S7, Ep7: Bimini, drag queen

0:00This is The Guardian.

0:07I'm Grace Dent and this is Comfort Eating from The Guardian A podcast where we pay homage to the lesser celebrated foods in life Because even as a restaurant critic I believe the food that matters most Is often that snack you cobble together when you're curled upon the sofa Each week, I ask my guest to lift the lid on what comfort foods have seen them through their lives. Because you can tell a lot about a person from what they eat behind closed doors.

0:46Hello, listeners. Now, you have caught me at a huge moment. Today, I have finally called time on stilettos. these are the shoes that have been my joy my love my bedrock since I was 17 now though I think I've got a stress fracture in my metatarsals that's the front of your foot I think I've had it for years now I have battled on I've been very brave but last weekend after a wedding I had to spend hours with a pack of frozen peas pressed to my foot and I now admit eat, changes need to be made. I have been googling orthopaedic support trainer. Oh, I've just got me some cushion support easy foams, haven't I?

1:37It's the beginning of the end. But if I've learned anything at all, it is no amount of added height can make up for a broken bone. Prioritise safety, people. I must say, giving up sashaying into restaurants wearing great high heels is heartbreaking to me, largely as it is one of the only things that I am actually good at. And it is extra sad today of all days when my guest is not only a heel devotee, but there's a sort of live springy sexy thing that could jump off a table in six inch heels, land in the splits and then move into a round of Cossack dancing. Today, I am talking to East London's plant-based princess, Bimini.

2:23Bimini shot to fame in 2021 after the second season of Drag Race UK, where they captivated us all with their quippy one-liners, their high-fashion runway looks, and their death drops. Google it, honestly, it's something to behold. The most followed UK drag contestant with close to a million followers since filming the show, Bimini has released several singles, landed a publishing deal, signed modelling contracts and become a mainstay at fashion shows around the world. I cannot wait to find out what Bimini eats when the knee-high 10 inches are off and the slippers are on. Maybe they fancy a go with my easy foams?

3:05The offer's there.

3:15welcome to comfort eating bimini or as i've wanted to say for a long time ding dang dong uk hun is that your catchphrase now do people shout that out vans at you some people do or like i had a verse on the song and people will relay that to me because it starts with saying release the beast and i think people just like to shout that do you get shouted at by builders our fans i actually did a song called god save this queen where i spoke about that like about builders giving me filthy looks and still getting filthy looks when i pop to spoons for a cheeky half do you go to spoons i like to go to spoons my boyfriend loves the spoons like three pound fifty for a full english breakfast that's it you see there's three stages of spoons for someone that doesn't normally go there you go in and first you're disgusted and then second you get a menu and you see the prices and then third you're like having a full bottle of white wine at 11 o 'clock because it's daft just to have two glasses well exactly i do have like triggered from it because when i was about 15 when i was a meat eater back in the day years and years ago i bit into a chicken burger there that was frozen yeah yeah the microwave wasn't working that day was not working now we've come to a wonderful time in the podcast i ask my guests to bring their special snack now this is the food that you eat when the wigs the makeup the silicon boobs are all off all the bits that make the natural beauty that you are you're back home on the couch i don't know what's under here do you want to reveal your snack i will but yeah it's definitely a floor drobe that i put everything floor drope yeah it's just the floor joke thank you for bringing the floor drope into my life okay so you ready this is very comforting three two one voila so this is a leek and potato soup and you've got to have the bread got to be covered in butter you've got to be able to dip it in you're a bread person you've never got to that point where you've went sorry i just i don't do bread no i love myself too much my mum would always make it my mum would always have dinner on the table every night five o 'clock and as a teenager i hated it but we'd always like laugh about my mum's cooking skills but she was amazing at a leaky potato soup oh it's so comforting isn't it she used to live in the bahamas years and years ago before before me bb before ben mini I don't think it's a delicacy Very much known in the Bahamas Legal potato soup So people would call it Heather soup That was her name All the people that lived there would come and say Can we have some Heather soup?

5:55And she used to make it Adorable So do you have a special recipe Or is it very much a chuck in whatever you want? Chuck it in Figure it out I think you can mix and match I think she used to make it with chicken stock But then obviously I stopped eating animals products So she stopped making it with that but it's a good one. It's hearty. It's hearty. Very British.

6:24You have described yourself as the bendiest bitch in East London. Emphasis on the bitch. Now, before the days where I had to start wearing a padded shoe, I thought that that title was mine. Do you still hold that title though? Do you know, at the time I said that, I was doing a lot of pole dancing and a lot of athletic... I haven't done it as much, but I can still drop into the splits at any point. That is a truly terrifying spectacle to see. I have watched you do that on YouTube so many times. And each time, I think this is the time they stretch you off. Well, do you know, it's funny. When I was a kid, I was always able to do it.

7:09So I did dance when I was younger. but all the boys used to say oh you can't have gingangoolies because you could do the splits and i was like well that's not really how anatomy works but okay i'm gonna have to ask go for it when you drop i see what they're saying i see what these boys are saying it isn't how anatomy works but surely sometimes then i will choose something there has that has happened once or twice do you just incorporate it into the into the dance by just lying there for a while you just got if it's showbiz you just gotta keep going you know they don't say break your leg for no reason i remember when i was a kid there were drug artists on stage in the 70s people danny larue very music hall they kind of came out theatrical they entertained the grannies who would then swear down dead that these were heterosexual men that had wives they you know there was no yeah it wasn't it wasn't gay yeah although it was and then new york there's the ballroom culture the paris is burning movement that type of drag coming through where do you think what you do sits in that i think for me my drag comes from and i don't know this is this is all drag but i think strong feminine energy is where i get the inspiration from you know anyone that kind of is an alpha or dominate dominant not a dominant not a dominatrix maybe that um but like domineering in their field I find that so inspiring and I think my inspirations go from from old school drag like I think there's like my my nan she used to be a tiller girl she was friends with all of the like Danny LaRue and everyone back in the day like she was um in the London scene and I think I always had that like the campsite the camp element kind of taught to me from a young age.

9:02Bimini, you've told me everything I need to know. Honestly, Bimini, I didn't know that. Your grandmother was a Tiller girl. She was a Tiller girl in West End. And you, Danny LaRue. Yeah. And that's my final question. But it's like that was in, that was around you. Yeah, that theatrical side, I think, was always there. And even though my parents would split up, whenever I would see my nan, she was just fabulous. And, you know, she had fur coats and she'd like always have like this gorgeous, just like ornament filled with grapes for me and it was just like camp and like fun but I think that that that side the British side the like wink wink nudge nudge doesn't doesn't take yourself too seriously mixed in with kind of musical inspirations I think like gender bending and and more androgynous people you know like Bowie, Grace Jones, Prince, even Madonna to a degree that's where I kind of find my drag inspiration but then also people like Kate Moss who I just was obsessed with you know like thought she was just the most gorgeous person ever because she wasn't she wasn't stereotypical beauty you know she was unique and she had something different about her and I just found her really mesmerizing I've always thought you had a strong scoop of the Kate Mosses about you in that there's a there's just kind of this enigmatic quality that the press can't quite get their head around.

10:22I don't want to follow traditional routes of what drag is meant to be. I think I always want to kind of push that and change that and always stay authentic to me, you know.

10:38You grew up as Thomas Habits in Great Yarmouth, seaside town on the east coast of England. I was there recently with Ainsley Harrier I'm sorry

10:53What I'll say about Great Yarmouth is it seems to have Britain's most aggressive seagulls They do, they do attack It's because of the chips I was eating chips Were you? I was eating chips Yeah, they loved them, I think I think they must tell all their seagull friends, like flock to Great Yarmouth It's like the one redeeming thing, I think I loved growing up there, I really did But I think going back now, it's changed so much. You and Great Yarmouth, there is your mum Heather, your dad Mark, and you're the eldest of four siblings. At that point, when there was all of you together, paint me a picture then of family life.

11:33So my parents, my mum and dad, they were split up from me quite young. I'm the only child of my mum and dad because they just couldn't get better. No. Drugs are mold. Yeah. Can you remember eating around the table with everybody? Who would be there? My granddad would be there. My granny would be there. My granny's no longer with us anymore. It's my mum's mum, but she would always be there. It was very, my family were very kind of traditionally, traditional Scottish. So it was very like family meant everything, you know, like family's blood is sick of the water. Even though I didn't like it as a teenager, because I just wanted to go down the park and probably spin around with a bottle of cider.

12:10but she would make me have dinner every single night and my grandparents would be there what's she cooking um meat and two veg meat and two veg so sausage and mince potatoes mince tatties a lot of kind of very traditional british foods i think were like what because it's what my granddad likes what he grew up on you know is your granddad scottish granddad scottish my mom's scottish where were they from glasgow mince potatoes a lot of that and we'd have like obviously roast dinners were quite traditional would have them quite regular every sunday um did you like eating were you an eater oh yeah yeah i was never fussy never have been i'm the least i'm the only one like my brother and sister who i lived with they're so fussy yeah they were like very fussy whereas i was very i'd eat anything i was like obsessed with pears as a like a kid like i'd always have two pears and one in each hand all the time i mean weird but um i was always i was never fussy and my mum would always say that like she didn't know how easy it was with me until my brother and sister came along and they wouldn't eat anything yeah you were the you were the golden child i had golden hair that's what she used to say because i had ginger like bright ginger hair she'd call me a golden golden child and everyone would be like it's ginger not golden

13:24your mum and your dad split when you're young at that point in time did you see your dad much I'd see him because my mum would work full time. So on the days she would work late, I would see my dad pick me up from school. He'd pick me up on like a motorbike, leathers. And he was part of the East Coast Harley Club. He had a bald head, got like a goatee ginger beard covered in tattoos, like his head to toe in tattoos. And yeah, he'd pick me up on the back of his bike. And I used to think it was the coolest thing at that time. And I think that was... So he's standing there with a spare helmet outside the thing and gives you the helmet and you put it on.

13:58Yeah. oh my god my granny hated it she hated it she'd always like always say to me please never get yourself a motorbike i haven't yet but i would like to it must be in you at some level i go to the east east coast harley club every summer and it would just be a load of bikers in their like leathers and that was i remember here my dad would have a lot of pinups and that's when i first saw people like parlin anderson and i remember thinking like do i want to be you or do i fancy you like it was very confusing yes but they're not very macho macho men but the nicest men yes the nicest men like they wouldn't have a fly you know like you go there and they're all macho and like drinking their beers but they're so sweet like they were really lovely and they'd always have your back so i think i was always around like masculine men that were actually quite in touch with their feelings which is what my dad was he was quite emotional not not an emotional like crying sense but like he was he would talk about his feelings at some point around this point do you decide you decide to go vegetarian so i was i remember saying about nine as nine or ten years old i said to my mom i was hugging my dog and i remember cuddling her saying to my mom why don't we eat ellie and my mom was like don't be silly we don't eat dogs and i'd be like well i don't want to eat animals and then she told i said i was vegetarian and she would tell me that she was making me vegetarian food but she wasn't but i mean i am nine or ten i know she told me she was making corn mince and she wasn't i love that though yeah i love the fact that this scottish woman was like you know they have to have mince to survive yeah exactly to survive and you know she's four foot eleven and she would always wear heels everywhere she went just so fab

15:45bimini didn't just happen when do you think that the magic of drag first started to appear i well i guess it was when i first moved to london 2012 when i first went out but at the time i think there was shame there was a level of shame like even though i felt confident going out and i was with my friends I was hiding it from back home you know like I hadn't said to my mum and it was I mean at the time I put a photo on Facebook and she worked she said my mum owns a hair salon and it's quite a small town right and people would come in and say I've seen Tommy on Facebook you must be so ashamed and like she was really embarrassed at the time and I felt a lot of shame for that you know I felt really guilty and really sad for her and she's now my biggest supporter and like we're best friends and she comes to everything and like it's amazing but at the time people were trying to bring her down for it and I think it was it stopped me as well you know like pushing myself further because I think at that time I was like oh I don't want to upset my mum like my my granny was there my granddad like it was quite a yeah it was quite a confusing thing to experience at 18.

16:51I mean your dad and his biker friends they were into Pamela Anderson yeah so like do you think that was a I think yeah definitely and I mean just the pop girlies in the 90s and early noughties i think were just like huge influence to me like i'd always be like shaking my shaking my bum um to like britney i feel like britney i'm a slave for you that music video was like that got me like but um i was i was allowed to do like i wasn't i didn't hold back from that side of me until i was in my teens and i was kind of a bit like early teens like oh maybe i shouldn't dance anymore which i'm really sad about i did i'm lucky that I've kind of continued it now but when I was about 15 16 me and my friends did start experimenting with fashion so there was a level of drag element in a way we we discovered charity shops and that was incredible because at the time you'd buy a fur coat for four pound and we'd walk down the road in like moffy and furs and and ripped fishnets and like Kate Moss was queen you know the level of nerve it takes to do that in a small town yeah well I think at the time we were rebellions we We were a bit like, if I was to sum up my, like being 15, 16 with my friends at that time, it'd be shampoo trouble.

18:03You know, we're in trouble. It's like very that, but with like a Diet Coke in my hand. You head to London to do a journalism degree at the London College of Communication. Yeah. And you really, at this point, start to develop your drag. okay can you pinpoint the first time that you really just went out out so someone put me in a dress and it was very thinking back now it was very of the fashion in 2012 and it was like a kind of mini black dress that had spike a bralette but like gold spikes um and i had these like jeffrey campbell fake heels yeah i had this like flat wig and someone did my makeup and i remember just feeling like wow this is amazing like I feel like I'm exploring something that feels very natural to me we went to a place called it was a night by Jodie Harsh it was a gig called Gigolo and it was um the Shadow Lounge in Soho and I remember just thinking like this this is crazy because at that time I was reading The Vos I was reading Dazed and Confused was what it was called then I was reading ID and I remember thinking like there was more to culture than what I'm seeing For me, it was like understanding that there was this world and it wasn't about masculine or feminine.

19:23It was whatever you wanted it to be. If you wanted to present masculine, but if you were more masculine, you wanted to present feminine or anything. It was kind of blurring all of that. Back then, there wasn't as many people doing drag, you know, like it was quite, it was very underground. Like it was, drag race wasn't really here. Like it's kind of started in America. Like I think there was, drag has always been part of British kind of underground culture anyway. Or like sometimes mainstream, you know, with like Lily Savage and people. This is a period when you entrench yourself in East London nightlife.

19:56So I'm guessing you're going out four nights a week? Yeah. Four nights? You're just looking amazing to say yeah. And more. um paint me a picture classic night in the early 2010s you were going to notorious queer venues such as dolston superstore and the glory sometimes you'd go out on a friday and you get back on a monday like it was a it was a long weekend and you put in a stink you put in a you put a shift but it was it was it was what everyone was doing it was like you were just going out and having fun you know there was like less i guess less pressure because i was younger my mental health was great at that time like i was like whoa i could do this but then i think it slowly caught up with me when you're going out on these when you're putting a full hard working weekend shift in in east london yeah um i'm wondering if there was much space for food but if you were gonna eat at any point where would you go for food we lived on brick lane at that time so we'd go for like a ruby murray yeah nice little curry whatever was around i love how i love it when i ask people about their craziest years and i try to get them to think of one food memory and they're like i think i think i had a mars bar at some point i remember though everyone that was partying at those times like we're going out the weekend would always be like you need to get those nourishment drinks from the shops the games we play yeah i never did though i don't think but But what I've learned about myself over the years, I'm now 31, I've learned I'm a person that has to get the most out of life, whether that's good or bad.

21:33I have that innate quality that I can push it. I say, kick the ass out of it. You can go to the extreme, but whether that's surfing or skydiving or partying, it's like you've got to harness that power for good. Is it like a Monday morning or a Tuesday morning and you go, right i'm i'm out of here i'm leaving yeah i'm just going to it's tuesday sometimes

22:00it could it could and you're thinking i'm going i'm leaving the country yeah i did i moved back home for a bit and i was not i don't think i was very healthy i don't think i looked very healthy i just didn't feel good i wouldn't feel happy day to day you know i was quite low i was in a low place and i think see my friend i go back home and see my friends and they would be like you don't look good like what's happening and i knew whether it's a curse or whether it's a good thing i have that voice that says okay you're an idiot now you need to fucking stop you know like why are you doing this and that that can be for anything i do so whether it's a level of self-awareness or whether it's just the voices something tells me to stop and i think i need i had that at that time you've got a voice that saves your life yeah i've got a voice like that that goes why don't you just go on yeah and it's it kicks in yeah yeah it says it's not fun anymore yeah if you just go now it's not going to get any worse yeah and i think that's saved my life a lot of times yeah how did you go traveling where'd you get the money so that was machine loan oh yeah just like it was like very good at that point you got to southeast asia it feels like it's just real reset so am i right in saying that food is part of this recovery yeah i mean we would obviously i was trying to be kind frugal at the times but i was like i said i was never a fussy eater so i'm not having to go to a restaurant i'm totally up for the street food so cheap street food but incredible there was like a lady that was on one of the islands called ko pp um called mama mama nams mama nams and she would make the most amazing street food it was like 40 or 50p and you'd have like um thai green curries you'd have these amazing crispy spring rolls that would cover sweet chili sauce and i think i would experiment with my spice tolerance yeah while i was there and then i see i whenever whenever people like us go abroad they like you often get people won't give us spice they see yeah no exactly do you like spice yeah i do but like not overbearing i could if it's too much i can't coupon going yeah but you just you go for it well i try i think nowadays i'll hold back again see kick the ass out of it yeah to go to the extreme but i remember my friend we went to a place it was called like lazy lazy something cafe in um in pie in thailand and we went in and we were very competitive so we would ask for it to be spice thai spicy and they'd look at us being like what like you can't have a thai spicy and i remember them like watching us like as we were eating it and i was crying like sweat dripping down my face eyes streaming and they're like cackling at us but we both had to finish it you know it wasn't enjoyable i think i've realized that with spice like you've got to get it right otherwise it isn't it's unenjoyable

25:09how did you end up on drag race i applied and i didn't think i was going to get on it because when drag race came to the uk do you know the scene like it's so vibrant and so crazy and everyone's it's very diverse and like people there's so much to it whereas i think like drag race had a kind of streamlined idea of drag in a sense you know and that wasn't the drag that i knew so my drag was all the drag that influenced me is very gender bending and kind of breaking the mold of what that was and like the idea of female illusion not necessarily being like a hip hip pad and a corset you know like it was just your own version of masculinity or femininity it was very much the performance art i applied for drag race when it came to the uk for the second season not thinking I was going to get on it I had a dream that I got on season three but I got on season two so I was like okay well I guess I've got to get ready for it but I always remember you coming into Drag Race and I thought right away like that that is an East London performance art sensibility spiky kind of strange yeah uh unknowable and then kind of going into this quite you know like a mainstream show did you feel like that definitely but I think at the time it was all so real so fresh and so new and I think um my drag does change a lot like I I guess my inspiration is it changes quite quite a lot I'm a bit of a chameleon I think when it comes to my fashion and the influences of that and I don't try and always try to put myself in one box with it you know and i think that's what to me that's what i think um i tried to bring to the show and i got to at the beginning i didn't like i almost didn't like i think i almost went home in the first episode took them a minute to get me but i mean i don't know for people to get me all the time you have elegantly woven your politics with your performance ever since we first got to know you your first appearance on the telly involved you marching on and yelling i'm vegan then there's your open conversation with Ginny Lemon about being non-binary and your hysterical mini challenge where you said I quote a Brexit bun was made of 52 % deceit 48 % despair and it's 100 % not going to positively affect anyone other than Steve Dave and Paul down the pub down spoons do you think there was a decision with you to be so honest in front of a bbc audience you could have definitely kept your head down and just went look i want to i want to win drag race i want to stay on board i don't think i thought about it too much i don't think i do that a lot like when i look back i'm like oh maybe i should have thought about that a bit more but i guess yeah i guess i just tried not to i just tried to be authentic to me with with politics and with i always try to bring humor into everything i do in a sense you know i think it's important to kind of do that it can be a bit of a trojan horse in a way like you can have a serious topic but if it's woven in with some humor it makes it more light-hearted and digestible for people and i think that's what drag can do drag has that element of it some of the things that were said i didn't realize would even get shown for example the conversation with ginny lemon like we weren't aware because that happened 10 months before it came out you know you'd kind of forget like the pinpoints and when they told us that that was going to happen and then it received a really positive reaction like it was it's always beautiful but i think i try not to think about it i don't i don't overly plan what i do or what i say and it hasn't got me touchwood in too much hot water yet

29:10your season of drug race was filmed during covid what does that mean for catering it was all takeaways and i remember like i i tried to be as healthy as i can now like i really do and at the time i really struggled because everyone like there were some people some contestants that didn't want healthy food they would just want dominoes or pizza and i was like i can't have this every day you know i mean there's worse there's worse things i guess in the world no but i know sometimes sometimes the body just needs a carrot i know if i'm unhealthy that can be detrimental to what i do what i put out the art i do the work i do so i think i try to be as healthy as i can so what did you request in that people thought well salads and things but they weren't great with it so i'd always try and it was quite beige though i think the food was quite beige because it was it was during covid so we weren't able to to eat as much as we wanted but then some of those days i think like looking back now i tried to have like my three meals a day at like standard times but back then we're sometimes in corsets for 10 or 11 hours so we would not want to eat if you could put together your dream pre-performance salad i need you to talk me through it so i always try to make like um if i make a salad i like a let's not call it a salad we're gonna call it a poke bowl or a bosch yeah so i used to always use the bosch boys yes do you know the recipe books they'd make a bosch bowl and it would include stuff like avocado cashew nuts and a bit of some dressing beetroot rice and grains texture yeah sweetness but you can get creative with it like i make a spaghetti bolognese with pineapples in yeah i'm gonna be Sorry, wind back.

30:55You make spaghetti bolognese with pineapples in it. Where do you put the pineapple? In the spaghetti. In the bolognese, so not spaghetti. Try it. Do you realise this is probably the most controversial thing you've said today? It's really good for your microbiome. Why do you want to upset Italy like this? Do you not ever want to go there again? We were waiting for you at the airport. Yeah. Pineapples. No, I think you can get creative with it. And I think the same with salads. like um adding something like an apple in a salad it's like a pink lady it's really lovely yeah not in the north though no no i don't think i like i remember actually it's funny my granddad an apple in a salad you're in great yarmouth that will literally take you to the town border well my granddad when i made pasta once he thought it was exotic what is this yeah and i remember like i'd be like making something with garlic because i i started cooking when i was about 15 like at home to make my own food.

31:52And then I'd use garlic a lot. And they'd be like, what's that hippie stuff that you're making? I'm like, it's just garlic. It's garlic paste. Yeah, it's just garlic. I mean, it's probably a lot of garlic, but it was garlic. You got to the final three of Drag Race. You were widely expected to win. And then shock horror, friend of the show, and your sister from Edinburgh, Lawrence Chaney, won. Tell us about the moment of the announcement. It was during COVID. it was like the lifting of covid and we got taken to manchester um and we had like a little mini viewing party with our we had like one guest took my mum um and we all watched it and then lawrence won i was so happy for them there was a moment in the that week where i thought oh maybe i'm gonna win but i didn't so i was i'd only made peace with it did you find it hard the scrutiny over how you felt, how Lawrence felt, internet, all of that.

32:51It was a big deal. It was quite crazy. Yeah, it was a big moment. I think it was a shame that there was like a dampening on Lawrence's win. But I mean, Lawrence has still got the title and they won, you know? So you can say what you want online. I think, I mean, it was really difficult for Lawrence, I think, at the time. And I'd always say like to people, you can't bring someone else down if you wanted me to win. Like it's not. But then I understand it's a pantomime, you know. If you had came out swinging and given them that proper pantomime of being a complete nightmare about it, you would have got so much press.

33:31Were you not? You were never tempted. No, I don't think that felt right. That's not me. You know, that's not how I am. and I think I love how you're just laughing just at the thought of being horrible to Lawrence you can't even take it seriously no it's like I wouldn't have done it and I think at the time there was a lot going on anyway I remember shooting four covers in a week so I was like I didn't have to bring someone else down I'm like I'm living my life you know you became so bloody famous so quickly then you know and everybody wants to meet you everybody wants a bit of you everybody thinks they know you yeah how destabilizing is that it was it was hard and i think um i really worked so katherine ryan is someone i met i know she's a friend of the show yeah um i met katherine ryan on a tv show we did back years and years ago and she told me that what i do for the first six months will uh cement what i do for next six years so just keep working because i remember saying to her like i've not had a day off in about five months or four four months or whatever wasn't complaining but i was like knackered um and she said that to me and i remember taking that advice and i worked a lot but at that time it came and like looking back now i wasn't always very happy because i think friends of mine i wasn't seeing as much a lot of them kind of we fell out in a sense you know like people people's opinions have been changed or and i i was affected by that because i tried to try to stay as real as i could i was very lucky and i got to do amazing things but i never wanted to feel like i was being disingenuine or that i was feeling ungrateful for anything because i wasn't i was so grateful but there was a definite dark side to it too Well, not to put a fine point on it, you went into your stratospheric part of your career and you were kind of in recovery.

35:34Yeah. Well, for sure, yeah. I understand that now is something that I always have to have my wits about me, but I definitely slipped because I was at different events and there were things everywhere, like people, and it was a different world. I remember like going to spaces and I think I didn't feel like I was meant to be there or I belonged in those places so a lot of the times you drink more at that and it was just a kind of double-edged sword with it and I think what I realized as well is and like what I said about the pushing it as far as I can I am someone that has to constantly work at like I can't just relax and let my guard down like I have to can relax but I have to always have my wits about me now and keep on going.

36:18I think... No, I get it. I feel very fortunate now that the position I'm in, the opportunities I'm getting still and I'm working all the time and I'm like doing what I do, I feel present. At the height of everything, when everything was going crazy for me, I don't think I really had a minute to even think, wow, this is incredible. I was just like, go, go, go. But we're here still. We're good. At the Brits earlier this year, you presented an award alongside Rob Beckett. um do you think presenting is where you're heading to i'd love to present more for sure like it's something that i yeah i've i mean i studied journalism we did learn broadcast i did like that kind of thing but i'd love to do more yeah for sure i've actually got stuff in the works that i can't really say but there are there are opportunities arising so you're the brits uh live to millions auto cues britney mike producer in you yeah how does that feel I loved it it was it was really good I just got off the plane I was just touring in Australia and I landed that morning from Australia I think I had no sleep and went straight to the Brits so hang on you'd had no sleep yeah you go in when you sit down did someone do you or did you do yeah so Byron I work with Lauren and Byron who do a lot of like glam with me um did you go just like start yeah it was get ready and go i had this amazing outfit from a designer called lorenzo zagassi who was italian young designer um and i wore their outfit and yeah i had a great time you did have a very bimini moment on stage where you delivered a political slogan i'm imagining that the producers were yelling down your earpiece at one point what did you say when you were on stage i had to hold off saying like the f-bomb so i didn't say that but no i just basically wanted to say to trans people that we love you and it's it's gonna be okay you know because i think a lot of the time there's a there's a conversation that's very negative and it's very creating this kind of moral panic about people that have existed and will continue to exist and what beckett was like what are we gonna say and i was like i know i'm gonna say you live with your turkish boyfriend so when you get home after a night's work like at the brits I'm imagining that he's baking you some delicious Turkish goodies he's got a tray of baklava on the go I mean he's not made that he keeps saying he's going to but he hasn't made that yet what are you what are you both talking into what are we talking into I mean he's a definite feeder so he will I tried to make food but he was he always wants to and he's the type of person that will like make food and we'll have both have the same plate and then he'll try to give me the first mouthful of what he's eating i know it's so sweet isn't it bimini i have had such a nice time i have too thank you so much for having me thank you for comfort eating with me of course thank you thank you for listening to comfort eating this episode was produced by hattie moya and the mixing and sound design is by Solomon King.

39:34The music was written by Axel Cacoutier and our executive producer is Lucy Greenwell. If you love comfort eating, go and leave us a review and you can follow or subscribe so you never miss an episode.

39:54This is The Guardian.

40:00Thank you.