My Pride Anthems: Kim Woodburn

The coronavirus pandemic has changed everything, and that includes how we’re all celebrating Pride in 2020.

With huge public gatherings out of the question, we’re asking a range of LGBTQ celebrities and allies for their personal Pride anthems, to help us all get into the Pride spirit from lockdown.

Bringing a bit of camp to the proceedings in the latest instalment of our My Pride Anthems series is the queen of clean herself, Kim Woodburn.

Kim made a name for herself on the Channel 4 series How Clean Is Your House?, but has become a camp favourite in recent years thanks in no small part to her explosive appearance on Celebrity Big Brother, not to mention Drag Race UK winner The Vivienne’s spot-on impersonations.

“I don’t know, my love,” Kim says when asked why she thinks she has been so embraced by the LGBTQ community in recent years. “People say ‘you’re so funny Kim’ or ‘you’re a bit camp’ – well I am a bit camp! But I don’t go out of my way to be camp, you know? I’m not doing it deliberately.

“But what can I do about being camp...? Probably get on with it, I suppose. Can’t change now!”

Kim’s manager sent her music choices over ahead of time – but as the interview went on, it appeared one song had been sneaked onto the list without her agreement. See if you can guess which one...

Dolly Parton – 9 To 5

“9 To 5 is typical of the life most of us have. ‘What a way to make a living’, and bosses are ‘all taking and no giving’. I think in many facets of your working life, that’s what you come across, certainly when you’re starting out. And even now!

“If you get a decent boss, you get a decent boss, lovely. If you get an absolute pig, you think ‘oh my god, I’m going to strangle him, I can’t say a word, I need the money, I’d better shut up’.

“And I think Dolly Parton is wonderful. What I like about her is what I like about anybody, she’s different. I like people that don’t copy anybody else. Dolly Parton is Dolly Parton, her voice is extremely distinctive, she writes her own songs, and you’d know it was her from the first word she sang.”

ABBA - Dancing Queen

“I like most of ABBA’s songs, but I had to name one. But Dancing Queen, we’ve all [experienced that]… I know when I was a young woman, you’d go to the club, you’d dance, you’d hope one of the boys was looking at you, thinking you were lovely, hoping you’d click off with one, ‘oooh I like him, does he like me?’... and I can assure you they did, darling. Gracious, lovie. I mean they’re getting two for one, aren’t they, dear? [Dancing Queen] reminds me of my young days. We’ve all been dancing queens.

“I’ve seen kids of 10 dancing to ABBA’s songs, and I’ve seen people in old folks’ homes at 80 dancing to them. There’s no age you can put on it, and you can listen to it in another 50 years time, there’s just something about them. They’re very different.

“And if I’m doing any housework, I put a bit of ABBA on and bang away through it. There’s something about that music, it grabs you, doesn’t it? You put it on while you’re doing the dishes and you just feel cheerful with them, it’s just lovely.”

The Weather Girls – It’s Raining Men

“I love it. And do you know what I like most of all? You know, you get rather tired of gorgeous young things in their g-strings singing with bodies to die for. They’re gorgeous, the girls, and there are times I love to look at them. But I loved the way they employed great big ladies to sing this song – I thought ‘good on ya!’. Fat, thin or bald you want a man, and I thought it was wonderful.

“We are so figure-conscious now… and it is nice to see the youngsters and their lovely bodies, but they’re not the only ones that are passionate, you know? All ages are passionate. But young people seem to think they invented sex. Well, they didn’t, dear. I did.”

Cher – Believe

“No, I didn’t pick that. I like Cher very, very much but that’s a miserable bloody song. That wasn’t me, my love.

“I do think Cher is incredible, but [does impression of Cher singing Believe], you’d cut your throat at the end of that, dear. No, I don’t like that. [We then suggest she choose another Cher song instead] Name me a few, my lovely?”

Cher – If I Could Turn Back Time

“Well, now. Yes. You know… I can tell you, if I could turn back time, there is so much I would never have done. But the youth… you make mistakes, you make bad decisions, you do things, ‘oh if only I hadn’t met this person’, ‘if only I hadn’t married the first husband’ in my case, what a waste of years. Wasted years, wasted. And I look back now and think, ‘I should have seen through him’. But I was in love, he was good-looking, I was… oh god.

“Someone handsome or gorgeous comes along and that is a big step in your door, but you shouldn’t do it, but we’re all gonna keep doing it, long after I’m dead, we’re going to see a gorgeous-looking man and think ‘I don’t care if he’s horrible, he’s gorgeous’.

“And I think if you say to people that are older ‘are there things you’ve done that you wish you hadn’t?’, oh my god yeah. And I think we all do things we shouldn’t, that we regret. I’ve had marvellous luck and I’ve had some rotten luck, but haven’t we all? And the rotten luck is you making wrong choices, usually. So I’m grateful, but if I could turn back time there are many things I wouldn’t have done. Because I’m a human being!”

Gloria Gaynor – I Will Survive

“Well, I survived. I survived, I had a very, very sad childhood, as many people have. Very, very sad. And I survived, and it was very difficult, because I was on my own, and I just had nowhere to go, and that’s how I got into living-in jobs cleaning, I had to get a roof over my head.

“So I survived, it was very difficult at times, I was terribly poor, oh god! But you know, I did it. And it’s hard, I wouldn’t wish it on a young woman today, although many of them are going through what I went through. And I survived, but oooh, I’m glad I don’t have to do it now. It was bloody awful!

“Many tears, many sadnesses, many ‘oh, I wish I’d had decent parents’, but I didn’t. So you get on with it. And always know this – I wasn’t the worst done to person, and that’s how I survived.

“And when I listen to I Will Survive, I feel proud, it brings back proud memories of when I did survive… and I wouldn’t want to do it again, it was awfully difficult, awfully sad and I was awfully lonely. But I still survived!”

Judy Collins – Send In The Clowns

“I’ll tell you why I included this. I heard this song years ago – and she sang it beautifully, Judy Collins. It reminds me of my husband, Peter.

“I’ve been married 41 years, and I knew him four years before, so 45 in total. And we met, we got married, paid our mortgage… and I became extremely famous extremely quickly, but it never changed anything.

“And that song says to me, ‘isn’t it rich? Aren’t we a pair? You with your feet in the ground, me in mid-air’, it reminds me, the singer is saying, I have been so successful, I’m way up there, but you’ve still got your feet on the ground – but nothing’s changed Pete and I. I wouldn’t let it. I was famous, with a few bob, and I loved my husband as much as I’ve always loved him.

“It’s no different to when I was a cleaner in a house, I’ve just got more money on telly. But I’m still doing the job for work… if you call presenting work, when actually it’s a doddle. But I think I’ve been awfully lucky – but it would never go to my head. Who they bloody hell do I think I am? Bloody hell! Not in a million years. Never.”

Kim’s range of merchandise is available to buy now on her official website.