‘Read U Wrote U’ producer Ellis Miah on making Nicola Coughlan’s pop star dreams come true

A few weeks ago, Bridgerton star Nicola Coughlan revealed that her dream job would be making pop music for the gays.

“You know when the Real Housewives release pop songs just exclusively for gay men?” she said to Hits Radio UK. “That’s like my dream job. ‘Cause they don’t even really sing, they just list things. They’re like, ‘Shoes. And private yachts. Caviar. And more shoes.’”

A dream so iconic was begging to be made reality. Enter DJ and producer Ellis Miah, who fans might know for his work on RuPaul’s Drag Race. Miah is the producer behind hits from the show including “Read U Wrote U” and “Legends,” and on Friday, he used his musical talents to turn Coughlan’s quote into the club remix of her dreams — one that Coughlan herself has since seen and shared across social media.

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“I had seen that clip go around on TikTok for quite a while,” Miah tells INTO. “I’m a huge fan of hers. I love Derry Girls, I love Bridgerton. And I kept seeing it, and I was like, ‘I need to do something about this.’ So it was kind of in the back of my mind.”

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“This is a show about love in its many forms and I think that it’s only right for us to foreground queer love and to tell queer stories,”

“Friday night, quite honestly, a friend of mine was supposed to meet me for dinner, and she canceled,” Miah continues. “And so I was like, ‘Well, I don’t have anything to do.’”

To fill his evening, Miah went live on TikTok and, on a whim, brought his viewers on the journey of turning Coughlan’s voice into a hit meant for gay clubs across the globe.

“I knew I wanted it to kind of be, like, house-y. And so I started with the chords,” Miah explains. For a featured instrument, Miah opted for the organ bass, “which is really popular in a lot of things,” he says. “But obviously, one of the most relevant things in gay culture would be Kylie Minogue, ‘Can’t Get You Out Of My Head.’”

“I was like, that is the instrument to use, because that is the instrument of a goddess,” he said.

From there, the remix came together: Coughlan’s list of glamorous things became the hook, and the line “exclusively for gay men” served as the perfect button.

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Leave us alone, Nancy!

Miah posted the remix on Saturday afternoon, and in a matter of hours, it had racked up nearly half a million views. Cut to the present, and Miah’s TikTok of the song has more than 3.5 million views and nearly 650 thousand likes.

“The thing that has been so wonderful to see is how much people love her, and how much people want to be a part of this because of what she says in the soundbite,” Miah says. “She’s like, ‘This would be my dream job,’ so they’re all like, ‘Let’s give her a hit!’”

“And then the number of people like, ‘Is this available on iTunes? Can we stream it? This is the song of this summer!’ All of that has been really exciting to see,” he continues.

Coughlan herself even took notice, reposting the remix on TikTok and Instagram, where she has a combined 5.9 million followers.

Miah, for his part, never thought the remix would reach Coughlan. “I was like, ‘There’s no way she’s gonna see this, she’s in the middle of press. It’s not gonna happen,’” he says. 

But nevertheless, Coughlan saw the remix and propelled the track to even greater viral fame. She also commented on Miah’s Instagram post of the remix, writing, “This is the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”

“I started laughing and I had a huge smile on my face,” Miah says of seeing Coughlan’s comment. “It felt like you had surprised somebody with their favorite dessert.”

But could Miah’s remix actually become the song of the summer? At this point, it’s in Coughlan’s hands — and in the hands of her fans, he says.

“I have a full version that I’ve done, and we need her to approve it,” Miah says. “We’re trying to get a hold of her, and like I said, she’s in the midst of all these things, and I don’t personally have her email or her phone number!” 

“If fans want to make it happen, they can all help by asking her to make it a release,” he continues. “Who knows? She could have the song of the summer and be on every dance floor in every Pride from here to Dubai.”

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