By day, his name is Diallo Simms. By night, her name is D’Rihanna Weatherbey.
Simms has been performing in drag shows since creating the Royal Blush Drag Show with the Office of Student Activities six years ago, after he realized he realized UCM’s Center of Diversity and Inclusion could benefit from putting on drag shows. He said after the first one, student activities picked it up and it became larger and gained a lot more student participation. From there, the UCM Royal Blush Drag Show was born.
Last Thursday was the sixth drag show at UCM in Hendrick’s Hall, with 856 people in attendance.
“As we do the show more, the student body has become more accustomed to know what to expect from the drag show,” Simms said. “It’s a safe place, it’s a free place, and I think it’s extremely liberating. I know people wait all year for this show.”
Simms said he feels powerful when he performs at UCM.
“I feel like I am Beyonce. I absolutely love it,” he said. “I would not get this opportunity anywhere else.”
Simms said the students are always welcoming and supportive of him and the other drag queens.
“I can walk out and stand on stage and they are on their feet cheering for me, and to have that feeling, to know that you have that much love, that much support…this community is absolutely amazing,” Simms said.
Roman Lucas, junior early childhood education major, was one of the students chosen to do a “strut off” during the show, where eight students strutted down the aisle of Hendricks Hall to music as the the audience cheered them on.
“Honestly my favorite part was the strutting just because I could really see myself performing like that,” Lucas said. “I loved having all the attention on me and all the cameras and the flashing lights. I know it sounds a little conceited but it was just amazing to me.”
Simms said the strut contest was his favorite part of the show too.
“If that walk doesn’t give you self-empowerment in itself baby, we gotta try something else, because I don’t know what’s gonna give it to you,” Simms said.
Lucas said he wants to perform at the UCM Royal Blush Drag Show himself one day. He said it’s important for colleges to put on drag shows to show people the diversity of the LGBT community.
“That is so important because us as a society, I think it’s becoming more accepting for the LGBT community…I just think that it’s amazing for universities to provide an outlet for those people to come and see these things happen.”
Simms said it’s important for colleges to provide drag shows since most of the shows require people to be 21, due to most of them being held in bars.
“There is nothing more that you can learn from a book at this point,” Simms said. “But to have an experience that you get for yourself, it’s something that happens inside of you…I mean, a lot of what happens at the drag show is a ‘Had to be there’ moment.”
Simms said he encourages everyone to see the UCM Royal Blush Drag Show.
“If you have never been to a drag show, specifically the UCM drag show, do whatever it takes to experience that and if you are not able…do whatever it takes to get to the Transformation,” he said. “This is a space where your gonna be exposed to so much life, so much information and so much of an experience that your gonna walk out of either one of those programs and say, ‘You know what? I never looked at something this way. I never thought that people were really like this.’ I mean, we’re more than just men who wear makeup. We’re people, just like you.”
UCM drag show empowers students
October 2, 2018
D’Rihanna Weatherbey performing at the Royal Blush Drag Show Thursday at Hendricks Hall. (Photo by Alexis Dyser/For the Muleskinner)
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