From the moment she sashayed into the werkroom as a Pamela Anderson-inspired Barbarella bombshell, Paige Three balanced poise and professionalism with an endearingly goofy streak – instantly becoming a Drag Race UK fan-favourite.
Deemed a frontrunner by fans, especially after her much-deserved win in the Rusical – now hailed as one of the franchise’s all-timers – Paige’s journey came to an unexpected end in week seven, following an Alexa-related Snatch Game malfunction and a narrow lip-sync loss to Bones.
“I have to be so real. I felt a bit embarrassed to be in the bottom, just because I’m really hard on myself and I never wanted that to happen,” Paige tells Gay Times, reflecting on the emotional whiplash of going from the top to the bottom. Yet even in defeat, her composure – paired with that gloriously nonsensical exit line – reminded viewers that she’s both a consummate theatre diva and a drag comedian in one.
Here, Paige Three opens up about her time on Drag Race UK season seven – including the pressure of Snatch Game (and why she didn’t impersonate Traitors host Claudia Winkleman), how her “militant” musical-theatre training shapes her drag, and why subverting expectations has always been part of her story.
Paige, you look gorgeous.
Thank you! Giving a bit of blonde bombshell, babes.
More Pam Anderson.
Absolutely. A little Pam, little 80s and little Doja Cat.
You were at Heaven for your final episode of Drag Race. How much sleep did you get?
I went to bed at three and woke up at six.
How are you doing this?
Darling, she’s a working diva! She’s done it before and she will do it again. The amount of times I’ve done Heaven on a Friday and then had to get up for a brunch, so it’s not new. I didn’t really sleep, I actually had my mum with me. I was in a hotel and she was snoring, so I didn’t actually sleep!
What’s mum’s name?
Catherine.
Well that’s just classic Catherine, isn’t it?
Catherine, honey. She woke up like, ‘Did I snore?’ I went, ‘Yes, mum, you snored. Yes you did, bitch.’ I have to give it to her, babes. She came home from Antigua to watch my elimination, so I let her off.
We’ll let you off, Catherine.
I can’t keep a grudge. She’s the diva. She’s the woman of my dreams. I have to let her get away with those things.
Well yes, she concocted this!
Last night I had a full leopard skin catsuit on, and she turned up in leopard skin and judged Porn Idol with me on the stage. And she was blonde. I was like, ‘This is weird.’ We actually do look alike when I’m [in drag]. So, people wanted her more than they wanted me last night. I was like, ‘Do you know what, diva? Take the stage.’
So, how are you feeling post-elimination?
I’m doing okay. Obviously, I’m not going to be like, ‘I’m elated!’ It’s so annoying, but I haven’t been able to properly check my messages and things. They’re flooding in, and that’s really lovely. I’m feeling good — feeling supported.
Let’s talk the Snatch Game. Paige, may I ask, why didn’t you do Claudia Winkleman?
Because Claudia Winkleman wasn’t on my radar back then. I lie. Actually, that’s a goddamn lie. For my season five tape, I did Claudia Winkleman, but I didn’t know Claudia was so in my bones until we did it on the show. But I also didn’t have a black fringed wig or anything. Who knows — maybe I’ll do it again one day.
Your Claudia videos had me dying.
I don’t know why I just embody her, Sam.
You do.
I do the makeup, I put that wig on and I’m like, ‘Claudia, you are within me.’ I just love it. I was getting so out of sync with all the content that I had to release for Drag Race. I was doing so much Claudia stuff that I was like, ‘Oh no, babe, you have to remember that you are not Claudia Winkleman.’ The amount of comments that I have on those videos that are, ‘Oh, I really thought this was genuinely Claudia.’ And then she commented like, ‘Fantastic.’
Is that what she said?
Just one word. I think it was “fantastic”. It was just a one-word thing, which is very her. Then Alan Carr messaged me like, ‘This is really too much. This is hilarious.’ So I was like, well, if Alan and Claudia give it the green light, guess what? More videos incoming!
Okay then, for the next season of UK vs the World/UK All Stars/US All Stars/Global All Stars?
That’s all good and well, Sam, but what I’d actually really like to do next is Celebrity Traitors season two. And I would really, really like to be sat around that roundtable dressed as Claudia Winkleman. You know that’s good TV, girl! Put me on that roundtable, and I will be trying to find out if somebody is a traitor or hiding the fact that I’m a traitor, dressed as Claudia herself while she walks around that table. Come on, we’ve got to make that happen.
You did Alexa on the Snatch Game. Have you got any electronics at home that feature an Alexa?
I’ve got one in the kitchen. She’s a fancy one with the screen, but I will say, ironically — but not so ironically, more truthfully — she’s very unhelpful. Which is kind of where it came from to do it, because sometimes my Alexa will just give me not what I’ve asked for whatsoever. I just thought, ‘Who is this person behind this voice? That is some woman who has had a really long shift, and she cannot be bothered to look up the definition of carrot stick right now.’ So that’s where it came from. I wanted to be the woman behind the Alexa.
And the new format threw you off…
It did. We got that info quite late. When we got told it was going to be a change I was like, ‘…ooh.’ Which is why I ended up not doing Charlotte, because I felt I actually had loads of props and things to do Alexa. Everyone thinks they are going to do Snatch Game on Drag Race, and I had a preparation of what I was going to do. When it changed I was like, ‘Who do I feel like I’ve got the most bits to do?’ Therefore, I used her, because that’s what I had practised more. In hindsight, I should have done Charlotte. But there we go. There are only so many times you can say, ‘Darlings!’
I do think there is a genius Snatch Game in there somewhere.
There was! I want people to see my [audition] tape, because I did it in my tape and it’s funny. The thing is, that Liverpudlian voice that I had underneath there was actually meant to come out way later in the Snatch Game. I was meant to kind of build up to her getting more and more frustrated about these stupid questions she’s getting, to where she’s finally like, ‘For god’s sake, I can’t be bothered to do this anymore.’ But I gave the gag of the Liverpudlian voice away in the first question, and I remember thinking, ‘Oh, I’ve given it up already.’ So then I was just being a character the whole time, rather than having a journey that had a gag at the end, if that makes sense.
In Untucked, you suspected that you would be in the bottom two. When Ru announced that you would be lip-syncing against your close friend Bones, what was going through your mind?
It’s never nice, and it’s never going to be nice. To be honest with you… I have to be so real. I felt a bit embarrassed to be in the bottom, just because I am really hard on myself and I never wanted that to happen. But, of course, it is part of the show. I just feel like a slight fall from grace — from winning the week before and then being in the bottom the week after — mentally and and adrenaline-wise it was quite… it didn’t feel great. Then, to be doing it with my friend and knowing that at the end of this scenario, one of us wouldn’t be there anymore, is tough.
As a viewer, I never would’ve suspected that you felt embarrassed. You are such a class act. Where do you think that poise and professionalism comes from?
I really appreciate that question, actually, because I spoke about it on the main stage and it got cut out, but it comes from a militant musical theatre training. I’m not talking about a university where you study dance; I’m talking about training to be a musical theatre performer in the industry. It’s like military. It really is. It’s amazing, but it’s like training to be an athlete and in that process you learn to look in the mirror, pull up, turn on the show, and get the job done no matter how you’re feeling. We’re performers. And I feel that sometimes, with the judges throughout the season, there may have been an actual disconnect between the two of us. I’m a silly cow. I like to really just have a good time, and the girls knew when I was on the bus home chatting crap.
I was saying all the stuff under the sun and having a really fun time. But that actual interaction that we get with the judges is quite minor. It’s not that much time. I feel that when I am on stage, I am almost in pageantry mode. I’m presenting, I’m stood at the bevel and I’m ready to give you a show. that can sometimes disconnect with them because they are like, ‘We want to see your kooky side.’ Because I’m on stage my brain goes, ‘This isn’t the time to do that.’ Does that make sense?
The viewers absolutely saw the goofy side to you.
I’m so glad that people saw that. I really, really am. If that hadn’t come out on the show and it was just me being a very militant person on stage, I would’ve been really disappointed. I don’t think that necessarily represents me as a human being. I like to have a good time and have a laugh, but then care so much about how I’m doing drag as well. It is a hard one to balance on a show like that.
Has being a daughter of the legendary Sasha Colby fed into that professionalism, too?
Yeah, I definitely used it. It was good for me in many ways, because there were many times throughout the filming process – because it is so up and down and you don’t know which way you are going – where you question yourself a little bit. Just before we did the Rusical I got told, ‘Paige Three, we’d love to hear you sing, but you haven’t found your voice.’ Bit of a hard one to be then given a Rusical. So you are asking me to play it up and show you a bit more of me, and let go of that militant training that I have — which was a conversation that was on the main stage — and then give a Rusical? So I was going, ‘Do I now use those things that I’m trained to do, or do I go in a completely different direction?’
That Rusical, though…
It was so much fun.
You got to show them your professionalism through how well you executed the character, and then the silly side because of what the character is, so it was the perfect opportunity to combine both of those worlds.
I was thrilled by that chance to do that. It needed to happen at that point in time. I had literally so much fun. I wish there was more footage of the rehearsal process. Me and the girls had so much fun. It was so stupid. Silllexa comes to mind straight away. It’s just too much: the bent knees and the choreography, and then the kebab shop. Oh my god, I can’t explain how funny it was to watch her do it. Then we all ended up doing each other’s numbers backstage, and it was just very funny. It was a great process. I loved it.
I truly believe that it was one of the best Rusical performances across all iterations of the franchise. It was brilliant.
Thank you so much. That’s really nice for you to say. I think it’s a cool legacy for me to leave. Do you know what I mean? I’m happy that, as I said, it would have been quite embarrassing if I hadn’t done that. Can you imagine? She’s like, ‘I’m a musical diva’ and [then I get] the boot!
It’s been incredible watching your trajectory across the series, from sashaying into the werkroom as a Pamela Anderson-inspired bombshell to cementing your status as the season’s theatre queen. You’ve shattered misconceptions of your drag.
Love that. That’s important to me. It’s easy for people watching the show, just seeing a drag queen in their aesthetic, seeing the way they upload photos and the looks they put together, to pigeonhole that person into, ‘That’s what they do.’ But it isn’t necessarily always what they do. There are many elements and different inspirations and attributes to drag artists that don’t always get seen. I love to serve a look, girl. But when I’m on a microphone and I’m hosting a show, it’s one of my favourite things to do because I just love the rapport with an audience and being a silly cow and having a good time. It is important to remember that you can do both. Viewers shouldn’t pigeonhole people, because that person might have more under that huge wig she’s got on.
Can you talk to me about your exit line? It really made me cackle, but I had no idea if there was a specific meaning behind it?
No, no, no. I didn’t have a clue either. Not a Scooby Doo. I went to the back of the stage like, ‘Oh, don’t have an exit line.’ I literally thought, ‘Well, I have one last thing to say…’ [and then] blank. So, ‘Basically, I went to the shop,’ literally came out of nowhere. So there you go.
Love it even more now.
Listen, baby, I didn’t have an exit line because if you do things like that, you can preempt or manifest it happening. It’s not like I didn’t think that I was never going to go home. It’s not that. But I think if you prepare to go, you’ll go. So it wasn’t on my radar until it needed to be, and then that’s what came with it. The thing is, I can’t really remember that episode. But this episode in particular, we were all so tired from the Rusical and I really couldn’t remember anything. The lip sync? Blacked out. Not a clue what I did. Really. Genuinely.
What’s next for Paige Three?
What is next for Paige Three? I’m really happy and thrilled and feel very lucky to have had new people come on board to follow me. So hopefully, it provides a little bit of a bigger audience for me to give some killer shows to people. I’d love to really do the thing that I love doing the most, which is being on stage. And one thing I would love to do is something like Celebrity Traitors. I want to get that personality out there more, play more games, and have fun. So expect to see me in as many places as possible, because I dunno what I’m doing, so you shouldn’t either.
Drag Race UK season 7 is streaming in the UK on BBC iPlayer.
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