Drag Race UK’s Nyongbella applied to be on show before ever doing drag

Nyongbella may have been selected to join the cast of RuPaul’s Drag Race UK season seven, but she previously applied for season four – without having ever been in drag.

Speaking to PinkNews and other media ahead of the launch of Drag Race UK season seven on 25 September, the London-based, Cameroonian queen explained that she had only just started experimenting with makeup when she sent off an audition tape back in 2022.

Asked about applying for season seven, she said: “I think it’s my first time pretty much. I saw the [audition] tape that everyone else was doing and I was like, ‘Oh, I could do that too.’”

Pressed on what she meant by season seven “pretty much” being her first Drag Race attempt, Nyongbella confessed that she actually applied for season four, but had never been in drag.

“The thing is technically it wouldn’t be my first time, but realistically it is. Because I applied for season four even though I hadn’t started drag yet. I had just started wearing makeup,” she admitted.

“I had a little heart to heart with my family and then I was like, ‘OK, so I’ve got my little story for the show, tick.’ The [season four casting call] went out the next day. I was like, ‘It’s a sign! My family, we just made peace’ and I was like, OK perfect, I need to go on the show.

“I had no drag. I had nothing. So then the whole time [during the audition tape] I was just talking, ‘I’m really this, and I’m really that’ and then the runway section [of the audition tape], when we show off our looks, I think I just showed sketches of looks. I was like, ‘This is what I would have worn for this!’, because I had no drag.”

Laughing, she revealed: “Obviously I didn’t hear back!”

Surprisingly, Nyongbella isn’t even the only queen to apply for the show while not technically being eligible. Bonnie Ann Clyde revealed that she had “technically applied for every single season” of the UK-based show – but wasn’t actually living in the UK at the time.

The Dublin-born queen only moved to Manchester ahead of season seven, and so her season seven audition tape is the only one that counted.

“I’ve actually technically applied for every single season, but I’ve never been in the UK since before season seven,” she shared.

“So, they let me make a tape for season one, which I don’t think they should have. They rejected me for two, three, four, and five because I was not anywhere near the UK. I did get to make one for season six, but season seven was my first time auditioning while I was in the UK,” she continued.

“I was fresh off the plane, six months in the UK, and I thought, ‘You know what? Wouldn’t it be really cool if I just went on Drag Race straight away.”

Everyone in the cast of season seven had applied for the show before this season, with Paige Three revealing she essentially gave the BBC an ultimatum: cast her for this season, or she wouldn’t apply again.

Paige, who applied for five seasons before season seven, explained that in her audition tape she said: “If you don’t put me on this season, we’re done here.”

She continued: “I applied too many times before so by this point I was like, ‘Right what is going on in the House of Commons?’ I was like, ‘Hi guys my name is Paige Three, I’m a drag queen from London. If you don’t put me on this season I’m going to burn the BBC down.”

Drag Race UK season seven will see 12 queens compete to become the UK’s Next Drag Superstar. They are Catrin Feelings, Tayris Mongardi, Sally TM, Silllexa Diction, Pasty, Nyongbella, Paige Three, Elle Vosque, Viola, Chai T Grande, Bonnie Ann Clyde, and also Bones.

RuPaul’s Drag Race UK season seven airs on BBC Three on 25 September at 9pm and will stream on BBC iPlayer.

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