Drag performer and comedian Lady Bushra, also known as Amir Dean, has urged the queer South Asian community to “stick together” after experiencing racist, anti-drag backlash following an appearance on BBC’s Blankety Blank.
The performer appeared as a contestant on Saturday night’s (3 May) episode of BBC quiz show Blankety Blank, which was previously hosted by Paul O’Grady’s drag alter ego Lily Savage in the late nineties.
Yet despite appearing for just a 15-minute segment, the drag star has since experienced a wave of online negativity, including derogatory remarks which she says are rooted in “racial bias”.
Speaking to PinkNews, Lady Bushra said that while she has become accustomed to experiencing homophobic backlash from “region specific communities” as a queer South Asian person from Bradford, the experience after Blankety Blank has been “different”.
One viewer referred to the star as a “curry maker” while another made a collage of Lady Bushra’s other media appearances, appearing to suggest that the comedian had been given too much media attention.
Responding to the latter comment, the comic wrote on X/Twitter: “So there’s a limit to how often I, a brown woman of colour, be seen but David Attenborough is out relentlessly shoving nature down our throats? Hypocrisy!”
“I can’t help but wonder as to what the motivation behind such a remark towards me is, you know? It’s not just about me being a drag queen in my opinion, it’s a little bit more than that,” she added when speaking to PinkNews.
“I just think that in that person’s mind there’s a glass ceiling for someone like me and I don’t think that exists.”
The comedian explained that others had suggested he was being paid to appear on the show. “This is the BBC, these are not paid opportunities. God forbid what they’d think of me if I ever got on Drag Race. Who do I need to pay to get on there?”
“A lot of people have engaged with those comments and they’ve liked it, which is not the UK that I knew growing up.”
Lady Bushra pointed to the fact that South Asian people have existed on British TV for decades, including in comedies Goodness Gracious Me and Citizen Khan, while Blankety Blank was hosted by a drag queen, Lily Savage, from 1997 to 1999 and 2001 to 2002.
“This initial reaction of my first appearance on TV has sort of raised an eyebrow and it just reminds me that there’s more work to be done,” she said.
PinkNews has approached the BBC for comment.
The drag star filmed the episode of Blankety Blank last April, and specifically asked to complete the episode in drag. On set, host Bradley Walsh and the audience were “lovely” while the crew was “one of the best” she had worked with. As such, she “didn’t give much thought” to how viewers might respond.
“I knew that some people may well have had an opinion on me. I didn’t anticipate the race element to have been an issue. I thought seeing a drag queen would have been the main issue, because that’s just art, right?”
Yet the performer has also become increasingly aware of rising anti-drag rhetoric, with late Drag Race UK winner The Vivienne experiencing backlash while appearing as a celebrity panelist on Blankety Blank in December.
Similarly, drag stars including Cheryl the Queen, Lawrence Chaney and Tayce have suffered online abuse for appearing on shows like MasterChef UK, The Wheel and Strictly Come Dancing.
Following the episode, a number of social media users suggested that the TV industry is trying to “normalise men in dresses” while others referred to Blankety Blank as a “freak show”.
“It goes to show us just how political queer people’s existence is because we’re used as political pawns, and therefore opinions can shift, and it happens constantly,” Lady Bushra reflected.
“We’ve seen a real golden age of drag [being appreciated] and now it seems like it’s once again on the decline. So it just goes to show that any sort of progress is never clean or linear and we cannot afford to let it rest on our laurels, because somebody will use your existence for political gain.
“Before you know it, the work that you’ve done has start to become unraveled.”
As far as the drag performer is concerned, Britain’s troubled economy, and issues within employment, education, health and social care “inevitably invite a scapegoat”.
“People will start coming up with a distraction technique, which is a reason why you have such a high anti-trans rhetoric going on,” he shared. “Sometimes I just sit back and smile. I’m like, ‘You guys are being played’. I’m a drag queen, my objective is to entertain… You’ve decided to make this your whole focus, rather than how you’re going to get yourself out of the hell hole that you’ve got yourself into.
“They’re falling for it, hook, line and sinker at the moment.”
Yes, that’s the majority of drag queens. In other news, water is still wet.
https://t.co/zrOexIIx2A
— Lady Bushra
(@ladybushraOG) May 3, 2025
Because it’s normal. https://t.co/UvmWvZCyCu pic.twitter.com/XisGyy5VbG
— Lady Bushra
Since the “wild” backlash began over the weekend, Lady Bushra has been directly responding with the type of sardonic humour that saw her nominated for a BBC New Comedy Award in 2021.
“My strongest muscle is my comedy, so I will always respond in humour,” she said.
“The high road is to expose people for the stupidity that they put out. That’s the reason why I respond with good humour, is so that people can see how silly they sound.”
As for his message for his community and for the haters, she is clear.
“I would say stick together, band together. Do not let them divide you,” she shared.
“And to anybody who wants to throw hatred our way, I’d suggest for them to look to themselves and just make sure that they are not being manipulated.
“Because you know when things are in such decline, believe me, you do not have the privilege to hate on a gay person. You need to work and pay your bills. You need to make your MPs work for you. That is a lot more important than seeing a man in a wig on TV.”
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