A mural honoring Drag Race UK star Divina de Campo has been vandalized with queerphobic slurs for the second time. “We still need Pride more than ever,” Divina commented after seeing the graffiti.

Located in Manchester’s Gay Village, the mural was designed in 2019 by street artist Akse to commend Divina’s show-stopping run on the first season of Drag Race UK. Since its creation, the mural has been targeted for vandalism once before. Now after years as an unblemished beacon on Richmond Street, the mural has been defaced yet again.

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Divina shared a video of the mural on social media, showing the words “Die” and “F*gs f*ck off” written across the face. “So, here’s the thing,” they said in the video. “When people say you don’t need Pride, we still have this happening. What a world.”

In the caption, Divina expounded on their disappointment. “We still live in a world where people think this is ok,” they wrote. “I’m so disappointed by the people in power who have given credence to those who do this and those who hate us. We still need pride more than ever.”

In a more hopeful turn, they added, “I’ll get it sorted so we don’t have this sort of stuff written about us in the village. We’re not going anywhere!”

On Pride month in 2021, Divina’s mural and two others nearby were vandalized with slurs. Vandals spray painted “666” and “dirty bastars[sic]” on Divina’s mural, crossing out the eyes and the mouth. Neighboring murals of history-making computer scientist Alan Turing and Manchester drag queen Foo Foo Lammar were similarly defaced.

“People are still now going, ‘Oh why do you need Pride?’ It’s stuff like this – this is the reason we have Pride, because there’s still a lot of homophobia out there,” Divina said in an Instagram live at the time.

“And unless you are completely living under a rock, unless you’re totally unconnected to what’s going on, then you can see there’s a huge swathe of transphobia in the press as well,” they added.
Divina has done more than call out the press in the years since. Earlier this year, they attended an LGBT History Month reception at Parliament wearing a protest dress made out of newspaper headlines written about queer people over the years. Although they debated attending the event at first, they used the opportunity to confront politicians about anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric. In short, they have a mural for a reason.

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