BBC/World of Wonder/Guy Levy
Catrin Feelings said her favourite part of the UK show is the hometown runway
From the valleys to the runway, Catrin Feelings has taken RuPaul’s Drag Race UK by storm.
Catrin Feelings, known out of drag as Ellis Lloyd Jones, 27, from Treorchy in Rhondda Cynon Taf, is the second Welsh-speaking performer to appear on the show and said she wanted to “boost” the language and give it a platform.
Catrin, who has 220,000 TikTik followers, said it was “surreal” to be on the show that got her into drag.
So what can we expect? She said a lot of “a lot of comedy, a lot of Welsh-ness and maybe a bit of shadiness.”
Catrin watched the first episode at a watch party in Mary’s in Cardiff on 25 September, and said the crowd cheered every time she spoke Welsh, adding it felt good “to represent Wales”.
She has been popular with the judges as well, making it into the top groups for both episodes aired so far.
RuPaul said Catrin “felt like an ambassador to Wales”, adding she has “got this personality that could sell you anything – she’s charismatic”.
Catrin said she was pleased by the positive comments from the judges.
“I’ve always loved performing, I’ve always loved dressing up,” she said.
“You’d see me with like a towel, looking like luscious locks of hair and a towel around my waist being like ‘oh, I look like Shakira’,” she said.
BBC/World of Wonder/Guy Levy
Catrin Feelings said she wanted her entrance look to show she comes from the Cardiff drag scene
Catrin showed off Wales with her outfit in the opening episode which included a Welsh leek.
Her entrance look was also a classic silhouette from the Cardiff drag scene.
“I wanted to walk in and be like, ‘this is the drag that I come from’.”
BBC/World of Wonder/Guy Levy
Catrin Feelings took to the pink carpet dressed as a leek
Catrin’s character came about after Ellis began “playing about with drag in 2018” after moving away to university, and then got into TikTok during the pandemic.
“After lockdown, something just snapped in my brain – life is short, something like that could happen again so let’s do something with my life,” she said.
She then performed at the Queer Emporium in Cardiff’s “Dragling night” where new drag performers conduct their first ever gig.
BBC/World of Wonder/Guy Levy
Catrin Feelings said she and Cornish queen Pasty “got on like a house on fire”
The name comes from being a Little Mix fan, she said, specifically from a lyric in the song Motivate.
“It goes ‘ooh la la, ooh la la, I’m catching feelings.’ And I was like ‘hang on that sounds like they’re saying Catrin feelings,'” she said.
“When it comes to naming yourself, the more unique the better,” she said.
Her advice to other “baby queens” was to “find the fun in drag because there is a chance for you to just get lost in there”.
BBC/World of Wonder/Guy Levy
In episode two the Queens had to sew outfits from scratch to wow judges
She also said that while it had been hard to get to know fellow contestants on the show, since leaving the competition “we’ve all just gotten so close”.
Speaking on Bronwen Lewis’ Radio Wales programme on Monday, Catrin Feelings also said she loves a Welsh crowd.
“Whatever jokes I will say they will understand,” she said. “But when I perform in England they can’t understand a word.”
Entertainer Max Boyce, who was also on the show, told her he has been watching and she is “representing us well.”
Catrin described RuPaul as “absolutely lovely”.
“You go onto the show knowing who she is watching her in all these seasons, and I’m not going to lie, I went in and I was so scared to meet her.
“But she’s honestly so chill, so down to Earth.”
RuPaul’s Drag Race UK is on BBC Three at 21:00 BST on Thursdays and is available to watch on BBC iPlayer.
