Dancing On Ice professional Colin Grafton has gushed that he felt 'honoured' to have skated with The Vivienne.
The Vivienne, who first shot to fame after taking the drag world by storm and winning a spot on the first season of RuPaul's Drag Race UK, made it to the final of the 2023 series of Dancing On Ice alongside proud dance partner, Colin.
Opening up about being paired with the legendary drag queen, whose real name is James Williams, Colin, 31, admitted that it was an 'honour' and one of the most exciting challenges in his career to date.
Speaking exclusively to The Mirror, Colin said: "I was beyond excited [to be paired with The Vivienne]. I thought, what an amazing opportunity and it was almost an honour in a way that they were asking.
"You know, hey, this is the first time we want to have a drag queen on the show. I personally love a challenge, and I was like, 'wow, this is such an amazing opportunity to actually make history."
Despite being over the moon about the pairing, it soon set in for Colin that there would be a lot of pressure when it comes to their routines, and he felt as though there was a lot on his shoulders in terms of representing a community.
Colin explained: "Initially I was so excited but then the more I started thinking about it, I was like, 'Okay, this is a lot of pressure now. We really have to deliver here.' This is big for a lot of people and we're representing a lot of people and a community that's sometimes overlooked or undermined or misunderstood.
"So it was such a fantastic opportunity to really just give it our best and be true to ourselves, and it just was so amazing because Vivienne and I had the same vision right from the beginning, and we both have the same work ethic."
Lifting the lid on his instant connection with The Vivienne, Colin gushed: "So it was just, we honestly gelled instantly. It was just one of those, we were like 'alright, this is gonna be a good partnership' and I think that's what actually read to a lot of the people at home, was they could see that we had a genuine really nice connection and that we worked really hard.
"If I'm honest, I don't know if people expected us to take it so seriously. I think that we actually proved a lot of people wrong in a good way. I think tonnes of people were expecting us to not do lifts."
On people's expectations of the pair, one thing that Colin admitted that people didn't see coming was The Vivienne's staggering weight loss throughout the competition.
After rehearsing seven days a week, all the hard work paid off, with the much-loved drag queen dropping over two and a half stones during the competition.
"Vivienne lost 35 pounds throughout the show, like two and a half stone. That, people just didn't expect. I think they were expecting a little bit of comedy as well," Colin told.
"One of the first things that when I was having my chat with the executive producers I said 'okay, well if we're gonna do this, like I want to do it and I don't want it to be a gag.'
"Interestingly enough, Vivienne felt the same exact way. She didn't want these generic things thrown her way that really weren't showing her talent and her personality.
"So it worked so well right off the bat, we both said 'no, if we're gonna do this, we're going to show people how good and talented Viv is and how amazing we can make this' and it was really fulfilling to prove a lot of people wrong."
