Ryan Tubridy found himself bonding with a drag queen over clothing on today’s show admitting that his Late Late Show suits are “armour”.
His guest was the colourful host of Comedy Central’s Dragony Aunts, Candy Warhol who decided to dress up for the occasion despite the fact that listeners couldn’t see her.
Revealing people’s reactions to her she said: “I mean understandably some people are a little bit shocked, and then it will go to really happy and they say ‘you look great’.
"And then I’ll take a photo which is really nice. Understandably some people might be a bit freaked out because you don’t essentially see a seven foot cartoon woman on the way to work usually. I’m 6’2” normally and my heels are eight inches. And I actually just said when I came in why am I wearing heels on the radio? But, perfectionist!”
This led Ryan to a revelation of his own when he said: “I bet it’s like when I put on a suit on a Friday night to do the Late Late show it’s like armour right? So you when you were coming in this morning to talk to us as Candy Warhol if you’d just worn your jeans and t-shirt...”
“It wouldn’t have felt the same,” Candy interjected. Wouldn’t feel the same at all. And that’s hard to explain to some people. It’s not like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde where the wig goes on and I turn into somebody else but you just said it perfectly. It’s like an armour, it gives you more confidence and you also feel more in character.”
However when questioned by Ryan, Candy, who is related to the legendary late drag queen Danny La Rue, did reveal that she sometimes gets nervous while out an about in drag.
She added: “I won’t lie I do. But it depends on the location and who you are with. So if I’m on the way to a gig I know that once I enter a safe queer space it’s going to be nothing but love and fun but you never know what’s going to happen from leaving your house, getting in a cab or walking down the street because you know what it’s like.
"It only takes one person to say something to you that might throw you off.”
Candy was appearing on the show to promote the specially commissioned RTÉ documentary, Kin of Kweens which is exclusively available now on the iPlayer as part of their Pride programming. It tells the story of Candy’s Cork-based drag family called Haus of Mockie Ah of which she is the Haus Mother.
