Lew-Delilah was on the way to becoming British drag royalty after her story went viral. But after leaving her family home and becoming homeless, her life changed.

It was 8am on a school day when 16-year-old Lew-Delilah left her family home in Telford, England, for the last time. “I packed a Nike duffel bag. I had a Moschino…” she pauses, laughs, clarifies. “A fake Moschino handbag with all my makeup, and then my backpack for school,” filled with clothes. “I just walked all the way to my closest train station.”

This was 2020, and the teen had spent the previous two years riding a strange and improbable wave of public attention. Aged 14, living then as a gay boy (she came out as trans in 2022), she’d made headlines after attempting to stage a performance as her drag persona, Athena Heart,

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