by Queer icons including Drag Race UK The ITV team has been joined by alum Ella Vaday (Nick Colier), former England rugby star and LGBTQ+ ally Ben Cohen, and Princess Diana’s gay ex-butler Paul Burrell The Real Full Monty: Jingle Balls this week to raise money and awareness for UK cancer charities.
The festive-themed event, which has been ITV’s annual Christmas program since 2017, was seen by UK stars including the likes of Gemma Collins. Coronation StreetVictoria Ekanoye, stepping out in front of a crowd to raise money for cancer awareness charities. Similarly, an all-star cast of celebrities were seen at the televised event demonstrating, on their bare bodies, how to carry out cancer self-checks.
All the stars who appeared on the recent ITV event have been touched by cancer in one way or another over the past year.
Nick Colier, better known by his drag personality, Ella Vaday, rose to fame when they appeared on the third series of RuPaul’s Drag Race UK. After winning four ‘maxi’ challenges during the season, Vaday placed second in the competition. In 2022, Colier/Vaday spoke about her mother’s battle with breast cancer.
“My mother recently had a mastectomy and is still going through treatment for breast cancer,” Vaday said in an interview with News Pink in the year 2022. “She got a proper diagnosis in October. She had been worried about her breasts for quite some time but kept it to herself.”
The IS Drag Race The star has since taken part in several events raising funds and awareness for breast cancer research, including the Race For Life event, which Vaday attended in full.
In addition to raising awareness for cancer research, Vaday claimed to have participated in The Real Full Monty: Jinge Balls special also helped them with their body confidence.
“Body confidence is something I always struggle with,” Vaday said Attitude. “I think people would be surprised to find that out. But I was never comfortable going back to school days, in a dressing room, for example. I hate that environment. I’m not into sports, so for someone like Ben Cohen, who was used to a locker room, [he] he doesn’t think about it. Whereas for me, and maybe it’s because I’m a gay man too, I don’t tend to spend much time exposed to strangers in any aspect of my life.
“I think with body dysmorphia, it’s always going to be there,” Nick added. “I feel more confident now than ever about how I look and how I feel. It stems, I think, from always being in a dance studio, staring at myself in the mirror, comparing myself to the next guy in the audition. It was nice to talk about those feelings with other people in the room. I think we had a lot of fun and sat around in gowns completely exposed underneath. And I’m sitting there with Paul Burrell and Ben Cohen on beanbags completely naked because it’s normal. It was very funny!” Vaday concluded.
Ella Vaday was joined by other LGBTQ+ icons on the recent ITV Christmas special, including former England rugby star and long-time gay ally Ben Cohen.
Now 45, Cohen retired from the English rugby scene back in 2011, but has since advocated for a range of causes, including cancer research and the fight against homophobia and bullying, which he has tackle his now closed charity, the Ben. Cohen Permanent Foundation.
Cohen has been involved in advocacy since he was diagnosed as clinically deaf as a result of his tinnitus. He has also been active in raising money and awareness for cancer treatment following his ex-wife’s cancer diagnosis earlier this year.
Although Cohen identifies as straight, the former rugby star has had a significant LGBTQ+ following over the years. In a 2014 interview with the A mirror, Cohen explained: “I was completely unaware that there were any gay people after them until about seven or eight years ago. I got a message out of the blue from a French guy, Laurance, from Paris … he had set up a fan page in my honor on Facebook.
“So I checked it and there were 37,000 members. When I scrolled down, I noticed that they were all men. Looks like I’m a gay icon!”
While we’re sure Cohen’s charity work to combat homophobia and bullying has something to do with his ‘gay icon’ status, another likely source comes from Cohen’s father, who died in 2000 after sustaining fatal injuries and trying to protect a victim of an attack on. Eternity Night Club in Northampton, which he managed.
Cohen said that after his father’s death, he related to his gay followers who were “suffering the same pain and anguish” caused by homophobia.
Ella Vaday and Cohen entered the same way The Full Monty: Jingle Balls by another quiet British personality, Paul Burrell.
At the age of 65, Burrell is best known as the former butler to Princess Diana of Wales. Last year, Burrell appeared on an All-Stars version of it I’m A Celebrity…Find Me Out Here! However, after completing the necessary medical checks to appear on the show, Burrell was diagnosed with early stage prostate cancer.
When Burrell heard the news of his diagnosis News Pink: “ I sat there for a while, it must have been about 10 seconds really but it seemed like forever, and I said [the doctor], ‘Can you tell me that again? Because it didn’t go in properly. Are you saying I have cancer?’ And he said, “Yes, I am.”
Thankfully, Burrell is now in remission and is using his platform to help other gay men diagnosed with cancer, like himself, by discussing testing and sex.
Although Burrell didn’t come out publicly as gay until 2017, he said News Pink that he believed Princess Diana was well aware of her LGBTQ+ identity while working for her, claiming that her sexuality had always been an “implicit” part of who he was.
When asked if he thought Princess Diana would accept her sexuality, Burrell said: “Yes, because she never saw sexuality in anyone. She didn’t see race in anyone, she didn’t see color in anyone.”
“She saw people, and she saw me as a person, and she said, ‘I can look inside you and see who you are’ and I liked what she saw in me, and that’s why I stayed so that long,” Burrell concluded, referring to his ten years of service as Diana’s personal butler from 1987 until her death in 1997.
Princess Diana was famous for embracing and celebrating the LGBTQ+ community, most notably opening the UK’s first specialist HIV/AIDS unit at London’s Middlesex Hospital in 1987.
As well as Nick Colier (Ella Vaday), Ben Cohen, and Paul Burrell, other UK stars who appeared this week The Real Full Monty: Jingle Balls ITV’s Christmas special included media personality Gemma Collins, Essex is the only way star Pete Wicks, TV presenter Julia Bradbury, singer Colleen Nolan, dancer Ashley Banjo, Coronation Street’s Victoria Ekanoye, and German ice skater Vanessa Bauer.
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