died in January 2025 at the age of 32 after struggling with addiction to ketamine.<\/a><\/p>\nHouse of The Vivienne CIC, which was established by Williams’ family, has announced plans to commission the tribute at the entrance to Liverpool’s Pride Quarter.<\/p>\n
Williams’ sister Chanel Williams said: “A permanent statue in the Pride Quarter feels like the right way to make sure nobody forgets that, and to remind anyone who might be struggling that they do not have to do it alone.”<\/p>\n
She added: “That was what James believed, and it is what we are going to keep saying.”<\/p>\n
“James gave everything to Liverpool and Liverpool gave everything back to him,” added Chanel, who is the director House of The Vivienne CIC. <\/p>\n
“This city saw him, accepted him, and helped him become The Vivienne.”<\/p>\n
The statue will be located at the junction of Victoria Street and Stanley Street. <\/p>\n
Williams grew up in North Wales before moving to Liverpool as a teenager, performing regularly in bars and clubs around the Pride Quarter before moving to Gran Canaria, a hotspot for drag performers across Europe.<\/p>\n
Williams first rose to national prominence on winning the first series of Drag Race UK, and later went on to become the only British drag queen to appear in the American series.<\/p>\n
The character became a household name through appearances in London’s West End and in TV shows such as Emmerdale, Dancing on Ice and Saturday Night Takeaway.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Plans to install a life-size statue of drag artist James Lee Williams, better known as The Vivienne, have…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":582866,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[307,304,305,306,308,93,61,60],"class_list":["post-582865","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arts-and-design","tag-arts","tag-arts-and-design","tag-artsanddesign","tag-artsdesign","tag-design","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/582865","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=582865"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/582865\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/582866"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=582865"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=582865"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=582865"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}