By Charlie Dowey
A tram hurtled towards her, its headlights slicing viciously through Manchester’s bustling streets. Then, like a whisper, a twisted thought crossed Divina De Campo’s mind: “What if I just stepped in front of it? Wouldn’t that be lovely?”
It was 2019, and filming for the first series of RuPaul’s Drag Race UK had just finished. Divina – the series’ runner-up – had performed at full tilt throughout the gruelling competition.
After all, RuPaul’s Drag Race, now a global franchise, is essentially the Olympics of drag. Hundreds apply each year, but only a handful of queens make it onto the runway. Divina had given it everything, yet in the quiet aftermath, walking through Central Manchester, she felt a crushing emptiness.
But then, just as quickly, another voice within her broke through: “Hold up, who’s that? That’s not me. I’m not that person. I love my life,” recalls the 40-year-old drag maestro.
Things haven’t always been easy for this opera-singing entertainer. “I’ve had a couple of proper breakdowns in my life where I’ve either burnt out or there’s been some huge emotional trauma,” admits Divina.
Over time, she’s learned to recognise the warning signs. “I think now I’m much better at seeing the clues to work out what’s going on in my head,” she explains over Zoom, as she expertly glues a lilac wig to her head in her hotel room.
Divina has also been open about taking medication to manage her mental health. “If I had an iron deficiency, I would take iron tablets, and I just happen to have a deficiency in the chemical that keeps me on an even keel, so I take my little tablets and I’m fine,” says the legendary songstress.
From growing up in a world that told her she didn’t belong to becoming one of Britain’s most beloved drag queens, Divina De Campo’s story is one of bravery, growth, and perseverance.
Long before her uber-fabulous drag persona was born, Divina was a young queer kid navigating a world that didn’t always make her feel welcome. She grew up in the 1990s in Brighouse, a small town in West Yorkshire where being different wasn’t just difficult – it was dangerous.
Going to school was a constant struggle for Divina. “I was kind of the poster child for being a gay,” she recalls. “I’d walk into the dinner hall and the whole place would erupt with students screaming ‘faggot’ and ‘queer’ and ‘gay’ and all of that stuff. I’d experience that in the corridors and when I was walking home, too.”
But young Divina found solace in performance – first through dance, then through drag. Though she admits she was snooty about drag initially. “Drag had a terrible reputation back then. It was synonymous with being a bit naff. We had Lily Savage, and we had Dame Edna, but lots of the drag that you’d see in small towns was just a bit rubbish,” says the seasoned comedienne.
Divina’s first performance in drag was, by her own admission, a beautiful mess. “I didn’t know what to do with makeup at all. I looked dreadful. The internet was still in its infancy so there were no makeup tutorials or anything like that. I had this really cheap lipstick that my sister got free in a magazine and some blue eyeshadow that I think I might have stolen. No lashes, no eyeliner… dreadful,” she laughs.
The gig took place in North Wales. It was a disaster waiting to happen. The pianist was totally unprepared, and the music was extremely difficult. Instead of letting it fall apart, Divina improvised and decided to turn it into a comedy sketch.
“Let’s just do it like we’re the two Ronnies,” she recalls telling the musician. “We turned what could’ve been a problem into something that was actually fun.” The audience was blown away.
That night, she knew – drag was her calling. “I thought: ‘Yeah, I’m in.’ There’s something here that is so much fun,” says Divina.
Since then, Divina has captivated audiences in countless musicals and pantomimes. She’s also released a string of singles and recorded vocals for the soundtrack of Drag: The Musical, a new show which has taken New York City by storm.
People up and down the UK have fallen in love with Divina. She’s so adored, in fact, that her face now graces two murals. One, located on Richmond Street in Manchester’s Gay Village, has become something of a tourist attraction following her stint on RuPaul’s Drag Race UK.
“It’s been amazing for me because people will go and take a picture with the mural, and they tag me. I think it’s fantastic,” says Divina. The other mural is located in Birmingham.
Sadly, the mural in Manchester has been vandalised repeatedly. “It’s been defaced three times, I think. It had ‘Bianca Del Rio’ (winner of RuPaul’s Drag Race season six) written across it, and it was in Bianca’s handwriting – but she denies it,” Divina chuckles.
The artwork has also been targeted with homophobic abuse. Thankfully, the artist has helped to restore the mural. “He’s been so generous with his time and fixed it. He’s put anti-graffiti paint over it now, so fingers crossed it won’t get defaced again – but if it does, it should be easier to remove,” she says optimistically.
One song that resonates deeply with Divina today is Brave by Sarah Bareilles as the lyrics reflect her outlook on life. “The older I get, the more I realise you have to be brave about anything and everything,” she says.
“Maybe you won’t succeed, and that’s okay. Failure is an important part of the road to success. You have to allow yourself the space to fail sometimes so that you can then succeed at other things,” explains Divina.
She’s a big fan of Madonna, too. “There’s a line in one of Madonna’s songs where she says: ‘I’m tired of playing the rules of someone else’s game’,” says Divina.
“I think that’s what lots of us experience in life. It’s like somebody else has made this game up. It’s not our game. I didn’t want to play this game, and I don’t want to play by those rules. I want my own rules to my own little game and I’m just going to do my own thing. I think about that line quite a lot, you know.”
Divina De Campo brings her one-woman show, I Do Think, to venues across the UK this April and May. For more details, visit divinadecampo.com.
