Not a joke, just a fact: Bimini Bon Boulash is one of the most engaging and abrasive drag queens to premiere on the international circuit in… longer than I can quantify. Known for their starring role on RuPaul’s Drag Race U.K., where they dramatically lost the crown to comedy queen Lawrence Cheney, Bimini became a star with cutting style and a sharp wit. Dancing chops that far surpassed their peers and a paradoxically effervescent and apathetic charm would have, to anyone other than RuPaul Charles, made them the de facto queen of Londontown.
But good things so rarely happen to genuinely good people. No matter, because Bimini left Drag Race with not just a starring spot in Ava Max’s music video for “My Head & My Heart,” but a contract with Next Model Management, which represents the likes of Lil Nas X, Billie Eilish, and more. Bimini’s doing fine, I think!
On Twitter, Next Models announced they would now represent Bimini, with a clip featuring their recent catwalk appearances and video vixen outings. Previously, the queen (or, Tommy) made headlines after revealing on Drag Race that they identified as non-binary, in a conversation with fellow castmembers. The episode premiered as the anti-trans coalition in the U.K. ramped up public attacks against trans and nonbinary people after a London High Court ruled that children under 16 had “enormous difficulties” establishing informed consent for trans-related care, barring non-adults from self-identifying and stripping young, vulnerable trans people of their bodily automony.
After the episodes aired, Boulash wrote: “How nice was it to hear two gender non-conforming people discuss identity politics without Piers Morgan?” They then uploaded a lengthier statement, in which they said that “when I spoke about being non-binary on Drag Race, it’s not so much what I am but it’s more the way I adopt to live my life. I live somewhere in-between the binary.”
Other ventures for Bimini include runway appearances at London Fashion Week, a stint at journalism school, an editorial in Dazed, and that aformentioned music video performance, which is just so, so good. This bitch taught herself to do the chair splits in quarantine, and that’s iconic!
This week, Boulash also made news across the globe after a mural of them in Norwich, painted by artist Knapple, was painted over in what the BBC reported to be an obvious act of anti-trans vandalism. In response to the news, Boulash wrote on Twitter: “I will never stop being myself. I’ll never shy away from living an authentically queer experience even if there are people that disagree with our existence. Trans rights are human rights and I will push that message until the end.”
Regardless of the bumps in the road so far, the future is bright and endless for Bimini Bon Boulash. By the very nature of Drag Race’s massive popularity, and the box the greater culture still stuffs drag queens in, it’s beyond exciting to meet one that’s already broken the mold.
