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Welsh drag queen, Tayce, wins Strictly Come Dancing

27 Dec 2024 3 minute read
Kai and Tayce on Strictly’s Christmas Special. Image: BBC

Stephen Price

RuPaul’s Drag Race UK finalist, Tayce, has been crowned the winner of this year’s Strictly Come Dancing Christmas Special.

Newport’s Tayce Szura-Radix is the show’s first competing drag artist, although actor Layton Williams performed in drag as Betty Rizzo from the musical Grease with professional partner Nikita Kuzmin in 2023.

Best known for appearing on RuPaul’s Drag Race UK in 2021, Tayce triumphed in the Christmas special of the dance show, winning the contest with professional partner Kai Widdrington.

Tens across the board

Tayce, 30, has secured her place in Strictly history as the competition’s first drag artist contestant and winner.

This year’s show made headlines with another first, when blind contestant comedian Chris McCausland won the trophy.

 

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A post shared by BBC Strictly (@bbcstrictly)

Judge Craig Revel Horwood was blown away by Tace and Kai Widdrington’s cha-cha to 100 Degrees by Kylie and Dannii Minogue, calling it “absolutely fierce, serving realness, serving fab-u-lous”.

With a perfect score of tens across the board, the duo beat comedian former racing driver Billy Monger, Josh Widdicombe, actor Tamzin Outhwaite, DJ and podcaster Vogue Williams and Gladiator Harry Aikines-Aryeetey to lift the trophy.

Rising star

One of UK Drag Race’s most successful stars, Tayce came second on Drag Race UK three years ago and has gone on to star on MTV, released music, and secured high profile modelling contracts.

Tayce is also extremely popular on social media, with more than 600k followers on Instagram thanks in no small part to her incredible sense of humour.

 

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A post shared by 🩸TAYCE🩸 (@itstayce)

Taking to Instagram after the win, Tayce wrote: “This was one of the best experiences in my life, I wanna thank @kaiwidd for being such an amazing mentor, teacher, partner and most importantly a friend!

“I wanna thank BBC Strictly for allowing me to grace the ballroom, and I’m so appreciative of everyone there, from the runners to the physio, to the amazing food cooked by the amazing staff. The runners looking after me and keeping me in check, to Jazmine who casted me and wardrobe for making me look my best, my heart is full with the abundance of love that’s been poured upon me, and to the people who can’t take it.”

“I worked so hard rehearsing for this as did all of us competing!

“And I couldn’t be more proud of everyone. To be the first queen on strictly and win feels like a moment in time, and hopefully this is the start of more progression within mainstream media. Thank you everyone for the love and support again. Honestly surreal.”

The Strictly Come Dancing Christmas special aired on BBC One and BBC iPlayer on Christmas Day and can be viewed on iPlayer now.


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Jack
Jack
16 days ago

Yawn.

J Jones
J Jones
16 days ago
Reply to  Jack

Well done Nation.Cymru for a year of superb investigative journalism, but ending the season of goodwill with an article where we can all come together and even agree with Jack.

New Years Wish and Resolution: Nation.Cymru.TV, so we can all ditch our BBC TV licences and the atrocious level of attention craving junk that it now splurts out.

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