Even before competing on RuPaul’s Drag Race UK season four in 2022, Danny Beard was one of the best-known drag queens in the country. Now though, something’s shifted.
After finishing as runner-up on this year’s Celebrity Big Brother, losing the win to Coronation Street’s Jack P Shepherd by less than two per cent of the vote and exiting the house with a spin and a wave to the sound of rapturous cheers and chants of “Robbed!”, Danny Beard is now known for being Danny.
It’s a cloud that has lingered over Danny’s success since they began their drag career more than a decade ago. In the Big Brother house, while sniffling back tears in the diary room, he put it plainly: fans adore Danny Beard the persona, but he worried they wouldn’t adore Danny the person.
“Being honest with you, it stems from a childhood of being the odd one out, the bully victim, the kid that didn’t have many friends, that didn’t think they were going to do anything,” Danny says today, disarmingly candid and open as ever, calling from the back of a car en route to their next media interview and podcast recording. Since coming out of the house on Friday, it’s been non-stop; we had to reschedule this chat owing to so much media interest in Danny the person.
@pinknews Celebrity Big Brother star and drag queen Danny Beard shared with PinkNews how it felt to support and lend advice to JoJo Siwa after opening up about gender identity… #dannybeard #cbb #bigbrother #jojosiwa #lgbtqia #gender
“The admiration and the love is mainly for the job that you do,” he adds. “When people tell you you’re great and you’re funny and ‘Oh my god, you’re the best!’, you kind of think, ‘Well, you’ve only seen [the drag] side of me. You’ve not seen the real me. So you think that side of me is the best, not me. You know what I mean?”
Danny Beard entered Celebrity Big Brother in full dragged-up glam, signature white painted face, Ariana Grande ponytail tickling her backside, shoulder pads levelling her temples. But after launch night, they ditched the drag, hoping to win over the public as the person behind the performer (bar a task in which they played the waspish house mother, complete with a blonde Karen barnet).
They took a “massive” bag of drag into the house with them, in case they ever felt they needed their armour back, but after sparking up unlikely friendships with other housemates – including Tory politician Michael Fabricant and The Sandman star Donna Preston – on the back of being himself, it wasn’t needed. “I was quite liberated not to even crack open a mascara.”
It would be a hilarious misrepresentation to call Danny self-effacing. In the house, aside from their tooth-wincing relationship with JoJo Siwa, the only complaint levied at Danny was about the noise, the way Danny enters a room and turns the heads of everyone in it. Preston affectionately dubbed the experience as “The Danny Beard Show”. “I would be a complete liar to say I didn’t like the spotlight. I’m most comfortable when I’m entertaining people,” Danny says. “Of course mother loves the spotlight!” Yet for all their dazzling showmanship, there is still a sense of humility, and a disbelief the world could be on their side.
During the live final, when host AJ Odudu and Will Best called their name, there were thundering cheers. Danny was wide-eyed at the response, mouthing “What the hell?”. Despite the show having a rich history of cherished queer winners – in 2004, Nadia Almada became the show’s first trans winner – Danny still didn’t expect how positively they were being received on the outside. “If I had my phone in there, I would have sat there like a little cocky b***h, you know? I didn’t know what outside was saying and how beautiful the support had been.”
Though the response has been “overwhelming”, in honesty, it’s exactly what Danny wanted. “Of course I wanted to win,” they state plainly. Seeing how previous winners have fared post-show – particularly the likes of Rylan Clark, who was promoted to national treasure status and TV royalty after winning series 11 back in 2013 – spurred them on in part to say yes in the first place.
Because, though Danny will always be a drag performer through and through, their main career aim is and always has been to become a TV presenter. “That has been a career goal since I first sat in front of the TV and used to watch Angelica Bell on CBBC,” he says, in genuine awe of Bell, his fellow housemate. Before drag, while at university, he auditioned to become a Blue Peter presenter. Before university, he was an unwavering fan of each and every TV host and the shows they fronted.
@pinknews In the first few days upon leaving the Celebrity Big Brother house, PinkNews spoke to drag queen star Danny Beard about their time in the house, including thoughts on JoJo and Chris’ close bond… #cbb #bigbrother #jojosiwa #chrishughes #dannybeard #lgbtqia
“I was the child that watched 60 Minute Makeover and used to dream of hosting a makeover show. I was the child that watched A Place In The Sun and used to dream of doing a travel show. I used to watch Graham Norton growing up, wanting to host a chat show so bad.” As a kid coming of age in Liverpool, Danny would pretend they were Davina McCall hosting Big Brother; after his eviction, he told Odudu and Best that th wanted their jobs (though, he assures me today, not in the literal sense).
They got a taste of the role in 2023, hosting Drag Race UK aftershow The After Shave with Danny Beard on BBC Three. The hosting gig was their prize for winning Drag Race UK, and so it couldn’t be recommissioned. But it feels inevitable that Danny – who has the natural charisma, magnetism and humanity of Rylan or the late Paul O’Grady – is set to become a TV staple.
“If I could achieve a tiny portion of what Paul achieved in his life, I would definitely die a happy boy. He’s an icon to me. He’s a trailblazer,” Danny says lovingly. “When Paul started on TV, it wasn’t a great time for gay people, and he helped break down those stereotypes and put a friendly familiar face to gay people. I’ll forever be thankful for the little yellow brick road.”
Some might question whether the UK is ready for a drag queen, in or out of drag, to become a leading TV host despite O’Grady having done it as Lily Savage three decades ago. While O’Grady helped cement Blankety Blank as one of the country’s most adored quiz shows in the ‘90s, Danny’s fellow Drag Race UK winner, the late The Vivienne, was trolled for simply appearing on the show’s Christmas special last year. Other Drag Race UK queens have endured social media lashings for appearing on MasterChef, The Wheel, and Strictly Come Dancing.
“To be honest with you, that was in the back of my mind going into the show,” Danny confesses. “Drag’s the most mainstream it’s ever been thanks to shows like Drag Race, but it’s also the most toxic backlash at times just for existing.” Following the UK Supreme Court’s recent ruling that trans women are not legally defined as women, there are fears about which facet of the LGBTQ+ community will be targeted next.
It seems that TV executives, at the least, aren’t pulling back their support for queer folk. “I’m going to give you the most TV answer in the world,” Danny says when I question them on whether hosting offers are cascading in already. “My lips are sealed at the minute. What I can say is you need to watch this space because it’s only been one business working day, and my phone’s been off the hook, honey.”
Celebrity Big Brother is streaming on ITVX.
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