RuPaul’s Drag Race UK Season 7 star Tayris Mongardi revealed how she weathered a scary situation right before doing press for the new season.

“Last weekend, to be totally transparent, I was physically assaulted in a racial aggravation [attack] during an EDL protest here,” she said in the cast’s press week interview with Blavity’s Shadow and Act.

EDL, or the English Defence League, is a far-right, Islamophobic group. While others in the UK believe the EDL no longer exists, it’s clear that the organization still has members who are causing havoc.

She said the attack “really shook me.” But, she added that coming back from Drag Race UK has “reignited not only my sense of political drive and awareness, but I have to remember what I’m doing and what I’m fighting it for because these are difficult times of living in and to be a queer person and to be a person of color, it’s just becoming, unfortunately, more and more dangerous than it has been in the last few years.”

Tayris Mongardi on fighting for trans rights as well

“And, you know, I also have to recognize my own privileges. As a cis man, you know, I have to go above and beyond to fight even harder for my trans+ brothers, sisters, and siblings.”

“Drag gives us a power and a platform. And so what I think it’s really made me realize is, listen, there’s 12 of us…and I still think I’m the winner absolutely every single day. And I know all of us do because of our gifts. But more importantly, this is a platform. And so what we do from the spring world onwards is I’m going to entertain and I’m going to be a superstar, but more importantly, I’m going to uplift the people who need it and I’m going to be the person that I needed to be and see when I was younger.”

On drag being inherently political

“I feel like I really blossomed as an artist, in a way. Like I apply and my technique and everything, but I think more so it kind of really reignited a lot of why I do drag, and inherently drag is political,” she said. “And for me, especially, like I’ve always tried to have a resolution and a strength within myself and the notion that no matter what lack of privilege you’re given in this life, whether it’s the fact I’m from a very working class background or a person of color or queer person, you know, all these things give me a new sense of learned nurse and richness that I wouldn’t be able to grow and blossom from if I hadn’t had those experiences.”

Watch the full interviews with Tayris and the rest of the cast below. RuPaul’s Drag Race UK is now streaming Thursdays on WOW Presents Plus.

Tayris

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