Gothy Kendoll: Drag Race UK's tiger learns to love baring her teeth

Gothy Kendoll was the first queen to be eliminated on the first series of Ru Paul's Drag Race UK

She was the first queen to sashay away when the Ru Paul's Drag Race franchise screeched into the UK.

And now Gothy Kendoll is back, rewriting herstory in Drag Race UK vs The World.

Her exit from the very first UK episode back in 2019 has made her meme-famous.

And at least her brutal exit was memorable. Judges said her tiger look was giving estate agent who'd paid 50p to get her face painted at the zoo. Meow.

But Gothy says her biggest worry was her teeth.

Rather than bare them, the 26-year-old from Leicester says body image issues meant she hid them away.

"I didn't even want to open my mouth," Gothy tells BBC Newsbeat. "I was so insecure."

"That was like probably one of the biggest things for me on that series," says Gothy, whose real name is Samuel David Handley.

Fast-forward five years to being invited back for the new series, "and within the first minute of me being on the runway, you can just tell that it is not even a problem any more."

Warning - this article contains spoilers from the latest episode of Ru Paul's Drag Race UK vs The World.

Gothy's 2019 runway, meant to be an homage to the Leicester Tigers, became a popular meme

Gothy says she was meant to have braces as a teenager but missed the appointment and was put back on a waiting list for years.

At 21, she got called up to appear on series one of Drag Race UK, but she still wasn't happy with how her teeth looked.

"It's all I could think about" on the show, she remembers. "I just covered my mouth, I hated it".

Since then, she's been able to have the dental work she missed out on when she was younger.

So when she got a second chance to snatch the crown, Gothy was felt more confident and that she had the "charisma, uniqueness nerve and talent" she needed to win.

But she immediately found herself in the bottom two - again - alongside US queen Mayhem Miller.

Marina Summers, representing The Philippines, had the opportunity to save Gothy from elimination and said she wanted her to have a chance to show what she was capable of.

Despite a fiery display in the talent competition, Gothy was in the bottom two in the first episode

But even with her new smile, judges repeatedly picked up on Gothy's confidence - or the lack of it.

She was told she was "stiff" and that she was holding back.

"I'm quite a confident person," insists Gothy.

"But I'm quietly confident and I think there is no room for that on Drag Race, there really isn't.

"They want you to be on 100 all the time."

When it came to the iconic Snatch Game challenge, it was Gothy's first chance to make Ru Paul laugh with an impersonation of TV personality Kim Woodburn.

In her own words though, she "bombed" and the episode four challenge was "a nightmare".

The judges, as well as the other queens, could see Gothy was getting in her own way and her lack of confidence was holding her back.

But fellow UK queen Tia Kofi saved her from elimination again even though she thought she might have "checked out".

The 26-year-old said she "bombed" her Kim Woodburn impersonation in the Snatch Game

But it just turned out to be a stay of execution.

On Friday, Gothy became the fifth queen to sashay away after the racers were challenged to sing live in the Rusical.

Fifth out is an improvement on first out, though, and Gothy says she's learned loads from seeing herself on TV.

"A lot of the girls there were able to watch themselves on Drag Race and see where they went wrong and then learn from the experience watching it back. But I'd never really got that," she says.

"It was still a learning experience because I was getting further every episode.

"I just didn't really understand how the competition works," she says, because it was the first time she'd competed in most of the challenges.

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TV also hasn't been as flattering to Gothy's drag as she'd hoped.

"I really felt my runways would be amazing and they did look really nice in person but then watching it on TV I was like... oh," she says.

Third time's a charm, or so the saying goes, so would Gothy appear on the show again?

"I would go back definitely," she says.

"But I don't know if I'd be any better."

Watch Ru Paul's Drag Race UK vs The World on BBC iPlayer or at 9pm on Fridays on BBC Three.

Listen to Newsbeat live at 12:45 and 17:45 weekdays - or listen back here.