Paul O’Grady: Royal Vauxhall Tavern cabaret club where Lily Savage rose to fame pays raucous tribute to star
Paul O’Grady has been remembered as “one of the greatest drag artists the UK has ever seen” at the LGBTQ+ cabaret club that helped him rise to fame as Lily Savage.
Instead of the typical minute’s silence, there was a minute of raucous applause from the audience at the Royal Vauxhall Tavern (RVT) in south London on Wednesday evening – a moment to cheer in memory of the “trailblazer and legend”.
O’Grady died “unexpectedly but peacefully” at the age of 67 on Tuesday evening.
His close friend Linda Thorson, an actress known for starring in The Avengers and Emmerdale, said in an interview with Good Morning Britain that he died in bed with his husband, Andre Portasio, beside him.
Stars and royalty including Sir Elton John and the Queen Consort led the thousands of tributes following his death.
The TV presenter and comedian rose to fame on the nightclub circuit in the 1980s as the acerbic, platinum wig-wearing Lily Savage – a name believed to have been inspired by his late mother.
After touring the north of England, he settled into a solo residency at the RVT before the character went on to become a household name.
‘Silence is polite – but this is a moment to applaud’
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Producer reveals how O’Grady was day before death
On Wednesday evening, RVT host Michael Twaits described O’Grady as “an absolute legend of the community” to a full-house audience paying tribute.
“Today we lost one of the greatest drag artists the UK has ever seen, and it is this building, this building was where it happened,” he said.
“Eight years of doing solo shows… and also doing shows like tonight, introducing new talent to the LGBT+ scene. Paul O’Grady was an absolute legend of the community.”
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Twaits said O’Grady had always stayed true to his roots, despite his rise to TV fame.
“It was around raising up the community, and when you move from a stage like this into the mainstream, when you move into breakfast f****** television… and still stay true to yourself, stay true to your queer self, and stay true to your working class roots.”
Telling the audience that “a trailblazer and a legend has left us”, he then led the crowd in a round of applause.
“Obviously a moment of silence is polite… but I don’t think a moment of silence is right. I think this is a moment to applaud, a moment to love, a moment to cheer,” he said.
Deputy PM invited to cabaret club
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Paul O’Grady – and Lily Savage – remembered by MPs
MPs also highlighted O’Grady’s time at the RVT in the House of Commons earlier on Wednesday.
Addressing Dominic Raab, Sir Chris Bryant said: “I don’t know whether the deputy prime minister ever met Lily Savage or has ever spent a night out at the Royal Vauxhall Tavern, but… I can take him some time if he wants to go?”
As laughter broke out, the Labour MP added: “Her alter ego, Paul O’Grady, campaigned acerbically and hilariously for elderly people, for care workers, against oppression of every kind.
“Isn’t it time we in this country celebrated our naughty, hilarious drag queens and comics of every kind who inspire us to be a better and more generous nation?”
Mr Raab, who was filling in for Rishi Sunak during Prime Minister’s Questions, accidently referred to O’Grady as “Paul Grayson”, before correcting himself and describing the star as an “incredible comic”.
‘A true animal lover in every bone in his body’
Flowers have been left at Battersea Cats & Dogs Home in south London
Among the many paying tribute to O’Grady was the Battersea Dogs and Cats Home, the charity for which the star had been an ambassador since 2012.
He filmed 11 series of his beloved show For The Love Of Dogs at the centre, and during the first series he rehomed Eddie, a Chihuahua Jack Russell-cross puppy.
Eddie was followed by shih-tzu Boycie in 2014, Conchita, a Maltese, in 2015, Arfur, a mongrel puppy, in 2017, Nancy, another mongrel puppy, in 2020, and Sausage, a wire-haired dachshund, in 2021.
Battersea chief executive Peter Laurie said O’Grady would have taken all of the charity’s dogs home “if he had his way”.
Mr Laurie said: “It’s hard to overstate Paul’s impact at Battersea over the last decade. He really helped put Battersea on the map.”
O’Grady’s “real legacy” is how he showed both the British public and an international audience how “lovable and incredible” rescue dogs are, Mr Laurie added.
“He could walk into a kennel with a dog he had never met before, sit on the floor and play with that dog and bond with that dog within minutes.
“He would fall in love with that dog and the dog would fall in love with him too and you can’t pretend, that was so authentic, that really was Paul – a true animal lover in every bone in his body.”
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Om Fahad: Iraqi social media influencer shot dead by gunman on motorbike who posed as food delivery rider – report
A well-known Iraqi social media influencer has reportedly been shot dead in her car by a gunman on a motorbike.
Om Fahad, whose real name is Ghufran Sawadi, was killed outside her home in Baghdad’s Zayouna district on Friday, according to the AFP news agency, citing security officials.
It appears the unidentified attacker pretended to be delivering food to the victim, one security source said.
Om Fahad, who has nearly half a million TikTok followers, became famous for posting light-hearted videos where she dances to Iraqi music.
Six days ago, she shared footage of herself driving in a car and also posing in front of a mirror. They have each been watched hundreds of thousands of times.
The influencer was sentenced to six months in prison in February last year for sharing videos that a court ruled contained “indecent speech that undermines modesty and public morality”.
A campaign was launched in 2023 by the Iraqi government to clamp down on social media content which broke the country’s “morals and traditions”.
The interior ministry set up a committee to look for “offensive” clips on platforms such as TikTok and YouTube, with several influencers being arrested.
“This type of content is no less dangerous than organised crime,” the ministry declared in a promotional video which asked the public to help by reporting such content.
“It is one of the causes of the destruction of the Iraqi family and society.”
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Speaking last year, interior ministry spokesman Saad Maan argued the morality campaign has “nothing to do with freedom of expression”.
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In 2018, gunmen in Baghdad shot dead Tara Fares, who was a model and influencer.
After years of war and sectarian conflict following the 2003 US invasion that overthrew dictator Saddam Hussein, Iraq has returned to some semblance of normality despite sporadic violence, political instability and corruption.
But civil liberties, particularly among women and sexual minorities, are still constrained in a conservative and male-dominated society.
R Kelly’s challenge against a 20-year sentence for child sex convictions has been quashed by an appeals court.
The singer was correctly sentenced to 20 years in prison, a Chicago court ruled on Friday.
He was convicted in 2022 on three charges of producing child sexual abuse images and three charges of enticement of minors for sex.
In his appeal, Kelly, 57, argued Illinois’ old statute of limitations – which required prosecution of child sex crime charges within 10 years – should have applied, rather than the current law permitting charges while an accuser is still alive.
The appeals court rejected this, labelling it an attempt by Kelly to elude the charges entirely after “employing a complex scheme to keep victims quiet”.
He also argued that charges involving one accuser should have been tried separately from the charges tied to three other accusers due to video evidence that became a focal point of the Chicago trial.
Prosecutors have said the video showed Kelly abusing a girl. The accuser, only identified as Jane, testified for the first time that she was 14 when the video was taken.
The three-judge panel from the appeals court noted jurors acquitted Kelly on seven of the 13 counts against him “even after viewing those abhorrent tapes”.
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In a written statement, Kelly’s attorney Jennifer Bonjean said they plan to seek a US Supreme Court review of the decision and “pursue all of his appellate remedies until we free R Kelly”.
“We are disappointed in the ruling, but our fight is far from over,” she said.
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