Drag Race UK’s Ginny Lemon as you’ve never seen them before in 7 zesty images (EXCLUSIVE)
Learning to love themselves has been a lifelong journey for Lewis Mandall, aka Drag Race UK’s Ginny Lemon, as they navigate a chronic illness and continue to shy away from conventional beauty standards
By Dale Fox
There’s nothing understated about Ginny Lemon. The Worcestershire-born performer, known for their surreal humour and chaotic charm on RuPaul’s Drag Race UK, has always stood out for rejecting convention. Beneath the yellow wig and acid-trip fashion, however, lies Lewis Mandall – a person whose path to self-acceptance has been shaped by bullying, grief, pain and a refusal to fit into neat boxes.
Now, with a new album Fruit Loop and a new sense of peace found in their garden, Ginny reflects on learning to love their body, living with fibromyalgia, and embracing life in all its glory, as part of Attitude’s Real Bodies feature.
My body has always been a point of conversation for other people, whether I liked it or not. I was the chubby kid with moobs, and it was always pointed out. My body was a source of constant awkwardness, complete with stretch marks that made me feel like a pregnant woman in her thirties. It was just one of the many things I was bullied about, alongside my glasses, acne, and being visibly queer and flamboyant. I went through all the complexes of a 90s kid, trying everything from the Special K diet to SlimFast in the hope of having my “swan moment”. I’m not sure if I ever got there, but I’m content being a fat Christmas goose these days instead…
Growing up in Worcestershire, I loved being active until the bullying put me off PE. Things turned around when I was put in all the girls’ classes. I was the only boy doing dance and drama, and I was with all my friends. I remember doing a solo dance on a chair to Adam and the Ants’ ‘Prince Charming’ for my exams, but it ended up getting me an A.
I think most performers start off wanting to be a dancer. Dancing gave me a voice, a creative outlet. In my rowdy, working-class family where everyone had a big personality, it was my way of having my own big personality moment.
In 2016, after the death of my sister, I created a character as a way of coping with my grief. I became someone else: Ginny Lemon. She’s an alternative and campy drag persona. I found out that yellow was the colour of protection and healing, and it’s also a very non-binary colour, so it became my signature. There’s a lot of spiritual meaning behind my look, though to most, I probably just look like Su Pollard on a super hard acid trip.
I first started thinking about the term non-binary in 2019. I never really felt comfortable in the “gay” box; I always preferred the term “queer” because it encompassed everything. So, when non-binary entered the conversation, I thought, “Oh yeah, I could have a bit of that too.”
In 2021, I, alongside Bimini, became the first publicly non-binary person to compete on RuPaul’s Drag Race UK. For my confessional look, I had a yellow mullet and Crocs, and I was kind of the prototype for how a non-binary person should look. At the time, it was a relief to have a category to fit into.
After Drag Race, I felt a huge disconnect between the person on TV and my real self. I was getting love and attention, but in reality I had no work and no money. I remember looking in the mirror at the yellow mullet — the version of me everyone recognised — and ripping it straight from my scalp. A few days later, I dyed what was left blue. That moment inspired a song on my new album, Fruit Loop, which is all about learning to love myself, Lewis, as well as Ginny.
I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia a few weeks before I went on Drag Race. It’s living with chronic pain, and it often comes in the form of shooting nerve pains in my hips, knees and feet. When I’m on stage, the adrenaline helps, but then I’ll have a flare-up in private where I can’t sleep or open bottles. I don’t really talk about it. I just deal with it.
I’ve since bought a house with my husband, and gardening has become a sort of therapy. When I first looked at my garden, it was a bed of endless gravel. I just thought, “I could do these jobs myself.” Without realising it, the work in that garden became the therapy I needed. When I was planting daisies one day, I completely zoned out for half an hour and felt peaceful for the first time in ages. Talking to a friend later, I had a silly but sweet revelation: yellow and blue together are green — and my life is looking green now.
Earlier this year, people online started calling me “Tradey Lemon”. It began at DragCon, when I wore a high-vis jacket all weekend and people started thirsting over it. It was strange, as a non-binary person, to see people suddenly attracted to me for presenting more masculine. It reminded me that gender is a spectrum.
My journey from being a weird kid to someone in the public eye has been a rollercoaster, but what it’s taught me is that authenticity is the only way to live. I’ve been a drag queen, a comedian and a reality TV star, but at the end of the day, I’m just me — Lewis. I have my husband, my boyfriend, my cat, and my chosen family. My drag is messy, live, comedic and working-class at heart. My album Fruit Loop is a love letter to myself and my journey. I’m still a work in progress, but my garden is growing, my life is green, and I’m living it on my own terms — stretch marks and all.
This is an excerpt from a feature appearing in the 2025 Attitude Awards issue. To see the full feature, order your copy of the Attitude Awards 2025 issue now or read it alongside 15 years of back issues on the free Attitude app.