RuPaul’s Drag Race’s Michelle Visage exclusive ‘I shed 3.5st without surgery’

She’s known for inspiring the LGBTQ+ community and bringing her fiery personality to the RuPaul’s Drag Race judging panel and her Friday night show on BBC Radio 2.

Now Michelle Visage is embracing her signature no-nonsense style when it comes to battling ageing and menopause – aiming to break the stigma surrounding these elements of women’s health.

The New Jersey native, 54, has recently lost three-and-a-half stone and is looking amazing for it, but the loss is not without its tribulations. She tells us about her hopes to normalise menopause transparency and details her gruelling workout routine.

Michelle is in London, the city she dubs her “home away from home”, during our chat. But while she may be on our side of the pond, the TV personality hasn’t let her workout routine slip, keeping up with Pilates and weight-lifting.

“I work out six days a week and I take one day off – it is a lot but time is ticking,” she says. Never one to shy away from the truth, Michelle has always been open about going under the knife – even documenting her difficult experience with breast implants in the past. But searching for a way to change her figure without surgery, she has turned to weight-lifting.

“I lost three-and-a-half-stone recently and, as a woman of a certain age, I had this loose skin and I didn’t want to have surgery,” she says. “I thought, ‘How am I going to make this appear tighter and change the shape of my body without having it surgically altered?’ So I started heavy lifting," explains Michelle.

She continued: "I think a lot of women in particular are scared of lifting weights because you hear, ‘Oh, I don’t want to get too big,’ but that’s just not going to happen. It’s not how it works.”

Describing herself as “just an average woman”, Michelle – who has 2.1 million Instagram followers – explains that she “struggles with these things just like everybody else”. She is keen to spark conversations about the menopause and women’s health, determined to ensure no one feels alone.

Having faced hormonal battles herself in recent years, which she has described as “the worst thing I experienced in my life”, she puts it down to not knowing enough before going through it.

Having now become more informed on the topic, she says, “With menopause, my God, you don’t need to struggle. There are answers and there is help – you just have to ask your doctors. And I would always recommend going to a hormone specialist because most doctors really don’t know what you need to do to help you out.”

As we talk about society’s reluctance to talk about the menopause and all that comes with it, she says, “Stigmas are so silly. I think that in the 1950s they were a thing, but that doesn’t exist any more.

We have to really just keep breaking down the boundaries because it shouldn’t be taboo to talk about something that happens to every single woman. You can’t avoid it. There’s not one woman who’s going to bypass it. So they have to know they’re not alone and they don’t have to suffer.”

From her 2015 stint on Celebrity Big Brother to perfecting her dance skills on Strictly Come Dancing in 2019, Drag Race judge Michelle has earned the title of being an honorary Brit.

But when it comes to talking about personal issues and health, the outspoken US star thinks the Brits are “too polite” to speak up. “I think there’s more taboo in the UK about everything,” she says.

“Because you’re more polite, you don’t like to ruffle feathers. You don’t like to even speak up for yourself at times. You apologise a lot – unnecessarily so – and you certainly don’t need to apologise for coming through menopause. This is part of life. So no apologies. Those stigmas? Talk about them and get the help you need.”

Michelle often gives audiences an update on her own feelings and health while presenting her BBC Radio 2 show on Friday evenings. “I love my audience here – they’re so cheeky and lovely and I’m pretty open so there isn’t much that can shock me really,” she says, laughing.

With a flat in Belsize Park as her London base, she has been considering a permanent move to the UK for years. So is it on the cards yet? Explaining that it is on her radar, Michelle says she and her husband of 25 years, David Case, are holding off until their daughters, Lillie, 23, and Lola, 21, are finished with university in the US.

She says: “We absolutely want to, after the kids are out – then we’re kind of free to do whatever we want."

While she may be planning to move here, Michelle says she has had her fill of our reality shows. Despite winning the hearts of the nation during CBB and Strictly, you won’t see her taking on the jungle or getting her skates on any time soon. We mention her pal The Vivienne’s stint on Dancing On Ice earlier this year and ask whether she might like to give it a go, but Michelle says it’s a no from her.

“First of all, I’d break a nail and that’s a tragedy. Second of all, I’d probably break a leg and that would be more of a tragedy. I love watching it. It’s just I think that I’m better on the ground than I am on the ice.”

As for hitting the I’m A Celeb jungle, it appears there’s no chance she’ll be heading there either as she tells OK: “I think I’d struggle with the challenges and why do it if it’s going to cause stress? I’m trying to live a stress-free life.”

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