"It was 8am on a school day when 16-year-old Lew-Delilah left her family home in Telford, England, for the last time. "I packed a Nike duffel bag. I had a Moschino..." she pauses, laughs, clarifies. "A fake Moschino handbag with all my makeup, and then my backpack for school," filled with clothes. "I just walked all the way to my closest train station.""
"This was 2020, and the teen had spent the previous two years riding a strange and improbable wave of public attention. Aged 14, living then as a gay boy (she came out as trans in 2022), she'd made headlines after attempting to stage a performance as her drag persona, Athena Heart, at her school. The school was aware it was happening - "I was going in school with like, 10 inch heels and dancing in the music room" - but the day before the scheduled performance, the school pulled the plug claiming, she says, it was "illegal" for her to perform to her classmates in drag. Her family contacted the media and "within a few hours I had ITV, BBC, Sky News all arguing over who would have me on their show first," she recalls. She appeared on This Morning twice, leaving co-host Rylan dewy-eyed as he dubbed her "amazing". The drag community reacted in kind, and she was invited to perform with RuPaul's Drag Race queens on tour, in bars, and at Brighton Pride. Red carpet appearances followed, as did endless PR packages bursting with cosmetics and wigs. I watched her perform as Athena at Drag World in London in 2018. The attention culminated in BBC documentary Not Just A Boy In A Dress, which charted the teen's dogged attempts to stage a community drag show, backed by local officials and, at the time, her family."
""I had no money. I had no job""
Lew-Delilah gained national visibility as a young drag performer known as Athena Heart, attracting television appearances, invitations to perform with established queens, red carpet events, and a BBC documentary. At 14, an attempted school performance was canceled and deemed "illegal," which propelled widespread media interest and industry opportunities. She later came out as trans in 2022. Despite public recognition and offers, family conflict led her to leave home at 16, carrying a duffel and backpack and becoming homeless without money or a job.
Read at PinkNews | Latest lesbian, gay, bi and trans news | LGBTQ+ news
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