'RuPaul's Drag Race UK' Star Cherry Valentine Dies In Tragic Circumstances
She has been a leading force in the LGBTQ community.
Instagram Popular RuPaul Drag Race UK star, Cherry Valentine, has tragically passed away.
Announced on September 23, 2022 in an issued statement from his family and agent, Valentine reportedly passed away unexpectedly on September 18, 2022.
“This will come as a profound shock to most people & we understand there is no easy way for this to be announced. As his family, we are still processing his death and our lives will never be the same,” the statement read.
Valentine was 28.
What is Cherry Valentine's cause of death?
The famous drag queen's cause of death has not been revealed.
Born George Ward in Darlington, UK, the star worked as a mental health nurse and during the COVID-19 pandemic, he worked as a nurse helping distribute the vaccine.
Valentine was announced as a contestant on RuPaul’s Drag Race UK in December 2020, after only doing drag professionally for two years.
In his ‘Meet The Queens’ segment for the show, he commented on this.
“For those saying I haven’t been doing drag long enough, take a look. I’ve been doing it as long as I need,” he said.
Ward also mentioned how his history as a mental health nurse “has put me in that right position where I'm able to understand people a bit more, and if you're a drag queen, you're working with people. By understanding people, you're going the extra mile"
Ward further elaborated on who exactly his alter ego was.
“Cherry Valentine- she is everything. She’s glamor, she's club kid, she’s dark, she’s gothic. Look at me, I look like a queen,” he said.
It’s true Ward’s alter ego was usually draped in hues of maroon and black, sharp eyeliner and even sharper claws.
Ward appeared on six episodes of Drag Race before finally being eliminated in a lip sync challenge against fellow contestant Tayce to the song "Memory" from popular Andrew Lloyd Webber musical “Cats.”
Despite the Drag Race loss, this didn’t stop Valentine.
Earlier this year, he went on to appear in a BBC documentary named "Cherry Valentine: Gypsy Queen and Proud.”
In the documentary, Valentine spoke about living in the Traveller community and how that shaped him as a drag queen today.
"In the Traveller community, there's a lot of pressure on young people to marry, to settle down, to have a family and to get a job to support the family,” Ward said of his upbringing.
Travellers, or better known as the Romanichal Travellers or Gypsies, are a Romani community in the United Kingdom who typically don’t stay in one area for too long.
The documentary shows how Ward ultimately had to leave the community due to the backlash of him coming out as gay.
Ward, however, credited the "fabulous" women in his family for helping to shape him into the drag queen he was.
Ward’s death remains unknown as of right now.
Victoria Soliz is a writer with YourTango who covers news and entertainment content. Her work explores pop culture trends, film and TV, and celebrity news.