‘I’m too much for the public’: Drag Race star Tayce furiously breaks her silence on Strictly snub
'I was honestly really expecting to be called back'
RuPaul’s Drag Race UK star, Tayce, has revealed that they feel as though the “negative focus on trans people” resulted in their snub from the Strictly Come Dancing lineup this year.
Tayce was the runner up during the second series of Drag Race UK, and actually won the festive Christmas edition of Strictly Come Dancing in 2024, but wasn’t offered a place on the official lineup this year.
The drag queen thinks this might be because she “looks the way I do” and wonders if she’s “too much for the general public.”
Speaking on behalf of WhichBingo, Tayce told The Mirror: “I had the most amazing time. It was such an honour and a privilege to be the first drag queen on that show.
“I mean, it obviously was only for the Christmas special, not the whole main series. I would have loved to have been in the main series, but that didn’t happen for me for some reason. I don’t know why.
“Because I guess I look the way that I do, where we’re in a climate right now where there’s so much of an attack and a light and a negative focus on trans people.”
She continued: “I mean, I myself, I’m obviously not trans, but I don’t look like your standard hokey pokey, artichokey kind of drag queen, where I think people only feel comfortable when they’re in on the joke and they feel like, ‘Oh, it’s a man in a wig’. And I mean I don’t look like a man in a wig.’
“I look like Naomi Campbell. And some people can’t handle the beauty and the essence. And I think that’s kind of more of a thing on them.”
Drag Race star Tayce explained she would have absolutely “loved” to have taken place in Strictly this year, and clarified that she doesn’t think she’s “too much for the show or for the people who booked me.”
She continued: “I think I’m maybe just too much of a people to handle me at home because I really had my fair share of backlash.
“Throughout my whole time on the Christmas season on all sorts of social media and I read things but it’s something that doesn’t affect me but I know there would be someone that could have been in my position that really wouldn’t have been able to handle that kind of pressure or that kind of attack so maybe like when I say I was too much maybe I’m just too much for a whole season of my iconicness and if people can’t handle that that’s okay.”
Tayce added: “I’m such a fan of the show and I know I would kill it. Double Dutch. So, yeah, I mean, if it is what it is. I mean at the end of the day, I would have loved to.
“I was honestly really expecting to be called back, especially because there’s been kind of a trend, if you will, of winners coming back from the Christmas season.
“So I kind of sat there thinking, yep, I’m going to get that call, it’s going to happen. So it humbled me a bit than I did at the call, but you know what, maybe I was just, yeah too much for the public at home.”
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