Rhys Bobridge, the anarchic runner-up on So You Think You Can Dance, chats to AXN about life on the show, the drag industry and being linked to Jason Coleman.

I remember watching Rhys’ first audition for So You Think You Can Dance (SYTYCD). I rolled my eyes and immediately reduced him to just ‘one of those queens’. I don’t usually embrace arbitrary generalisations, but you know the kind – garish and replete with a fear-based bitchiness, but all the while floundering under the weight of their own insecurity.

But I couldn’t have been more wrong. And I’m not too proud to admit it; I now in fact admire Rhys – not just for his courageous flamboyance and extraordinary lack of apology, but for his generousity of spirit. I even found him slightly sexy – even though he is the antithesis of the type I usually go for.

Say what you will about judge Jason Coleman, but he recognised this from the beginning. When he informed Rhys that he had made it into the top 20, he commended him on his bravery and remarked that the show would be far richer with him in it. This touched Rhys deeply.

“For him to actually laud my individuality was something I wasn’t accustomed to,” Rhys tells AXN. “Usually people are questioning me. I’ve never really had the opportunity for it to be embraced before. I get plenty of love for it working in the gay scene, but not from the outside world. So it touched me.
“I was quite stunned by how well I was received. At the beginning I thought that Australia would either love me or hate me – thankfully they made the right decision!”

Rhys indeed inspired a significant groundswell of support during his time on SYTYCD. But his defiance and trademark dramatic eye makeup did initially raise a few eyebrows in the Channel Ten camp.

“I think when I started doing my face and painting up, a couple of people got a little bit nervous,” he reveals. “There was a little message passed to me that perhaps it was a little over-the-top; so of course I completely ignored it and went even bigger the next week!

“But that worked for me and they eventually realised it was true and honest and something people appreciated. If I was ever asked to tone it down or be something I wasn’t, I would’ve walked. I simply wouldn’t have continued.”

But the broad-mindedness of the big wigs had its limits. The only time Rhys and the “sexually ambiguous” Jack danced together as a couple, the routine was patently desexualised. Unlike the many seductive routines that had featured throughout the series, there was no crops-and-chains burlesque routine for them! This cautiousness also extended to Kate and Demi’s only same-sex number, with both women dressed as men in a lack-lustre Charlie Chaplin-inspired routine.

“I don’t think Australia’s quite ready for that,” Rhys says. “But the girls completely missed out with the routine they were given, and they felt that too. They really wanted to express themselves as hot females together.

“It wouldn’t have been difficult for us to all work together in that way – because we all love each other and we’re all dancers and we’re all horny bastards!”

However long it lasts, at the moment Rhys is happily living the life of a fledlging celebrity, with the SYTYCD tour kicking off in Brisbane next month. With notoriety comes the ever-active rumour mill, which at one point even linked Rhys with Coleman.

“There was a rumour going around for a while that I was sleeping with Jason Coleman,” Rhys laughs. “And it can’t have been very good because I don’t remember much of it!”

Before Rhys charmed his way into our living rooms, he worked as a makeup artist and taught at the Napoleon Makeup Academy in Melbourne, specialising in drag makeup. He is also one of Melbourne’s most notorious drag queens, stomping the boards around the city as ‘Regime Dettol’.

“Being a drag queen you have a certain amount of freedom, but you also lose a certain amount of respect,” Rhys tells. “Drag is at the arse-hole end of the industry and it doesn’t really get the reputation it deserves. There are a lot of hard-working professionals in the industry – it’s not just amateurs frocking up for the night.

“But drag has been amazing for me. It prepared me quite well for SYTYCD as far as my performance ability. It’s not something I’m willing to give up entirely.” AXN

For more information on the SYTYCD tour, go to dance.ten.com.au. Tickets are on sale now through ticketmaster.com.au.