Former Strictly Come Dancing contestant Michelle Visage has finally addressed how she came to be left out of the show’s upcoming live tour.
Last month, the RuPaul’s Drag Race judge made headlines when she said she was “gutted” at not having been invited to appear on next year’s Strictly tour, admitting she wanted “desperately” to tour the UK with her fellow contestants.
While there was a lot of speculation in the media about the reasons Michelle was left off the tour line-up, she has finally shared her side of the story.
Speaking at one of Samsung KX’s Thread Talks in London, Michelle insisted the story was “not that racy or scandalous”, despite what the press would have us believe.
Michelle said: “What happened was they asked in the beginning for my availability – this is the honest to god transparent truth – I said, ‘yes [I’m available], but I have RuPaul’s Drag Con. Is there any way I could miss the [Strictly] matinees and I would drive or take a train wherever to get there for the night shows?’.
“They were like ‘you have to do all of them’ and I was like, ‘OK do you want me to see if I can move it?’ And they said yes, so I moved it.”
However, after “moving” her appearance at Drag Con, organisers then told her: “I’m sorry, we’re going to pass.”
“So I cleared my schedule and they passed on me so that’s what happened,” Michelle added. “You can’t take it personally, they probably locked people in when they thought that I couldn’t do it, so there wasn’t shade.
“But I would absolutely have loved to have done it. Maybe next year we can clear schedules beforehand.”
Michelle previously spoke out to dismiss the suggestion that money was a factor in not being invited on the Strictly tour.
Although she won’t be hitting the road with her Strictly co-stars, Michelle will be back on this side of the Atlantic early next year, when the second series of RuPaul’s Drag Race UK begins filming.