Exclusive Interview - Kirmora Amour
Hello my darling how are you?
Hi I'm good! How are you doing?
Yeah doing very well thanking! I'm going to jump straight in with my first question, let’s talk about your drag journey, when did you realize that you wanted to do drag?
I was 16 years old, I actually did drag to sneak into a club because they never carded drag queens. That was my initial reason to get up into drag so I could go clubbing with my older friends.
Amazing, I love that, you’re probably going to help a load of other young queens get in now!
They never card the queens! I think it’s because they think you're just there to perform or to socialize. They want the queens to come because the queens have the attention.
(Apologies in advance for my language in a second but all will be clear when I’ve said the question) When each cast is announced on Drag Race I like to go through and give everybody a score to find out who's the biggest C.U.N.T. Of course by that I mean I’m checking their charisma, uniqueness, nerve and talent. When I did it for your cast you came out as my top queen! You were the one that I picked as the one to watch. You did very well in the competition but sadly you couldn't snatch the crown, why do you think the competition got the better of you?
For me it was simply the experience was a little bit different than I think I anticipated, that was the first, the second is I never came into the competition to compete. I came in to make statements and to get people to know who I was. My intention was never to win this competition. Had my intention been that these b*tches would have had no hope in holy hell! I promise you that. But yeah, my intention was never to win and I think that was evident in this episode, I hope it was evident? Because that's just not where my heart was.
You said that you didn't go there to compete but of course you have competed in other competitions and pageants before, looking at Drag Race from that point of view how was the show different to those styles of pageants?
Not very different at all, pageantry and Drag Race are basically hand in hand. It's just executed a little differently and drawn out, very very long. It's like being in a two month pageant which is very exhausting, just doing the one pageant that's one day is exhausting. Imagine doing something for almost two months! It’s absolutely tiring but it is very worth it at the end of the day.
I can only imagine! In this week in this week's episode in untucked you sort of said that you were you were ‘done’ and your fellow queens seemed very shocked and kind of looked at it from the point of you giving up. I felt you explained it very well actually but maybe you could expand on why you were feeling that way?
In that moment I felt done. I felt like I had literally executed everything I wanted to execute on the show. Literally that was the last look, I created those wings in the hotel room!
Nooo!
I made all of that, everything feathered that you see me wear, I made it. That final look was the last piece of love that I poured into a look and I was just at a sense of being done. I saw the girls and I wanted them to have their opportunity because they were there competing. As you can tell I was there having a fun ass time. I was there being the biggest idiot all of the time. I want the girls to have the opportunity to go forward and to battle that out because it wouldn't be fair and I wouldn't be able to sleep at night knowing that I’m taking someone's dream from them. Simply.
Away from drag I didn't know this about you and oh my god i'm not going to pronounce this very well I’m sure but you're a neuropathic pain management procedural nurse… Did I do that right?
Yes!
Amazing, two questions coming at you, the first being how did you get into that and the second being how do you balance that work with your drag?
So first question how I got into it, I'm a surgical nurse by background so this is a part of the same kind of surgical field, we deal with spinal issues, hip issues, knee issues you name it. Anything where there's nerve endings that cause pain we help treat it to the best of our ability. We do day procedures and injections, I take long needles and shove them into people's spines, it's fabulous! I do epidurals like three, four, five times a day. I got into it because it was a part of my education process and it just kind of landed in my lap which is kind of cool. How I have balanced it with drag, not well! It is very difficult now to go from nursing to semi-quasi celebrity, it's a lot of balancing, sometimes one weighs out the other but you know what, until I decide to take either full time and just call it a day that’s what I’ll do.
Has anybody recognized you yet whilst you've been doing anything?
One, one person. He then went on Instagram and said ‘it was you’ and I said I don't know what you're talking about, I don't know anything.
The way I like to end my interviews is with a shout out, a space for you to shout out another Queer performer, King, Queen or anything in-between and why they deserve it.
I love that! So, Vanity! The moment both of our seasons got released we've just been in each other's DM’s all the time just cracking jokes having a lot of fun. So this shout out to my girl Vanity. I love her so much.
Vanity Milan? Our Vanity!? (I ask Kimora as if the UK owns Vanity Milan)
YEAH!
Oh I love Vanity, she is so sweet. We interviewed her before the show, we love her drag, she's done so well on the show. I'm so proud of her the b*tch can turn it out!
I'm so happy that she made it as far as she did and I’m so happy she was the representation of black excellence for the UK season because she did it!
She can slay for sure, her lip syncs were good on the show but off!
She can indeed!
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Photography - Courtesy of World of Wonder
Note: Some of this interview has been edited from the original transcript to help with readability.