression,” Leon
explains. “I use a holistic approach, where
I look at their mental stimulation, diet
and environment. You need to look at all
three and they all need to be fixed, but I
am here to help.”
leontowers.co.uk
Going viral
p84

THE WORLD IN FOCUS

83 Just The Ticket 84 Going Viral 92 Hot Hotel: Fritton Lake

OCTOBER 2020 81
 v

MAMA KNOWS BEST

Forget the staycation, quirky design
hotel Mama London’s sex-cation sounds
far more titillating. Ignite the passion
with a two-night stay that includes
bubbles for two upon arrival, a “Sexy
Mama” box of come-hither goodies, a
£30 credit to be spent in the restaurant
or bar (or in your room *wink*) and
breakfast to refuel you for one more
quickie, because you also get a late
check-out. At £198,
when using the
promo code
“SEXY”, this
deal’s a steal
— your mama
didn’t raise no
dummy.

mamashelter.com

Just the
TICKET
MINOTAURE CARESSANT UNE DORMEUSE, PABLO PICASSO, 1933, DRYPOINT, 29.9 X 36.5CM

Words Markus Bidaux

London has never had

so few tourists, so now
is the ideal time to
explore the capital

A WORD IN YOUR EAR

The Vidi Guides app is the perfect tool for
ARTIST IN RESIDENCE exploring London on foot. Designed like podcasts,
Picasso’s works are the pride of art collections these audio-guided walking tours feature
around the world and now the Atelier Picasso historians, art gallery owners
exhibition will recreate his Cannes studio at and world-famous architects
BASTIAN gallery in London’s Mayfair. The space to enhance the experience,
will be filled with the prolific artist’s furniture, taking you to top sights as well
sculptures, ceramics, drawings and prints to as off-the-beaten-track gems.
give visitors an immersive experience. The show The app also includes guides for
includes a rare, complete set of 20 of the Visage Plate Cambridge, Oxford and Paris, with
series from 1963, painted with Picasso’s signature more destinations to come. The
abstract faces, alongside lithographs and linocut London pack of ten 40-60-minute
posters highlighting his quirky linework, as well as tours is available for £15 on iOS
his masterpiece, Minotaure caressant une dormeuse and Android.
(pictured above). The exhibition is open until the
end of October, admission is free. vidiguides.com

bastian-gallery.com

OCTOBER 2020 83
Going
viral
COVID-19 is a bitch, but
virus or not, the travel
industry is doing its
best to provide safer
holidays, and some gay
travellers are not letting
Miss Corona stop them,
as we discovered
Words Coen Wulms
Travel

S itges, Mykonos, Gran Canaria…
These have been the top gay holiday
destinations since forever. But how are
they coping in the face of the coronavirus,
which doesn’t appear to be relinquishing its
grip any time soon?
It seems you can get used to COVID
restrictions, to an extent. Holiday companies
and destinations have incorporated
protective measures which are now provided
as standard. But there’s no escaping that the
coronavirus is changing if, how and where
we travel. We explored how Miss Corona is
affecting our queer holiday hotspots as well
as other pink-tinted destinations.
For the traditional favourites, there’s
hope on the horizon. “A survey among
gay holidaymakers revealed that more
than 46 per cent are planning to visit the
same destinations as they did prior to the
coronavirus crisis,” says John Tanzella, head
of IGLTA – the world’s largest umbrella
organisation of gay-friendly travel companies.
“There is a remarkable sense of customer
loyalty, in other words. That’s good news for
travel destinations that traditionally rely
on visitors from the LGBTQ community. On
the other hand, it’s also logical, because if
restrictions are lifted at a later stage, then
many gays will want to go to areas that are
also frequented by a lot of other gays.”
Someone who is less convinced about
customer loyalty is Juan Julia, director of Axel
Hotels, the Spanish chain that caters for the
LGBTQ community. As well as Spain, it also has
hotels in Miami and Berlin. “The world has
Home or away
Where did the British LGBTQ community travel in July compared to last year?
“Our figures show that in July of this year,
there were 52 per cent fewer bookings
made by British holidaymakers on our
site than the previous year,” says Marc
Dedonder from misterb&b, which offers
a million gay-friendly stays in more than
200 countries. “Domestic bookings jumped
from 27 per cent in July 2019 to 44 per
cent this July. In 2019, most of the trips
were to the UK (27%), Spain (23%) and
USA (8%). This year, UK is still top (44%),
France came second (20%) and the third
was Spain (11%). UK LGBTQ travellers seem
to able to adapt to the health situation but
86 OCTOBER 2020
DESERTED: The
coronavirus has had
a devastating effect
on travel resorts
around the world
undergone such a re-shuffle that travellers
may well stay away from those major cities
hardest hit by the coronavirus, or areas where
many people congregate,” says Juan.
Travel is part of the gay lifestyle, but the
apprehension around taking a holiday
overseas is considerable. Not just because of
the health risks involved, but also because of
travellers’ fear of getting trapped in a second
lockdown while they are abroad.
There’s no doubt that in order to get
people holidaying normally again, the
arrival of a vaccine is absolutely essential.
Marc Dedonder is the co-owner of misterb&b,
a website offering gay-friendly private
“The urge for sex is
stronger than the fear
of COVID-19”
houses and apartments, but also hotel
accommodation. “A recent survey among
the users of our services revealed that
the availability of a vaccine is indeed the
overriding factor for people to start travelling
extensively once again. I have every faith that
they will have developed something by May
next year.”
Juan Julia is also hoping for the swift
introduction of a vaccine – which he thinks
could happen as soon as the next few
months. “Then the situation will improve
very quickly — for the entire world of course
— but therefore also for the travel industry.
I think we will be back to the old levels in
about a year.” >
remain eager to connect with other LGBTQ
hosts. In July 2020, they still favour private
rooms at a host’s place (65% vs. 78% in
2019), but bookings for entire places, where
they have the property just for themselves,
grew from 14 per cent in 2019 to 23 per
cent, and hotel rooms grew from almost
non-existent to 8 per cent. On the flip side,
we have seen a 61 per cent drop in travel
to the UK for July year on year. In 2019, the
nationalities of travellers booking in the UK
on misterb&b were UK (29%), USA (20%)
and France (8%), while in 2020, it’s UK
(84%), USA (4%) and Ireland (3%).
 v

OCTOBER 2020 87
 FANTASY ISLAND:
Tourists arriving
in and departing
Mykonos pre-
COVID-19
The flip side of the COVID coin is that there
are bargains to be had for those still happy to
travel, as Uwern Jong of gay travel magazine
OutThere reveals: “Hotel prices have dropped
significantly in certain destinations, and there
are some great deals on offer, such as a three-
night stay for the price of two. Many of the
restaurants have also amended their prices. In
some locations, such as Mykonos, that really
makes a difference. Also, there’s no need to
make a reservation, and you aren’t packed like
sardines any more while walking through
the narrow historical streets. There are huge
amounts of fantastic offers as well. This is the
perfect time to fly to Iceland, for instance!”
SPAIN
Sitges
In normal times, people from all over the
planet would be shuffling through the streets
of this Spanish gay hotspot, but today, it’s
predominantly the Spanish and French
visiting, most of whom have travelled by car.
The hospitality sector has opened for
88 OCTOBER 2020
business in the town, although cafés and
restaurants are obliged to close around
midnight, whereas before they could set
their own closing times. In addition, the
1.5-metre distancing rule must be adhered
to, the menus are disposable, and there is
extra cleaning; basically, the works. However,
clubs are deciding not to open due to the
early closing times. “Giving the nightlife and
clubbing a boost is hard, because they are
enclosed spaces,” says Jong.
Peter-paul van Goidsenhoven owns a
number of apartments for rent, including
some in the centre of Sitges. In March, there
were a significant number of cancellations,
but by August they were back to full capacity.
“I totally get that tourists are avoiding air
travel: the rules concerning air travel are apt
to change daily, which is very risky,” he says.
However, plenty of LGBTQ travellers aren’t
letting coronavirus spoil their fun. “Gays
don’t care about the coronavirus, it seems,”
says van Goidsenhoven. “In the gay nightlife
areas, tables are just pushed together, and
nobody is wearing a face mask… You see
similar behaviour on the beaches: men are
often lying close together, without sticking
to the 1.5-metre rule at all. And setting up a
hookup via Grindr is still incredibly popular.
The urge for sex is stronger than the fear
of COVID-19, it appears. Figures are also
showing that the number of people infected
in Sitges in August has risen again, which is
not surprising, really.”
Jong adds: “You’re seeing hoteliers, for
the rest of the season — which ends around
mid-October here; November and December
are too cold — offering incentives or package
deals, as well as discounts, aimed at Spanish
holidaymakers, not those who have to
consider quarantine measures.”
Gran Canaria
French queer travel website Gay Séjour has
more than a thousand gay-owned guest houses
on its books, of which some 700 are located in
France, while the other 300 are spread over the
rest of the world, including ten or so in Gran

Canaria. A number of these are in the centre
of Playa del Ingles, close to the gay nightlife
hub, Yumbo Centre, and a few are situated just
outside the city, in the countryside.
Frédéric Dumont, an affiliate of Gay
Séjour, says: “It’s quite unusual, but in the
past few years, the small city apartments
“Some men are looking to
get the most out of their
ten-day holiday, and don’t
want to be told to go to bed
at 1am”
close to Yumbo Centre were always rented
out much more quickly than those outside
of the city – that’s all changed this year.
There is more demand for larger apartments
offering additional comfort. That’s because
those guests who were spending most of
their time at outdoor cafés in the city are now
looking to spend more time in the refuge of
an apartment, out of fear of the coronavirus.
Also, accommodation on the outskirts of the
city or much further afield is now becoming
more appealing.”
Together with his French partner, Andreas
Dacke runs Finca Montechristo, which is located
in the middle of botanical gardens about eight
kilometres from Playa del Ingles. He sounds an
optimistic note. “For us, the peak season has
yet to start, from October onwards. Our guests
at Finca Montechristo are from Switzerland,
Scandinavia, and also the Netherlands. I must
say that we haven’t noticed much coronavirus
anxiety; our bookings are just as frequent as
they’ve been in previous years. We might be
subjected to a lot of last-minute cancellations,
but I’m not expecting that to happen.”
CRUISES
June was meant to herald the tenth
anniversary edition of The Cruise by La
Demence in the Adriatic Sea, but in March,
everything had to be shut down. It was a bitter
pill for the cruise’s organiser Thierry Coppens,
v
RUBBING
SHOULDERS:
Are packed
beaches a thing
of the past?
with more than 3,000 passengers of 80 or so
nationalities having registered.
Cruise ships everywhere are no longer
setting sail. There are a few experimental
itineraries offering classic jaunts around
Italy or Greece, but little else. There is a
cruise where you embark at Hamburg, and
cruise at sea for three days without docking
anywhere, and then it’s back to the home
port of Hamburg again. There are restrictions
galore during these journeys: passenger
capacity cannot exceed 70 per cent, buffets are
prohibited, and then there’s social distancing
of course.
“That’s unfeasible for us, basically,” says
Coppens. “Face masks in the play areas?
Maintaining a distance of 1.5 metres? That’s
not what our guests come on board for – or
pay that kind of money to experience, for
that matter. Our existence therefore depends
on the arrival of a vaccine. Once that has
materialised, we will reintroduce the existing
formula, as the mix we offer has been a
proven success over the past ten years.” >
OCTOBER 2020 89
MASK-QUERADE:
Plenty of gay men
are still holidaying
despite COVID-19

90 OCTOBER 2020

His customers have been refunded over
the past few months. “We are lucky we had a
contract with Royal Caribbean this season,
who are a US cruise company, because before
that, we worked with Pullman Tours, but they
are now out of business.”
Coppens admires some of the initiatives
that have been birthed out of necessity by
other hospitality entrepreneurs in the face
of COVID-19: “Take the Plein Air by Fuse club
in Brussels, for instance: you are able to book
a table outdoors, there are drinks, food is
served there, and there are DJs playing. And all
the while, the coronavirus protocol is being
totally complied with.”
FRANCE
Roujan
Roujan in the south of France is the location
of Cinq & Sept, a luxurious gay guest house
which offers nine suites in its historical
building. Owners Greg Tayler and his
partner Alex were dealt quite a blow when
all their reservations were cancelled in
March. “Of course it was understandable,
but the months leading up to June have
been lost, basically. On the other hand, we
were fully booked during July and August,
with guests from northern Europe, such
as Belgians, Dutch, Germans, English and
Swiss. The atmosphere is just great, as
people are incredibly glad to be in different
surroundings for a bit after the lockdown,
and there are a great many outdoor activities
being organised: from barbecues around the
swimming pool, to wine-tasting, kayaking
and the Saturday Pool Party.”
Greg has been hearing similar stories from
fellow hoteliers. “This is an unprecedented
situation for everyone, so we’re all exploring
our options, to see what is possible, and what
is safe. It’s a very uncertain time right now,
which is being enhanced by the fact that
some countries are tightening restrictions
once again.”
From that point of view, as well as to attempt
to make up for the lost months, Greg and
Alex are busy this autumn creating an option
to allow guests to stay for a longer period of
time at an amended rate. “It’s so that people
can spend the entire period of a possible new
lockdown here, because you don’t want to
be stuck in a tiny apartment for months by
yourself. It was our guests who gave us this
idea, so there is definitely a demand for it.”
Marseille
This destination doesn’t feature very often
in the list of favourite gay destinations, but
in corona times, it’s all change, and the same
applies to travel.
Dumont says: “This destination was
suddenly incredibly popular with French
gay men, and those who normally travel to
Spain or Morocco. The reason for that is that
it’s about a six-hour drive from Paris – so it’s
quite accessible – and there is a beach as well.
The regions of Auvergne and the Ardèche also
experienced an upswing.”
One striking aspect is that smaller hotels
and guest houses were more popular than
the larger ones. “Tourists do still view them
as being a safer option.” It is also a reason
for people to remain in one spot for longer
instead of switching locations again after
two days. It was a fairly disastrous season for
typical city trip destinations,” says Dumont.
“It wasn’t just the fact that everything had
completely closed up until June, but the
Germans and Brits just didn’t show up at all.
It was a tough time for businesses, especially
those who had just started up, and weren’t
able to get support from the bank. Also,
businesses whose foundations were already
shaky crashed and burned horribly.”
GREECE
In Greece, the number of infections is the
highest in Athens and on the mainland,
while the islands are benefiting from their
v
geographical separation. “The islands have the
advantage of being able to check how many
tourists are coming in because they arrive by
airplanes and ferries, which means there is
no uncontrolled influx,” says Jong. “The Greek
authorities are strict, too: Americans, for
instance, are not allowed in at the moment.”
Mykonos
Egidio owns an Italian gay restaurant on
Mykonos. None of the bars or restaurants has
gone bust due to the decline, but there are a
number of hotels and restaurants that simply
didn’t open. “In August, we were at 50 per
cent of the normal number of tourists for the
month – slightly more than we’d expected,”
he says. “The tourist season started off rather
hesitantly, so we’re quite pleased — or rather,
satisfied — with the increase. It takes a lot
of juggling. We are working with a lot less
employees, for instance, than in previous
years, but you want to be there for the tourists
that do come. And you’re also looking to show
that you’re still around.”
The anti-COVID measures have become
increasingly strict over the course of the
season. The closing times of bars and
restaurants have been brought forward to
midnight, for instance, which has resulted
in multiple illegal parties — attended by as
many as 300 people — being held in private
villas, and booze and drugs are never in short
supply. Egidio adds: “Of course, it’s against the
rules, but some men are looking to get the
most out of their ten-day holiday, and don’t
want to be told to go to bed at 1am. They’ll
take their chances as to whether or not they’ll
catch the virus. It’s not the smart thing to
do, but it’s also human nature to want to get
everything out of it that you can.”
For Egidio, the season will finish
earlier than usual this year. Normally, the
restaurant is open until the first week of
October, but when only 30 per cent of the
regular numbers of tourists are coming in
September, that is not enough to make it
work financially. “Where will we be in a year?
That’s impossible to say; I don’t really dare to
think about it, it all depends whether or not
a vaccine is created, which the whole world is
waiting for, of course.”
iglta.org, axelhotels.com, misterbandb.com,
outthere.travel, gay-sejour.com, the-cruise.
eu, cinqetsept.com
OCTOBER 2020 91
T avel
H O T
Fritton Lake
F or many of us, UK getaways are
Words
Cliff Joannou
the new normal. Challenged
by the prospect of a fortnight’s
quarantine when arriving back from
an overseas break, the options for
a few days’ escape played out like a
lottery this summer, so we set our
sights on a more local destination to
switch off from the daily grind.
Just two hours from London, nestled
in the heart of Norfolk, is Fritton
Lake, quite possibly Britain’s best-
kept short-break secret. Set in 5,000
acres of woodland, and surrounding
its namesake lake, the grounds
feature more than 80 privately owned
cabins tucked away in the woods
for maximum privacy, with many
available for hire. Features vary,
and some even come with hot tubs.
Needless to say, demand is high, so
early booking is recommended if you
have specific travel dates.
The grounds offer plenty of
adventure. All-weather tennis courts
92 OCTOBER 2020
H O T E L
N O RF O LK
lead to an impressive heated outdoor
pool, beyond which the gardens unfurl
to the edge of the lake. Early-morning
yoga provides the perfect stretch for
those looking to limber up or zen out.
Activities such as paddleboarding,
kayaking and boating are available,
and with the sun beating down on the
still lake, it makes for the perfect way
to unwind.
We stayed at the Fritton Arms, the
cosy pub located in the heart of Fritton
Lake. The staff are a delight, while the
kitchen serves up the most delectable
home-cooked fare. The fish pie is
highly commended by my partner
and myself, so much so that we had
another helping the next day.
A short drive to the other side of
the lake is Somerleyton Hall, home
of Lord and Lady Somerleyton. The
surrounding gardens are being
lovingly restored, while the dashing
Lord Somerleyton has invested heavily
in re-wilding the land around the
Fritton estate to encourage a more
natural environment. I’d definitely
suggest a re-wilding tour with
groundskeeper Matt, who will whisk
you around on a buggy and show you
the hidden treasures of Fritton Lake
and the curious and friendly animals
that call it home.
Come midnight, we wandered off
into a field and found a tranquil spot
where we looked up into the night sky
and lost ourselves in the stars. Without
the light pollution we are used to in the
capital, it was a reminder that Fritton’s
pleasures extend beyond the lake
and woodlands. The dark and silence
enveloped us — we could have been a
million miles away from anywhere.
With enough activities for those that
like to keep busy, or the option to simply
switch off, Fritton Lake delivers you a
few days away from the world, just a
couple of hours away from home.
frittonlake.co.uk
 BE PROUD
BE LOVED
BE SAFE

MONTRÉAL PRIDE FESTIVAL

SEE YOU IN 2021 I FIERTEMTL.COM
Always on your side

Specialising in LGBTQ+ legal issues since inception our friendly

& driven lawyers fight for equality in the lesbian, gay, bisexual &
transgender community.
Eg: Same-sex family disputes; surrogacy; divorce; separation or
pre-nupt; discrimination; infringing equality & employment advice.

T 020 7426 0382 | acitylawfirm.com

A City Law Firm Ltd 64 Clifton St | London | EC2A 4HB
Alexander Abramov
p96

MIND, BODY AND WELL-BEING

96 Alexander Abramov 102 Matt Lister

104 A Problem Shared 105 Mental Health 106 Real Bodies

OCTOBER 2020 95
 FROM RUSSIA
WITH LOVE
Get lost in the wilderness with Soviet
stallion Alexander Abramov
Words Markus Bidaux
Photography Dmitry Bocharov

A
rtist and model
Alexander Abramov
was born and raised
in Kazakhstan, which
was once part of the USSR, before
moving to Moscow, where he worked
on one of Russian TV’s top makeover
reality shows. Over five years, despite
his youth, he worked his way up to
executive producer. Now he lives in
New York City and is releasing an
app for Instagram in November as
well as working on the fifth book in
his Uncovered series, which comes
out next year. Here, Alexander, 33,
discusses gay life in Kazakhstan,
defying doctor’s orders to become a
modern-day Hercules, and camping it
up for the Insta likes.
Were you very active in your youth?
Not really. Despite the fact my mum
was the equivalent of a collegiate
division 1 basketball player and my
father was a professional football
player, I wasn’t attracted to any sport
in school and sometimes would
even fake sickness so I could avoid
PE. Then, when I was 15, I had a very
rare congenital anomaly of the
gastrointestinal tract called
Meckel’s diverticulum. I
won’t go into details and
“Guys I wanted to
the operation process, but fuck didn’t notice
I clearly remember that
the surgeon removed 1.5
me at all”
metres of my intestine. After
the first post-op examination, the
doctor smiled at me kindly and said:
“Alexander, we saved your life, but
it won’t be like everyone else’s life.”
I then spent almost two months in
the intensive care unit, after which I
had to learn to walk again. After that,
I spent 20 days in general recovery.
After removing 15 stitches from my
stomach, the doctor then explained to
me the seriousness of the situation,
ACTIVE
talking about a special diet I would
need to adhere to for the rest of
my life, coupled with the fact that
I should avoid any exertion, as this
could only shorten my life. To cut a
long story short, I didn’t follow any
such diet or avoid physical activity —
as you can see.
When and why did you decide to
bulk up?
I started to go to the gym at
the end of 2007. The reason I
started working out is kind
of funny for me now, but
I’m sure a lot of gay guys
can relate to it: my motivation for
transforming my body was being
turned down by guys I wanted to fuck.
They didn’t notice me at all. I can’t say I
didn’t have enough lovers, but I’m not
used to being rejected. After spending
three years in the gym, my “fuck list”
was 100 per cent checked off. For a lot
of guys, my motivation might sound
dirty, selfish and shallow, but let’s be
honest, the gay world is mostly all >
about physical representation and
how you look, and only after that
do guys care about who you are as a
person. I really love to exercise and I
do it firstly for myself, and secondly,
to look good for my boyfriend. I’m
no longer wanting to impress others,
but I’m always happy to receive kind
messages through social media, when
guys around the world tell me that I
inspired them to start working out.
How long did it take to get to the size
you are today?
Almost 13 years. I was 187cm and
65kg when I started and now my
weight is around 105kg. It has been
a long journey and has required a
lot of discipline. I usually exercise at
least four or five times a week and I
do it consistently. I stopped building
muscle a couple of years ago. I’m not working out together a foundation of an ectomorph body type, I have a
a gym freak — no offence to anyone your relationship? very fast metabolism, so I must keep
who loves to work out more than The foundation of my relationship cardio to a minimum and my protein
I do — I’m just trying to keep my with Brett is definitely not based consumption high.
current body proportions on working out together What is the key to staying motivated
and my muscles toned.
Did people start treating you
“Take care of your or the size of his muscles
— even though I can’t
to keep fit?
There is no single motivation that
differently after you put on body like it is a lie: I like his size a lot. We works for all, although everyone
the muscle?
I don’t want to say they
machine” tried to work out together
at the beginning of our
should aim to be the best version of
themselves. Whether you want to be
started treating me relationship, but we have muscular, or lean and toned, take care
differently; it was more that I started different methods of training, and of your body like it is a machine. For
getting a lot more attention from even though we are both big guys, we me, exercise is already an integral part
them than ever before. But I was also have different body types. I’m more of my life. I usually start my morning
shamed multiple times on social old-school and do classic bodybuilding with a workout and it energizes me for
media for being too masculine, too exercises with barbells, while Brett the entire day.
muscular, suggestions that I used prefers working out with dumbbells How has COVID-19 affected your
steroids, and so on. That snarkiness and super-setting. fitness regime?
comes when we put ourselves out Do you exercise much outside the A lot. As of now, my last workout in the
there on social media, but I have a very weights room? gym was on 16 March. Since then, my
thick skin. I do cardio, but in the form of cycling boyfriend and I have been working out
Your partner is also quite a big guy. Is around the city. At 187cm and having on our terrace with light dumbbells and

98 OCTOBER 2020

bands. I can’t wait to get back to the gym,
and we’re hoping it will happen soon.
And your diet?
I put some weight on in the spring, as I
have a major sweet tooth, but once the
warmer months arrived, I went outside
and got active.
From first impressions, you are a
rugged, masculine guy, but your
Instagram feed shows you in a
rainbow tutu, beauty masks and you
and your partner dressed as female
Sailor Moon anime characters. Do you
think toxic masculinity is a problem
in the gay community?
I think being gay is a blessing, I
embrace it to the fullest and accept
myself 100 per cent — whether I’m
donning a tutu and heels, doing
drag at DragCon with some of my
favourite queens, or in full leathers
à la Tom of Finland.
Toxic masculinity does exist
in the gay community, sure, but I
don’t think it is nearly as evident
or as problematic as it is in the
heterosexual community. What baffles
and frankly disheartens me is that
the LGBTQ+ community is so divided
and non-inclusive and non-accepting
of one another. Of course, there
are exceptions to this statement.
We should all embrace, accept and
support one another, regardless of
age and where we fall in our diverse
rainbow spectrum. I wish there was
more inclusivity between all of us,
not just once a year when we are out
celebrating gay Pride en masse.
A lot of people would
look at your Instagram
and see physical
perfection, but do you
still have hangups about
your appearance?
I will always see
myself as rail-thin
skinny Alexander,
but I recognise and
appreciate that I’m
viewed differently than I
see myself in the mirror.
I’m incredibly humbled
and thankful when
men of all ages from the
States and all over the
world come up to me and introduce
themselves, with kind, heartfelt words
about how they have been following
me on Instagram over the years or
reading my Uncovered books, or about
Brett and I inspiring them as a couple.
ACTIVE
I happily engage with them and I feel
so lucky to have met them.
What was it like to grow up in
Kazakhstan?
As a gay man? I don’t want to say I
had a tough time. Compared to the
present, nobody paid attention to
gay people, but of course nobody was
screaming about their
sexuality on the streets.
My hometown is a pretty
small city and once you
get to know someone,
you get invited to private
home parties — not sex
parties. Also, there was
a very small restaurant
which hosted secret
dance parties once a
month and, of course,
you had to be known by
someone to get on the
guest list.
Did you come out while
you lived there or when
you lived in Moscow?
I came out when I was 15 to a couple
of my close friends, and they were
very supportive and kind of happy
that they now had a gay friend. I came
out to my mum when I was 16. I don’t >
OCTOBER 2020 99
want to say she was happy with that,
but over the years, she has accepted
me for who I am and, besides being
my mum, she is also my best friend.
I came out publicly in Moscow when
I was 25. It didn’t affect my life at all;
a lot of my friends already knew who
I was and other people didn’t really
care about my sexuality.
What is life like for LGBTQ people in
Kazakhstan and Moscow?
There are definitely two different
sides of life for LGBTQ+ people. As I
said, if you are not screaming about
your sexuality on the street, you can
live a pretty good life. I know a lot of
people who came out to their families,
friends and even to co-workers and
they weren’t rejected by them, but
they’re probably the exceptions.
I think that 60-70 per cent of gay
men in Russia — and this number
is definitely higher in Kazakhstan
— are closeted and will never come
out. Most of them struggle even with
accepting themselves, particularly
because of societal pressures where
they live. A very small percentage have
the courage and opportunity to leave
the country so they can live life open
and proud.
100 OCTOBER 2020
In Almaty and Astana, the biggest
cities in Kazakhstan, as in Moscow
and Saint Petersburg, there are gay
clubs, parties, bars, saunas and other
places where LGBTQ+ people can
live their safest and best life. But of
course it is not the life you might live
in the USA or Europe. You can easily
get beaten up on the street if you
look gay or say that you are. Also, as
you may already know, the Russian
government tries to make
life harder for gays; no “Sixty per cent of
holding hands in public, no
kissing in public, and so on.
gay men in Russia
The “gay propaganda” law is will never come out”
essentially to show kids that
same-sex coupling is “not normal”.
Levels of homophobia are definitely
much higher than in the States.
When and why did you move to New
York?
My ex-husband and I moved to NYC
in May 2015. We had a dream and we
decided to make it come true. It was a
really big step for both of us and it was
very hard starting a new life literally
from the beginning. NYC broke us, but
we remain incredibly close friends and
we have no regrets.
When did you decide to produce
Uncovered, your series of books?
It was May 2017, and for the first
time since I moved to New York in
2015, I got the strong desire to create
again. After two very tough years,
which involved moving to the US
without telling my family, adapting
to a totally new life, learning a new
language (I didn’t speak any English
when I moved to NYC), the stressful
process of applying for political
asylum and waiting for
official papers from the
US government, I was also
desperately trying to find
a job in my field of interest
and expertise. This involved
odd interviews where my strong
résumé meant nothing because it
was all from my time in Moscow.
Being the executive producer of the
top-rated reality show on the major
network in Russia for five years
meant absolutely nothing here. It
was exhausting trying to prove my
employability in broken English to
strangers, especially in a business
that is so relationship-driven.
I quickly learned I had no one to
rely on and that my skills could, at
best, get me a position of a volunteer
 ACTIVE

assistant on a film set, so I decided

it was time to tackle life head-on. I
had three motivations: first was my
love and passion for photography,
which I took up in 2008; second was
my desire to share stories from my
life that I thought a lot of people —
especially in the LGBTQ+ community
— might identify with and would find
interesting and inspiring; and lastly,
I wanted to create, something I have
loved to do my entire life.
Apart from images of you, what will
people discover in the books?
In each book I share some entries
from my diary, which goes back
as far as 2000. I have also added
some commentary and present-day
perspective to help explain what the
younger version of me wrote. The
first book contains stories about my
experiences, emotions, feelings and
first sexual encounters, as well as
awareness of my homosexuality.
In the second book, I speak more
about situations in my life that made
me make difficult decisions. These one and it is difficult to have true photoshoot]. Just the two of us shot all
situations changed me, brought me friendships. five books all over California without
to my knees and knocked me to the In the fourth book, there are notes any crew. As captain of my own ship,
ground, but also revived me and about loneliness and solitude and how since 2001 I’ve visited more than 20
restored my belief in myself, in life and I balance the two in my life. countries; in the past five years, I’ve
in love. Do you plan to release another book in explored 11 states and 17 cities in the
In the third volume, I shared my the series? USA, and in the past decade I twice
work experience, which has taken I do have a fifth book, which I’m changed my country of residence. Let’s
up more than half of my life. Also planning to release sometime next say I was “sailing” a lot and each stop
there are stories about the work I do year. As an author, producer and stylist, in each “port” gave me unforgettable
every day on myself, for my soul and I promise you it’s going to be another memories and experiences which I’m
body, on my attitude to the world beautiful photo story of a seafarer, going to share as I did in the first four
and people. Without such work, in shot by my talented and dear friend books.
my opinion, you can’t have a strong, Dmitry Bocharov, who photographed
stable relationship with a loved the whole Uncovered series [and this uncoveredproject.com

OCTOBER 2020 101

ACTIVE
DO YOU LOVE YOUR FEET?
It sounds like an odd question, but we
only have one pair, and they’re with us for
life, so we need to look after them.
The right footwear is an essential part
of your exercise equipment, and the
options out there are almost infinite.
So what should you be looking for in a
pair of workout shoes? Clearly a pair of
thigh-highs with a seven-inch heel are
not the best plan for squatting, even if
they do have a wedge; neither is a pair
of patrol boots suitable for sprinting.
I’ve put together a few tips and tricks on
which shoes to sport for different forms
of training.
RUNNING
If you’re an avid runner, the amount of
impact your lower joints
take with every stride can “One size does
be detrimental to your
foot health. Your trainers
not fit all when it
should have good grip, comes to trainers”
plenty of cushioning,
a high heel-to-toe drop to aid forward
momentum, and of course they need to
be breathable, so they don’t get stinky. To
find the right pair for your feet, it’s worth
trying running shops with equipment
that assesses your movement patterns
and gives you recommendations based on
those analytics. One tip for buying a new
pair of runners is to take your previous
pair with you. Assistants should be able
to ‘read’ the wear on your old shoes to
understand how you run, and recommend
trainers tailored to your particular gait.  As well as the above, there are also
LIFTING
When you’re hefting weights, you need a
firm foundation. For more dynamic lifts
that involve shifting your foot position
— such as clean and jerks, or snatches
— weightlifting shoes, or lifters, are
Words recommended. They generally have very
Matt Lister
Photography
secure fastenings, and the sole is as flat
Markus Bidaux and solid as the ground you’re lifting on.
102 OCTOBER 2020
PUT
YOUR
FEET
FIRST
Look after your
tootsies with the right
fitness footwear
However, for any other lifting, where your
feet don’t shift so dramatically, it’s very
beneficial to do it barefoot. Our feet aren’t
designed to wear shoes, and too much
support in some movements can give you
‘lazy feet’. While lifting, you should aim to
get good contact with the ground — don’t
wear your Nike Air Max 90s with bubble
soles, because although they might look
great, all that cushioning means your feet
are more likely to roll around. If going
barefoot is not an option at your gym, and
a pair of lifters are out of your price range,
Converse are a great, cheap alternative. 
CROSS-TRAINING
It’s annoying, but one size does not fit
all when it comes to trainers. Finding
the right cross-training shoe can be a bit
of a stab in the dark,
and it all depends
on what you’re good
at, and what sort of
exercises you do more
of. When your training
encompasses running, jumping, lifting
and more, you need a shoe that can cope
with all these movements. As a general
rule of thumb, you want a shoe with very
little heel-to-toe drop and a firm midsole
with cushioning that’s minimal enough
to keep you stable through lifts, but
generous enough to absorb impact when
you’re jumping around. I love my Nike
Metcons, but I know plenty who swear by
their Reebok Nanos — see what suits you.
different shoes with design features to
help you get an edge in individual sports,
from the number of lace holes there are
and the amount and placement of grips
or studs, to how many layers of sole a
shoe has.
When it comes to buying your next
pair of kickers, don’t just grab the pretty
ones, take time to figure out which will
work for you and your feet.
WhAt’s
uP Doc?
MON 14 - SUN 20
SEPTEMBER

Buy a Jeans for Genes Day limited-

edition Bugs Bunny™ t-shirt at
jeansforgenes.org/shop
All profits from the sale of this t-shirt by
Jeans for Genes will help transform the
lives of children with life-altering
genetic disorders
Modelled by Eyal Booker

Jeans for Genes ® and ™, © 2020 Genetic Disorders UK.

Registered Charity Number 1141583
LOONEY TUNES and all related characters and elements
© & ™ Warner Bros. Entertainment inc. (s20)
A PROBLEM
SHARED
Got a problem? Dr Ranj Singh
is here to offer his advice
What can I do about acne? I’m 27 and have
had it since my teens. It’s destroyed my self-
confidence. I’ve tried all sorts of products,
and have even stopped masturbating as
someone told me that might make it worse!
Matt, Portsmouth
Wow, that’s quite a commitment to
your skin health! However, you’ll be
pleased to hear that wanking won’t
make your skin worse.
Another myth worth exploding
is that acne is caused by dirty
skin, when in fact over-washing
is bad for your complexion.
As you probably know, acne
is caused by pores that become
blocked, and then get infected
and inflamed. The blockage is
caused by a collection of oily fluid,
called sebum, and dead skin cells.
The glands that make sebum are
really sensitive to testosterone,
which is why acne tends to kick
off in puberty — that’s also where
the sex/masturbation myth
comes from.
Acne is notorious for its effect
on your confidence and it can be
tricky to manage. Although there’s
no cure, the right treatment can
make it significantly better.
There is some evidence that
eating foods with a high glycemic
index (for example, sugary foods,
rice and potatoes) can aggravate
acne. Similarly, some people
find that dairy products can
exacerbate the problem, although
this link hasn’t been researched as
much. Keeping a food diary may
help you identify any triggers.
If your acne is mild, visit your
pharmacist. They can recommend
over-the-counter treatments you
104 OCTOBER 2020
HEALTH
NEWS
Obesity strategy
leaves a bad taste
The UK government have
launched a campaign to
combat obesity, but the
response has been mixed.
One of its key messages
is that losing weight will
can get without prescription. If reduce your risk of dying
your acne is difficult to manage, from COVID-19. However,
then it’s worth seeing your many have been quick to
doctor as they may be able to point out that this feels
prescribe topical treatments like fat-shaming people
such as antibiotics, azelaic acid, who struggle with their
or retinoids. These can take time weight — especially as
to work and your skin may get it launched at the same
worse before it gets better. If time as the government’s
they don’t prove to be successful, Eat Out to Help Out
then your doctor may put you scheme to support the
on a course of oral antibiotics. restaurant industry.
However, these need to be taken Fortunately, there are
for at least two months before other suggestions that
you see an improvement. have gone down a bit
better. To read the full
“Acne is notorious report, go to gov.uk.
for its effect on your Press snooze
confidence” Is your sleeping pattern
out of sync? Try these tips
If that doesn’t work, to get your slumber back.
then isotretinoin (branded 1 Make your bedroom as
Roaccutane), is a highly effective relaxing and conducive
treatment, but it can have serious to sleep as possible. It
side effects, so can only be should be cool, dark, dry,
prescribed under the supervision quiet and comfortable.
of a dermatologist. 2 Start a routine: wake
Other treatments for acne and go to bed at the same
scarring — not usually available on time each day, and wind
the NHS — include laser resurfacing, down before bedtime.
microneedling and subcision. 3 Avoid electronic
Otherwise, a bit of makeup devices an hour before
can go a long way to improving bed as these can
the appearance of your skin interfere with the brain’s
and giving you some of your production of the sleep
confidence back, but make sure hormone melatonin.
that it’s non-comedogenic.
IF YOU’D LIKE TO SUBMIT A PROBLEM FOR DR RANJ TO ANSWER, TWEET @DRRANJ OR EMAIL THOMAS.STICHBURY@ATTITUDE.CO.UK

M ND MATTERS
Turn off the
worry tap
Owen O’Kane looks at how to
stop fretting and start living
T
here is vast amounts of research
linking worry to alterations in mood.
It’s no surprise that excessive worry
makes us unhappy. When we worry less, we
are happier.
We are Generation Anxiety and we’re
concerned about many things: our planet,
our future, our income, our economy, our
politics, climate change, our families, our
safety — the list is endless. It seems that the
only certainty we have in the world today is
that we live in a state of uncertainty — and
therein lies the problem.
Let me be upfront with you, I am not
interested in exploring how to get rid
of worry. It’s simply not possible. What
I want to do is to help you manage your
relationship with worry. Real changes can
happen when this relationship is mastered.
It is important to highlight that there
isn’t an instant solution for this, but there
are techniques that are effective. Unhelpful
thought patterns that have been learned
ON TOP: Lightening
the burden of worry
involves retraining
your brain
ACTIVE
can be unlearned. But this takes time, the answer is “Yes” to any of the worries,
patience and commitment to retraining consider changing your thought pattern
your brain. You are learning to respond from ‘what if’, to ‘then what’. The shift from
to worry in a different way, so it will take ‘what if’ to ‘then what’ is more resolution-
practice. On some days this will go well, but focussed and will lead you to think
others could feel like a disaster. practically about how you will manage
The key point to remember is that every a particular situation should something
conscious effort you make to change these go wrong. Following this method is far
patterns moves you a step more preferential to the
forward. How you decide to “Ask yourself: Have powerless entrapment you
use these suggestions will any of these worries find yourself in when in
depend largely on the extent
of your worrying and your
ever come true?” worry mode.
For example, let’s say
individual patterns. Use whatever works that you are due to fly to a friend’s wedding
for you and don’t feel the need to follow abroad and the worry, “What if I miss my
everything prescriptively to the letter. flight?” starts to play on your mind. You
have missed a flight previously, so this
HERE ARE THE STEPS I SUGGEST YOU would seem to be a valid worry. When
FOLLOW: you replace ‘what if’ with ‘then what’, the
Make a list of your top worries. focus moves away from the worry and
Go through your list and ask yourself the towards the solution. If I miss my flight,
question: Have any of these worries ever then I will explore other travel options, I
come true? Most won’t have. However, if will contact the bridal party to explain the
situation and I will focus on finding a way
of getting to the wedding. Do you notice the
difference?
Stop and consider whether you view worry
as a positive thing and explore with yourself
the possibility of dropping this belief.
Make space for ring-fenced ‘worry
time’ in your day. This is a dedicated ten
minutes every day where you give yourself
permission to write down your worries. The
benefit of this is that you get interrupted
with worries in your day, and you have the
option to park them rather than getting
derailed. You can return to that worry at a
designated time. You may discover that your
worry has lost its power when you do return
to it, or you may indeed have forgotten it.
This is normally indicative that the worry
wasn’t warranted in the first place.
Ten Times Happier: How to Let Go of What’s
Holding You Back by psychotherapist Owen
O’Kane is out now (HQ, HarperCollins)
OCTOBER 2020 105
 Fighting
talk
New York-based beauty influencer
Keith Paris, aka the ‘Icy Amputee
Warrior,’ takes a stand for his fellow
amputee brothers and sisters
As told to Thomas Stichbury
Photography Wesley De Jesus Bruno

Makeup Najmah Baker

Assistant Nyeema Dunmore

106 OCTOBER 2020


I
was born without a tibula in my left leg
and being an amputee has made me work
harder for everything that I wanted.
The moment I realised I was ‘different’ was
when I was in elementary school. I didn’t
really have any friends, and people used to
make up hurtful rumours and not treat me
like an equal.
One memory that sticks out is from when
I was in the third grade. There was a new girl
in the class, and I said to myself, “This is my
chance to make a friend.” So, I was honest
and told her I was an amputee. She literally
told everyone that I had cancer and made it
into a whole situation.
While I was in school, I wrote a book
called Amputee Story. I was dealing with an
eating disorder and also had a self-harming
problem, and that got out and I was just
ashamed of myself. I went home and decided
to upload all my journal entries onto [self-
publishing website] Wattpad. When I woke
up the next day, my friend texted me and
said my book had gone to number one – I
couldn’t believe it.
A few years later, I posted a video on
YouTube titled, I Am An Amputee. I’d always
wanted to be more open, publicly, about
being an amputee, because that is part of me
“My biggest ambition is to destroy
homophobia in West Indian culture”
and I’m very proud of the person I am. It felt
like a huge weight had been lifted from my
shoulders and the responses I received were
so positive. It shook me.
My relationship with my mother wasn’t
great at the time that I shot the video, and
YouTube was the one thing that made me
smile. When I film and create content, I am
my own boss, I call the shots. I knew that in
sharing that video I wanted to start these
conversations, bring amputee lives into the
light and give my amputee brothers and
sisters representation and visibility.
From a young age, people always told me
that I would never be successful, but press
the fast-forward button and look at me, I’m
in a really good place. Of course, dealing with
prejudice can be frustrating, but all the crazy
stuff people say to you in person and on
social media, you have to ignore them and let
your work speak for you – the best response
is no response, you gotta let haters talk shit
to themselves!
Real bodies ACTIVE
I discovered makeup when I was a
freshman going into my sophomore year. I
watched Nikita Dragun makeup tutorials all
the time, like 24/7, she heavily inspired me,
and one thing led to another. I bought my
first eyebrow pencil, then it was foundation
and the rest is history – I love looking like a
limited-edition Egyptian Ken doll!
It has been a difficult journey to reach
this point. My eating disorder, for example,
started because I didn’t have a good
relationship with my body. I hated how I
looked, I wasn’t confident, and I used to do
a lot of mean and hurtful things to myself.
However, I overcame the eating disorder
and my issues with self-harming and I’ve
been clean for seven years. I am happy with
my body and curves now and that is a big
accomplishment.
If I had to pick a favourite part of my body,
I would have to say my thighs and butt –
who doesn’t like a good butt and it’s very
on-brand for me!
The message I am trying to spread with
this photo shoot is: people need to know
that they can be themselves and be anything
they want to be. There have been so many
people in my life who have said, “You can’t be
anything, disabled people can’t be anything.”
But I am constantly proving them wrong.
There was so much negativity around me
and people that weren’t genuine, and then I
finally got rid of them. I feel reborn.
In terms of my sexuality, I came out when
I was around 15/16 years old. Not all of my
family knows that I’m gay, though, because
they are from Trinidad and Grenada, in the
West Indies [where homosexuality still isn’t
widely accepted]. My cousins, who I’m close
to and trust, support me, and so does my dad
— that was such an amazing moment.
My biggest ambition is to destroy
homophobia in the West Indian culture.
That is something I am so passionate about.
I went through it with my mother and I still
go through it with her. I know that feeling
when your parents say hurtful things about
your sexuality and who you really are, like,
“You’re confused,” and “It’s a phase,” but you
know it’s not.
For the longest time, I wasn’t in a good
place in my life and it was just killing me
on the inside. When you start doing you and
the things that make you happy, it’s the best
feeling ever.
@keithteboy
OCTOBER 2020 107
 SLINGSBY

MARMALADE GIN
Our new award-winning Marmalade Gin is crafted using locally sourced
botanicals that are synonymous with the beautiful and restorative nature
of Harrogate. These unique botanicals are complemented with zesty
Yorkshire marmalade, Harrogate aquifer water, pure single grain spirit
DQGDKDQGIXORIWKHˋQHVWLQJUHGLHQWVVRXUFHGIURPDURXQGWKHZRUOG

spiritofharrogate.co.uk

facebook.com/slingsbysocial

@slingsbysocial
Life Lessons
p110

PEOPLE, PLACES, PERSPECTIVES

110 Life Lessons 112 Books & Music 113 Films

OCTOBER 2020 109


My first time in drag was
a dare. I did a local talent
contest and just fell in love
with the stage.
TRINITY HAS TAUGHT ME
TO BE MORE CONFIDENT IN
MYSELF AND ALSO TO BE A
BUSINESSMAN. I DON’T THINK
I WOULD BE THE SAME PERSON I
AM TODAY WITHOUT HER.
The best thing about drag
is having an outlet for my
creativity – the sky’s the limit.
The worst part is taking the
makeup off!
My top tips for a budding drag
queen are: buy three wigs, three
sets of shoes and three costumes.
I grew up in a small town in
Alabama and being gay is
definitely not accepted there. I
was obviously bullied; I never
fitted in with the popular kids
and I didn’t feel safe there.
Eventually, I moved to the
biggest city in Alabama, which is
Birmingham, and [that’s where] I
gained my confidence.
MY LIFE MOTTO IS: EVERYTHING
HAPPENS FOR A REASON.
110 OCTOBER 2020
life lessons
TRINITY
THE TUCK
Drag queen
Words Thomas Stichbury
Serving plenty of body-ody-ody,
Trinity Taylor reached the finale
of season 9 of RuPaul’s Drag Race in
2017. The fan favourite went one step
further when she returned – complete
with a name change to Trinity The
Tuck – on All Stars season 4, going
on to share the crown and sceptre
with fellow queen, Monét X Change.
Known for having the best tuck in the
business, Trinity, 34, happily shares
her top tips online. “Well, I can’t tell
you all my secrets,” she teases, “but
I do have an educational tucking
tutorial on my YouTube.” Trinity, aka
Ryan Taylor, grew up in Alabama, and
currently lives with her beloved fiancé,
Leo, and their five dogs.
Trinity hosts the Love for the
Arts digital drag contest on @
trinitythetuckofficial every Tuesday
The first time I really
felt at home was when I
started doing drag. Not
being extremely close
to a lot of people in my
biological family, close
friends who I claimed as my
[chosen] family, who accepted
me, made me feel comfortable
with myself.
WHEN I CAME OUT [AT 16], IT
WAS AROUND THE SAME TIME
THAT MY GRANDMOTHER, WHO
RAISED ME, BECAME VERY ILL
WITH CANCER. I HAD TO QUIT
HIGH SCHOOL AND HOME-
SCHOOL MYSELF SO THAT I
COULD TAKE CARE OF HER
UNTIL SHE PASSED. IT WAS A
VERY DIFFICULT TIME IN MY
LIFE AND I HAD TO GROW UP
IMMEDIATELY. IT HAS SHAPED
ME INTO WHO I AM AND HOW I
HANDLE SITUATIONS NOW.
My most treasured possessions
are my five dogs. I have a rescue
[dog] named Emily and she is half
chihuahua/rat terrier; a chocolate
min pin [miniature pinscher],
Snookie; my boxer, Maggie; a bully
dog named Ludo, and a Yorkie,
Gizmo. They have [their own]
Instagram: @furbabygang
 social

My favourite item in my
wardrobe is my finale gown
from All Stars 4. It was
created by Anthony Canney,
who also created my finale
dress from season 9. He made
it very last-minute, in just
over a week. I keep it in a
garment bag in my drag room.

My most cherished memory is

winning National Entertainer Of
the Year, a pageant. I competed for
it six times over a 10-year span. I
put in so much hard work to win.

MY BIGGEST STRENGTH IS MY
HEART AND DETERMINATION.

My biggest weakness is my anxiety.

I’m a worry wart, which I get from
my grandmother. I try to stay busy
to not think about it and [also] do
breathing exercises.

My biggest pet peeve is when

someone tears down another to
make themselves, or someone
they’re rooting for, look better.

MY BIGGEST VICE IS COFFEE!

The best piece of advice I’ve

received is to be yourself and
be kind.

OCTOBER 2020 111

social Books & music

Books
Words Uli Lenart
Music
Words James Barr

BOOK
OF THE
MONTH

Will Young
on the agony
of gay shame
The pop star bares his
soul on the long shadow
being gay cast on his life LOVE YOU: New
artist Keaton wants

TO BE A GAY MAN
to help LGBTQ fans
with self-esteem ONE TO
Will Young/Virgin Books
WATCH
Will Young gets to grips with the toxicity of gay shame, sharing the profound impact it had on
Keaton Dekker
him and how he finally learned to overcome it. Growing up surrounded by rugby-playing, public If there is one thing we can thank Miss
school peers, he soon realised that being called ‘gay’ was the ultimate insult – so he buried it. Rona for, it’s the amazing stuff we’ve
In sharing his personal story, Will explores how internalised shame in childhood increases the been able to get up to while trapped
risk of developing low self-worth and can lead to destructive behaviours in adult life. The singer in our homes – Carole Baskin made a
writes with unflinching candour about his struggles with mental health, porn addiction and self- #FreeBritney video, my friend fashioned a
rejection, while also discussing the negative effects of gay stereotyping on TV and homophobia in makeshift glory hole out of Amazon boxes
the media, and why there needs to be better education on LGBTQ+ awareness in schools. Although (jealous of this creativity) and I discovered
the writing could at times flow better, Will has real talent for making lucid points, providing the loads of new music.
sort of honest, unfussy insight that will undoubtedly be recognised by gay and bisexual men. Check out 20-year-old queer singer
Authentic, revealing and sincere. For fans of Straight Jacket by Matthew Todd.  Out now Keaton Dekker, whose fresh vocals and
dreamy R&B sound are lining him up to
be one of the UK’s next big artists. ITYK
ALSO has a 2020 Zoom fatigue and fuckboys
THIS vibe, dealing with the dishonesty of online
MONTH relationships, while makeup is about
resisting the urge to blame ourselves for
REAL LIFE PIRANESI other people’s problems.
Brandon Taylor/Daunt Susanna Clarke/ The latest track mint takes us to a
Books/Out now Bloomsbury/15 darker place, to Keaton mid break-up
Black, gay and grappling September in a lust-fuelled comedown, set against
with campus life, The new novel from the an all-consuming ’80s synth. All three
biochemistry student author of Jonathan Strange tracks feature on his ear-pricking EP, the
Wallace has spent his & Mr Norrell is well worth unwelcome series, out in September.
summer in the lab the wait. Piranesi lives in Keaton’s authenticity and honesty is
breeding nematode the House. In his notebook, captivating to listen to, but the singer told
worms. Although his he records its wonders: the Attitude it’s about more than just music,
father died a few weeks ago, he has kept this labyrinth of halls, the thousands of statues, the it’s survival. “The impact of seeing people
from friends, and didn’t go back to Alabama tides that thunder up staircases, and the clouds that looked like me [and were] queer when
for the funeral. Then, one weekend, Wallace that move in slow procession through the I was young was the most important
sleeps with somebody he shouldn’t have, upper halls. On Tuesdays and Fridays, Piranesi thing,” he says.
ushering fresh vulnerability into his controlled sees his friend, the Other, but mostly he is alone. “I wanna put out the confidence that
existence. Long-listed for the 2020 Booker Then messages begin to appear, scratched out in I didn’t have when I was young,” Keaton
Prize, Real Life beautifully dissects themes of chalk on the pavements… there is someone new adds. “It’s a big mission in our community,
loss, rejection, sexual violence and racism with in the House, but who are they? An inventive finding ways to be confident.”
forensic, but compassionate insight. Out now and spellbinding read. 15 September

112 OCTOBER 2020


Words:
Guy Lodge
3/5
RIALTO
Tom Vaughan-Lawlor, Tom Glynn-
Carney, Monica Dolan
Untethered by his father’s death, a
middle-aged Dublin family man (Tom
Vaughan-Lawlor) acts on desires he
has long suppressed, leading him into
a volatile, sometimes hostile attraction
to 19-year-old petty criminal Jay (Tom
Glynn-Carney). Neither man wholly
identifies as gay, which, despite a
familiar-looking premise, lends nuance,
tension and ambiguity to writer-director
Peter Mackie Burns’ sensitive, superbly
acted relationship study. 2 October
ALSO
THIS
MONTH
4/5
A PERFECTLY NORMAL
FAMILY
Mikkel Boe Følsgaard, Kaya Toft
Loholt, Rigmor Ranthe
Supporting trans rights is a no-
brainer, but it doesn’t mean a loved
one’s transition is easy to accept.
That’s what Danish filmmaker Malou
Reymann addresses in her wry,
bittersweet family drama, inspired
by her own childhood memories
of her father becoming a woman.
The sensitive topic is handled with
generosity and empathy. 2 October
2/5
THE ROADS NOT TAKEN
Javier Bardem, Elle Fanning, Salma
Hayek, Laura Linney
Despite the pedigree of British
director Sally Potter and that all-star
cast, this is a major disappointment.
It’s a meandering tale of a dementia-
addled New Yorker (Javier Bardem),
whose mind skips across memories,
while his put-upon daughter (Elle
Fanning) attempts to care for him.
Bardem and Fanning attempt to give
it some emotional ballast, but it’s
simply too messy. 11 September
Films social
FILM
OF THE
MONTH
Against the odds
An affectionate portrait of resilience in the face of
adversity, with Bukky Bakray as the impulsive lead
4/5
ROCKS
Bukky Bakray, Kosar Ali, D’angelou Osei Kissiedu, Shaneigha-Monik Greyson
Rocks was featured on this page back in the April edition, before a certain global pandemic
threw the cinema release calendar into disarray — and now that it’s been rescheduled
for September, I wouldn’t want you to forget about it. British director Sarah Gavron, who
previously made Brick Lane and Suffragette, takes things up a level in this vibrant, funny,
huge-hearted tapestry of diverse young female identity in east London. It centres on the
eponymous Rocks (Bukky Bakray, a delightful find), a tough Nigerian-English teen forced
to fend for herself and her younger brother, and portrays both her individual growing-up
process and the lively social fabric of her friendship group with perceptive honesty and
heart-on-sleeve energy. Amid the socio-political woes of Tory Britain, it’s a film to inspire
hope for the future. 18 September
4/5
MONSOON
Henry Golding, Parker Sawyers, David Tran, Molly Harris
Remember a little film called Lilting? Cambodian-British filmmaker Hong Khaou’s delicate 2014
debut gave us Ben Whishaw in a thoughtful, emotionally open study of the collision between
gay identity and cultural difference — and he revisits those themes in his equally tender,
beautifully composed second film. The personal dimension to this one is clear: in by far his best
performance to date, Crazy Rich Asians star
Henry Golding plays Kit, a gay, Vietnamese-
born Briton returning to his motherland
for the first time since emigrating as a
child, and struggling with feelings of
dissociation and alienation on arrival.
Romance with a fellow outsider ensues,
but Monsoon is more concerned with the
disparate, conflicting identities that make
up its protagonist, a character study made
compelling by Golding’s quiet, intriguing
presence and Khaou’s restrained, sensual
filmmaking. 25 September
OCTOBER 2020 113
Farhan is wearing Dsquared2
p118

“THEY TRIED TO PUT ME ON

THE COVER OF VOGUE,
BUT MY LEGS WERE TOO LONG.”

116 Crush 117 Wardrobe 118 Let’s Go Outside 132 Fashionlista

133 Grooming 134 Naomi Smalls 139 Ciao Bello

OCTOBER 2020 115

 RIDING SOLO
Beats always strive for
excellence, and the sleek,
efficient redesign of their
Solo Pro headphones
does not disappoint.
In true Beats style,
every little detail has
been considered. We
love the clever fold/unfold
function that turns them on
and off, and other welcome upgrades
include improved sound, super-
comfy ear cushions and active noise
cancelling. For those times when it’s
helpful to hear ambient noise, the Solo
Pro transparency mode is the smart
choice; let’s face it, you don’t want to
bump into anyone (or, indeed, anything)
while strutting down the street to Gaga
and Ari’s Rain on Me. That would be a
total mood killer! Price: £269.95.

beatsbydre.com

c.r.u.s.h Words Joseph Kocharian

RINGING THE CHANGES

Always at the forefront of fashion and with a passion
for nurturing new talent, Browns are expanding
their fast-growing jewellery collection to include new
designers Bleue Burnham, O Thongthai, Shola Branson
and Joy BC. Browns’ assistant buyer Lewis Bloyce has
handpicked the range to include deeply personal
creations for those that like accessories with an edge.
Now we just have to find a sugar daddy so we can
collect all the pieces… Items available from Browns
Boutique and online.

brownsfashion.com

116 OCTOBER 2020

 STYLE

w. a . r. d . r. o . b . e
CHILLING TIME
Ward off winter breezes with these
must-buy basics – perfect for a
windswept walk before heading home
for a fireside snuggle with someone
special (or a good book)

5
Edit & words Sacha Dance

1 // White trousers, £29.99, by Topman

2 // Classic overcoat, £75, by Topman
3 // Black boots, £238, by AllSaints
4 // Andy Warhol book, £40, by Taschen
5 // Herringbone scarf, £60, by Eton at Selfridges

OCTOBER 2020 117

 Photography Joseph Sinclair
Fashion Joseph Kocharian

h on
fles ese
me th
h so with ns
flas ays lutio
p or n d e so
e r u utum styl
ov y a al
C lm tion
ba nsi
tra

Farhan wears shirt

and trousers, both by
Versace, trainers, by
Lacoste

118 OCTOBER 2020

Tomo wears
knitwear and
trousers, both
by Givenchy

OCTOBER 2020 119

 Tomo wears
jumpsuit and
trainers, both by
Fila, jewellery,
model’s own

120 OCTOBER 2020

Farhan wears
jacket, shirt,
trousers and hat,
all by Berluti

OCTOBER 2020 121

 Farhan wears
jeans and cap,
both by Dsquared2

122 OCTOBER 2020

Tomo wears
jeans, harness,
cap and jacket
(in hand), all by
Moschino

OCTOBER 2020 123

 Farhan wears jacket,
jogging bottoms and
bags, all by Moschino

124 OCTOBER 2020

Tomo wears tank top
and trousers, both
by Marni, jewellery,
model’s own

OCTOBER 2020 125

 Farhan wears
jacket, shorts and
bucket hat, all by
Gucci at Matches
Fashion

126 OCTOBER 2020

Tomo wears shirt,
jacket, trousers and
shoes, all by Dunhill

OCTOBER 2020 127

 Farhan wears tank top,
by Carlota Barrera,
leather trousers, by
Coach, boots, by
Timberland at Schuh

128 OCTOBER 2020

Tomo wears top and
trousers, both by
Carlota Barrera

OCTOBER 2020 129

 Tomo wears gilet, by
Onitsuka Tiger, top, by
CDLP, shorts, by Amiri
at Matches Fashion,
socks, by ASOS, boots,
by Moschino

130 OCTOBER 2020

 Tomo wears tank
and trousers, both
by Carlota Barrera

Models Farhan Alam at Supa Model Management London

Tomo Kurata at Next Management
Grooming Shukeel Murtaza at The Only Agency, using Fudge Professional
and MAC Cosmetics
Fashion assistant Sacha Dance

OCTOBER 2020 131

 1
ashionlista
Ease your wardrobe into winter with
nderstated outerwear that’s big on style.
Here are some of the new season’s most
wearable pieces
Edit & wor

1 // Camel trench, £385,

A.P.C at Matches Fashion
2 // Cotton jacket, £165, Reiss
3 // Navy suede jacket, £399, Ted Baker
4 // Heavy canvas parka, £361,
Tommy Hilfiger
5 // Checked linen jacket, £200,
Stussy at Selfridges
6 // Khaki denim jacket, £44.99,
Topman

132 OCTOBER 2020

 STYLE

THE FULL SERVICE

When you’re hairdressing at home, having the right
equipment goes a long way (as many of us learned
to our cost during lockdown). Step forward the
Panasonic ER-GB80 Multi Groomer. It has three
attachments for beard, body and hair, while
40 adjustment settings between 1mm and
20mm and a 45-degree cutting blade provide
laser-sharp precision. The body comb
attachment for delicate areas including
your underarms, shoulders, legs and
the all-important nether regions
makes manscaping a breeze, too.
We’re ready for our (mirror
selfie) close up. Price: £79.99
at Boots.

boots.com

GROOM I NG
Words Joseph Kocharian

SCENTSATIONAL
Inspired by The Hanging Gardens
of Babylon — one of the Seven
Wonders of the World — Jo
Malone’s latest perfume collection,
Lost in Wonder, promises to
transport you far from the
daily grind. There are two new
fragrances: Fig & Lotus Flower
Cologne is a light, floral scent,
blooming with fresh lotus flowers
and ripe figs, as well as earthy
grapevine and neroli; while Cypress
& Grapevine Cologne Intense —
also available as an exfoliating
shower gel — offers a bold aroma
of cypress trees, alongside
woody notes of
grapevines,
amber and moss.
The full range is
available in Jo
Malone stores
and online.

jomalone.co.uk

OCTOBER 2020 133

 IT’S
A
SMALLS
WORLD
Step forward, Naomi
Smalls. We catch up with
the long-legged beauty
and season 8 Drag Race
finalist as she launches
her very own TV project,
The Smalls World Show,
and a makeup collection
with drag queen bestie
Kim Chi
Words Joseph Kocharian
Photography Sarah Crump

L
ike her namesake, Ms. Campbell, Naomi Smalls, 26, is much more
than just a pretty face with impossibly long legs. After being part
of an insanely strong final three in season 8 of RuPaul’s Drag
Race, she returned to remind us all of her star power in All Stars 4,
slaying more than just runway looks by showing us her comedy chops
and lip-syncing prowess, to boot.
The drag artist’s star has continued to rise in the wake of her Drag
Race appearance, including a new project, The Smalls World Show, and a
makeup collaboration with her bestie, fellow season 8 finale alum, Kim
Chi. “I don’t think there’s another makeup artist that really does it like
Kim… drag or makeup artist, period,” says Smalls.
The 2 Queens in 1 Desert Collection from KimChi Chic Beauty is the
first drag queen makeup collab and came about when Naomi went to
Joshua Tree, California, to celebrate Kim Chi’s birthday, and the vivid
colours out there inspired them to create a makeup range together.
From her family and friends and Drag Race peers to her activism, there’s
plenty to talk about with this powerhouse…
Did you know Kim before Drag Race?
We did not know each other. I was definitely a fan of hers before
we met on Drag Race. But I was a full-on nobody at that time — I
think I had a thousand followers on Instagram — so she had no
idea who the hell I was. We have a very similar kind of humour and
we like to poke fun at people and see what we can get away with. I
do remember the first thing she ever said to me [in the workroom],
besides our introduction, was: “What kind of Beyoncé mixes do you
perform back home?” I could read between the lines that she was
thinking I was just some corny queen — not to say anything bad
about Beyoncé mixes. I knew exactly where she was going with that
one, and I think it kind of surprised her that I clocked her!
You have a similar sense of humour…
Totally. We don’t take those kinds of things seriously. And I’m kind
of shocked sometimes with these drag queens who get all in their
feelings and get really sensitive about some light-hearted greeting,
because I just feel like it’s part of our culture.
Do you have a favourite item from the collection?
We have a blush highlighter palette called Sunkissed in June,
which is kind of like a rusty blush. It’s a colour that I’m always
trying to hunt down and I can’t ever find an exact match, so it was
super-fun to create the perfect colour for that. Of course, I named
it after my mum.
You’re really lucky to have an amazing bond with your mum.
It’s something that I have finally come to terms with, but it’s OK to
talk about. Because there is a huge guilt when you hear someone
else’s story and it’s not as bright, or they were kicked out of their
house when they were 16 years old, you know? I think that the more
I can open up people’s brains that your kid can be not the norm and
still be a successful, happy individual, [that] inspires families out
there to have more of an open mind.
STYLE
Do you get fans messaging you for advice on issues like that?
I have so many parental fans. I have a pretty young fan base, but
their families really appreciate the confidence that I give their
children, and I get to be this cool spokesperson for adoption —
which I never really saw happening, and I’m super proud of that.
Did you find it a lot of pressure or do you just embrace it? Because you
went on the show and didn’t know what to expect and now you have a
lot of people looking up to you.
It took me a while to figure out the responsibility you have being
someone younger people look up to. But that’s something that I was
yearning for when I was getting into Drag Race when I was in high
school. I was looking for people who could carry themselves with
the confidence of knowing that they were different and knowing
that they were unique, but not letting it stop them from making
their dreams happen. And I love the fact that I can sit here today
and inspire anyone to do the exact same thing, because if you can
find what makes you confident in the world, everything else is just
background noise.
“IN HIGH SCHOOL, I WAS
LOOKING FOR PEOPLE
WHO KNEW THEY WERE
DIFFERENT, BUT NOT
LETTING IT STOP THEM”
Silly question, really, but who is your favourite supermodel?
I’m obsessed with Naomi Campbell. Really obsessed. I think that
there’s so much about Naomi that I just respect. She’s such an
amazing woman and the strength that she has to tackle everything
she has had to do in this business and change the game for so many
models following her. To be the very first black model in Italian or
Paris Vogue — she went and pretty much demanded that. It was
not something that they were going to give her. And I remember
in an interview her saying that she was the only girl of her peers
that wasn’t offered [it], so she went up to the director and was like,
“Where’s my cover?” I would love to have that sort of confidence in
myself. I think that everyone should demand that kind of respect.
Naomi Campbell is more than just a supermodel to me; she’s a
superhero, a super woman.
You’ve been quite vocal about the Black Lives Matter movement. How
important is it to you as a black drag queen to use your platform to
speak out against racism?
I think that everyone should. Everyone with a brain can realise that
racism is so behind us at this point. Unfortunately, it’s not. I think
that it would be a disservice to have this amazing platform where >
OCTOBER 2020 135
 I can really speak my mind and I know that I’m not a malicious
person. Everything that I say is going to be from a place of love and
a place of being genuine.
It’s unfortunate I didn’t realise [this] in the beginning. I was really
like, “I don’t think I should have to use my platform to speak on this,
because, of course I believe black lives matter. But I didn’t realise
how many of the fans in this fan base have no idea and live in the
middle of nowhere where they don’t have to deal with these issues.
So, if I can do my part and speak up about it, that’s something that’s
obviously so important to me, why wouldn’t I do that?
It’s heartbreaking to see people getting attacked for the colour
of their skin. I think that’s something that has always been a huge
[source of] confusion for me. I grew up in a very multicultural,
blended family, and I’m really grateful for that, because I got to realise
that people are people based on their actions and to judge them on
their actions and their personality more than the colour of their skin.
Apart from Kim, are there any queens that you’re still good friends with
from your time on your season or All Stars?
Yeah. I’m lucky. I definitely went to RuPaul’s Drag Race wanting a
crown both times. I was fully there to get a cheque. But my biggest
takeaway is the friendships I made there, and Kim is definitely one
of them and Bob the Drag Queen, I’m indebted to those two. I know I
wouldn’t be the person I am today without those two on my season.
And then Monét X Change from All Stars is a really close friend and
I’m super proud of everything she’s done as well.
They’re all very vocal about politics, too.
Totally. And I think that I’ve been lucky with the fact that they are
more mature than I am, and have experienced more in life, [that]
has been a great lesson for me. I don’t think it robbed me of my
youth, but it really woke me up at a very young age to a lot of issues
that I wasn’t really dealing with.
Tell us about The Smalls World Show — what’s the format?
It’s going to be a digital showcase of amazing cinematic
performances. There’s going to be a lot more vulnerable, emotional
moments, which comes naturally because I’m telling my own story.
It sounds so corny to say out loud, but I’m doing a lot of reflecting
during this time. And I believe that I’m the strongest person I know,
so there’s definitely some self-love, some self-confidence in there,
but it’s also a love letter to family, a love letter to my mum. It feels
super cool to have the emotional side finally coming to my drag,
because I’ve always been kind of closed-off when I’m on someone
else’s production or on television.
Why do you think you’ve been closed off? Is it a control thing?
I’m, like, terrified for every single episode. If there’s a Drag Race or
All Stars or even this upcoming RuPaul’s Drag Race Vegas Revue, I get
really terrified because I am super, super authentic, which means
I just say whatever the hell I want. You don’t necessarily have the
luxury of sitting in the editing room with these people to, maybe,
throw dust on it or sugar-coat a little something. You just have to
136 OCTOBER 2020
sit back and stand by exactly what you said, and I’m going to be
watching for the first time, like everybody else. I don’t know if I
would say anxiety, but it makes me feel a little stressed.
Are you relishing the control? Or is it scary?
I’d be lying if I didn’t say that rejection is probably my biggest fear
ever. With The Smalls World Show, though, if it bombs, it’s going
to bomb, but I can stand by it and say it’s 100 per cent me. That’s
something I’ve never really been able to say before, so, I guess I am
relishing the fact that it’s going to be a more personal story and
people can look at it and be, like, “Oh wow, this is a product of Naomi
Smalls and all Naomi Smalls’ team,” that I couldn’t do this without.
Typical Virgo mentality.
Oh my God! You clocked it!
Does it help that the queens tour together?
Oh, yeah, we all travel together, normally in a tour bus or hopping
from plane to plane and then getting our own hotel rooms. But I
love that quote-unquote ‘sister’, because I don’t think we all are
sisters, but I love that co-worker bond that we have when we’re on
tour. I remember during All Stars, we were in Australia and it was
“IT’S HEARTBREAKING
TO SEE PEOPLE GETTING
ATTACKED FOR THE
COLOUR OF THEIR SKIN”
after the makeover, and I sent home Manila, and there were people
who were very, very, very passionate about it. I remember there was
a girl who came to the show and she was booing in the audience.
And I remember the other girls seeing that and that audience
member got kicked out in 35 seconds and I just remember that was
so cool — not so cool that she got kicked out, but just so cool that
they really had my back in that moment. But I do love that I can
make someone feel something — if it’s good or bad.
And who’s the wildest on tour?
I would say, Vanjie, for sure. The Tasmanian Devil with a bottle of
Patron. She can just go for hours and she knows how to make everyone
in the room laugh. And once she gets that little glimpse of your
humility, humour, whatever, she will poke it until you’re laughing
yourself to sleep. Also, Farrah Moan is a party animal. She can do the
same thing and she is the first one to want to do 10 shots during the
show, and my poor liver cannot take that. I don’t know how she wakes
up and turns into a beautiful goddess every morning after that.
@naomismalls
 STYLE

Styling Martin June

Hair and makeup
Naomi Smalls

OCTOBER 2020 137

 Farhan wears tank top, by
AllSaints, jacket, by ASOS
Design, trousers, by H&M,
earring (throughout), by ASOS

Layer it up
Photography Joseph Sinclair
Words & Styling Joseph Kocharian

Layering is the key to pulling together

an outfit that works between seasons.
Experiment by mixing high-street and
boutique pieces to create a look that’s
straight off the runway. Investing
in just one or two new items can
give your wardrobe a much-needed
boost. Without access to changing
rooms, you can always try on clothing
at home and pay later with Klarna.
Available in store or online at 6,500
retailers, Klarna offers three flexible
payment methods: pay in 30 days; in
three interest-free instalments over
60 days; or, for pricier purchases,
opt for a 6-36-month payment plan.
You’re so worth it, hun.

Grooming Shukeel Kurtaza at The Only.Agency klarna.com

Models Farhan Alam at Supa Model
Management
Tomo Kurata at Next Management
Fashion Assistant Sacha Dance

138 OCTOBER 2020

 STYLE

Tomo wears shirt and

blazer, both by Phix

Farhan wears shirt, by Levi’s,

gilet, by Asket, trousers,
by Ted Baker, sliders, by
Hunter boots, hat, by Levi’s,
socks, by ASOS

Tomo wears
knitwear, by A.P.C at
Article., long-sleeve
polo, by Levi’s, hat,
by Carhartt WIP at
Article.

Trainers, by
Puma at Schuh

OCTOBER 2020 139

 Benjamin wears
shorts, by Emporio
Armani

Swimwear to sizzle in,

whether you’re in the
Italian countryside, or
the paddling pool in
your back garden
Photography Lucia Napolitano

140 OCTOBER 2020

 Thomas wears
Zander harness,
Tariq briefs, both by
Rufskin

OCTOBER 2020 141

 Thomas wears Agadez
tank, Pablo briefs, both
by Rufskin

142 OCTOBER 2020

 Benjamin wears briefs,
by Calvin Klein

OCTOBER 2020 143

 Benjamin and
Thomas wear
swimwear, by
aussieBum

144 OCTOBER 2020

 Thomas wears
thong, by Moot,
chain, by Versace

STOC K I STS
A A.P.C. at Article. article-london.com
A.P.C. at Matches Fashion matches.com
Adidas adidas.co.uk
AllSaints allsaints.com
ASOS asos.com
aussieBum aussiebum.com

B Beats by Dre beatsbydre.com

Berluti berluti.com
Browns brownsfashion.com
Brunello Cucinelli brunellocucinelli.com

C Calvin Klein calvinklein.com

Carhartt WIP at Article. article-london.com
Carlota Barrera carlotabarrera.com
Cartier cartier.com
CDLP cdlp.com

D Dsquared2 dsquared2.com
Dunhill dunhill.com

E Emporio Armani armani.com

Eton at Selfridges selfridges.com

F Fila fila.co.uk

G Givenchy givenchy.com
Gucci at Matches Fashion matchesfashion.com
H H&M hm.com
J Jo Malone jomalone.co.uk
Jockey jockey.co.uk
L Lacoste lacoste.com
Levi’s levi.com
Levi’s x Lego at levi.com
M Marni marni.com
Matches matchesfashion.com
Moschino moschino.com
Mr. P at Mr Porter mrporter.com
N New & Lingwood newandlingwood.com
P Panasonic at Boots boots.com GROOMING & HAIR Robbie Sean Purcell
Polo Ralph Lauren ralphlauren.co.uk FASHION ASSISTANT Tom Tillmon
Puma at Schuh schuh.co.uk LOCATION With thanks to Jenny De
Luca at Casa De Luca, San Ginese di
R Ralph Lauren ralphlauren.co.uk Compito, Toscana, Italy
Ray-Ban ray-ban.com MODELS Thomas De Luca,
Reiss reiss.com Benjamin De Luca
River Island riverisland.com
Rufskin rufskin.com
S Stussy at Selfridges selfridges.com
T Taschen taschen.com
Ted Baker tedbaker.com
Timberland at Schuh schuh.co.uk
Tommy Hilfiger tommy.com
Topman topman.com

O Onitsuka Tiger onitsukatiger.com V Versace versace.com

OCTOBER 2020 145

 …quote?
I do really like what’s
written on Spike Milligan’s
tombstone: “I told you I
was ill”

…WAY TO UNWIND? …MUSIC ICON?

Swimming… I grew up Grace Jones… at
beside the freezing cold 70-odd years of age
Irish sea, but we [still] and still doing the
swam in it every summer performances that she
does, there’s no one
better

…showbiz encounter?
The worst thing I’ve
said to a celebrity is, “Go
on then, see if you can
hypnotise me,” to Derren
Brown. He gave me this
fucking look like I was
just scum
…COCKTAIL?
A whisky sour. It is off
the scale. Once in a blue …POSSESSION?
moon, I taste things that My photographs, because my
are so good they make family broke up when I was 15
me cry. I remember and they all went to different
having a baked potato places. They left everything
that made me cry! behind, and I was the one
who collected all the old
photos and kept them

Favourite T hings

Róisín Murphy …place to escape to?

Ireland. I have a little house
Words Thomas Stichbury
in the countryside there.
As shiny as a disco ball, Róisín Murphy spun into our
It’s the quietest place,
lives as one half of electro duo Moloko, alongside Mark apart from when the cows
Brydon — few songs are as enduring as their ’90s classic are mooing. The way that
Sing It Back. The Irish singer has gone on to become I sleep there, I don’t sleep
…DATE SPOT? a bona-fide queer icon and, this month, releases new anywhere else
The bench at the bottom album Róisín Machine, the long-awaited follow-up to
of [our] road, beside the 2016’s Take Her Up to Monto. Singling out the most
cherished moment of her career so far, Róisín, 47, says:
bus stop, was where I
“Lying on the floor in the studio when we [me and Mark]
first kissed my partner, got signed… feeling like the planets had aligned to create
Sebastiano. I dread the a love, a life, a career, a meaning and a motion.” Here are
idea that we’d ever break a few of her favourite things…
up because I’m going to
WIKICOMMONS

have to pass that bench Róisín Murphy’s new album, Róisín Machine,
every day. is out on 25 September

146 OCTOBER 2020

Times change.
Icons don’t.

Available at House of Fraser, John Lewis,

Selfridges and bjornborg.com.