Dustin Lance Black has watched his husband win Olympic gold and go viral for knitting in the stands. Until this weekend, he had never seen Tom Daley in full drag.
Then Tom FaceTimed him from Plastique Tiara‘s makeup chair.
The RuPaul’s Drag Race star posted the 30-minute episode of her YouTube series Plastique’s Beauty Bar on Sunday, October 4, and that call comes at the very end. Before Lance sees anything, Tom knits through his own makeover and pitches his 3-year-old son’s name as a backup drag name.
Four Years After The Wig, The Full Face
“I’ve always watched Drag Race and I’ve always wanted to get into drag and this will be genuinely my first time,” the five-time Olympic medalist told Plastique as he sat down.
First time for a full face, anyway. Tom admitted he’d tried a wig and heels before. “But I’ve never had like a full face.”
That wig moment came in 2022, when he styled one with Drag Race UK queen River Medway for his Snapchat show Secret Superpowers. He already had a drag name back then, and fans asked for the full look, makeup included. It took four years, but they got it.
Plastique has done this for some big names. She competed on Season 11 of RuPaul’s Drag Race in 2019 and came back for All Stars 9 in 2024. Her Beauty Bar series has already made over Katya, Bianca Del Rio and Kim Chi, plus Selling Sunset‘s Chrishell Stause.
Tom’s transformation started where every drag face does, with the eyebrows. “What if I told you we were just shaving your eyebrows today?” Plastique teased.
Yes, He Knitted Through His Own Makeover
You already know where this is going. Tom brought his knitting.
“I’ve got a deadline to make a sweater for next week,” he explained, needles moving while Plastique’s team worked on his face. “I take it with me everywhere to be honest.”
He has knitted for Sharon Stone, Kelly Clarkson and Tom Holland (he once crocheted for Holland courtside), and he told Plastique his Made With Love yarn is now on the shelves at Michaels.
The look itself was handmade too. When they first planned the episode, Plastique asked why he didn’t just knit a dress. One problem: “I’ve never knit a dress before in my life.”
He made one anyway, a mint knit gown with long flared sleeves, against a deadline he didn’t think he could hit. “There was no way that I thought I was going to be able to make it,” he said. On the floor, he admitted, “it looked a little bit crazy.” Plastique compared it to a mini sewing challenge on Drag Race and declared him ready for Season 20.
The Makeup Chair Confessions
Drag queens, Tom admitted while Plastique built his contour, used to scare him. “The first time I had exposure to drag queens, I was actually terrified,” he said, mostly of being pulled up on stage. Then he started watching Drag Race and “became completely obsessed.” He ended up a guest judge on RuPaul’s Drag Race UK vs the World, the season Tia Kofi won.
He also explained how Kate Moss ended up in his high school photography project. He was on an Italian Vogue shoot with her, in a pool, and at the end he simply asked: “Do you mind if I take some photos of you for my A-level photography project?” Her answer: “Yeah, sure.”
The heaviest part of the conversation was about his body. Tom said that as he went through puberty and got more muscular, his performance director told him he needed to lose weight, and he started seeing his body differently. He has talked before about body dysmorphia, and said he had “a few like eating disorder things around 2012.” Since retiring after the Paris Olympics, he’s working on balance. “It’s okay to miss a workout.”
He looked back on coming out in a YouTube video in December 2013, when he was “advised by everyone around me” not to. Plastique told him she showed her mom his story when she came out herself. “Your journey made an impact, sister.”
And in between, some casual news. Tom Daley: 1.6 Seconds, the Olympic Channel documentary about his career, was just nominated for an International Emmy, a first for the channel. Tom found out from a text from the director and assumed it was about one of the director’s other projects. The winners will be named on November 23.
Meet Lady Good Diver
Tom has had his drag name picked out for years. “I always thought that my drag name would be Lady Good Diver,” he said. Say it fast and you get Lady Godiva, with a little diving heritage built in.
His backup is his younger son’s actual name. “Phoenix Rose,” Tom said, before thinking it through: “It’s either a drag name or a stripper name.” Then: “Sorry, son.”
After that came the wig and the reveal. You can watch the whole transformation here. The reveal starts at 25:54.
“That Looks Nothing Like Me”
When Tom opened his eyes, it took him a second. “What on earth? That is crazy. I’m like looking in a mirror. That looks nothing like me.”
“I don’t know what I was expecting to look like, but it was not this,” he added. “I actually look way more feminine than I thought I was going to look.” Going blonde helped, he figured, since he’s naturally dark-haired, and the comparison in the room was pop star Zara Larsson.
His mind went straight to the school run. “Can you imagine? I go and pick up the kids from school. They’re going to be like, ‘Excuse me, do you have ID?'”
Then He Called Lance
There was one person left to show. Tom FaceTimed Lance, the Oscar-winning Milk screenwriter he married in 2017.
“Oh my god, I’m straight now,” Lance said. “I mean, you are beautiful.”
Then he got sweeter. “I always knew you were going to make a beautiful woman, but this is exceptional.”
His last question was the practical one: “Can you come home like that?”
“I’ll be coming home soon,” Tom promised.
Plastique got the final word, crowning her guest “an Olympic champion, a history maker, and now officially the most beautiful woman of Great Britain.”
The fans who asked for the full look in 2022 finally have it. Tom, meanwhile, still has a sweater due.