In an explosion of sequins, tight-fitting jumpsuits and outlandish blonde wigs, The Vivienne burst onto the nation’s television screens in 2019 winning the first season of hit BBC reality show RuPaul‘s Drag Race UK.
The cheeky Liverpudlian drag queen – whose stage name derived from his love of Vivienne Westwood clothes – instantly won over viewers with his camp wit and larger-than-life impersonations of Donald Trump, Queen Elizabeth II and Maggie Thatcher.
The Vivienne was soon on board the reality TV carousel, gracing our screens in everything from Dancing on Ice to Celebrity Mastermind, The Chase and even The Great British Sewing Bee.
And then, all of a sudden, the music stopped.
For on January 5 this year, the man behind the makeup – 32-year-old James Lee Williams – was found dead in a bathtub in his Cheshire home from a drug-induced cardiac arrest.
Hitherto unreported, we now know the truth about the exact composition of drugs found in Williams’s system.
The post-mortem examination found the star to have 1.9 micrograms of ketamine per millilitre of blood in his body, which is actually considerably short of the amount required to cause the sort of cardio-respiratory arrest that killed Williams.
For context, the late Friends star Matthew Perry was found to have 3.54 micrograms per millilitre in his blood following his ketamine-related death two years ago. In other words, almost double that of Williams.
The Vivienne burst onto the nation’s television screens in 2019 winning the first season of hit BBC reality show RuPaul ‘s Drag Race UK, writes Fred Kelly
James Lee Williams was born in Colwyn Bay in Wales and moved to Liverpool when he was 16
In 2022, The Vivienne became the first Drag Queen to participate in Dancing on Ice and finished third
Yet Dr David Butterworth, the pathologist responsible for the post-mortem, concluded ‘the cause of death was cardio-respiratory arrest due to ketamine use’ because Williams had a further 1.7 micrograms per millilitre of so-called ‘norketamine’ in his system – in other words, ketamine that has been metabolised, or broken down by the body.
This revelation proved that Williams had indeed consumed sufficient ketamine to result in cardiac arrest. And furthermore, that he died roughly two days before his body was finally found on January 5 – the amount of time necessary for ketamine to metabolise into ‘norketamine’.
In the days following The Vivienne’s death, social media was a frenzy of wild theories and amateur sleuthing as the star’s largely youthful fanbase demanded answers as to their hero’s untimely demise. However, this week, following the conclusion of the inquest into the star’s ‘unnatural’ death, we finally know the grim truth.
Today, the Mail tells – in forensic detail – the story of The Vivienne’s final hours and asks the question: Just how does a young man – who found great fame and affection prancing around wearing a hefty pair of fake bosoms and outrageous wigs – go from casual drug use to the fatal substance abuse that would prematurely end his life aged just 32?
‘I struggled with addiction,’ Williams admitted to TV host RuPaul in 2019, ‘and I’m two years clean now.’
Pressed on the subject, the then relatively unknown star revealed his four-year-long ketamine reliance: ‘It was breakfast, dinner and tea. I could have three bags of it just putting my face on.’
Ketamine is an anaesthetic that gives users a feeling of euphoria, as well as out-of-body experiences and hallucinations. The Class B narcotic, sometimes administered by the NHS for pain relief, was developed in the 1960s and used as a battlefield anaesthetic in the Vietnam War, then as an animal tranquilliser.
The Mail understands that at one point prior to 2017, Williams – while working the Liverpool club scene as a drag artiste – was hospitalised for ketamine abuse three times in a single month.
The Vivienne had talked about his struggles with ketamine, saying ‘it was breakfast, dinner and tea. I could have three bags of it just putting my face on’
Williams’s friend Bobby Musker and his sister Chanel outside Cheshire Coroners Court where the inquest into his death was held
A horse-drawn carriage carrying the coffin of The Vivienne at St Margaret’s Church, Bodelwyddan, Denbighshire, on January 27
Williams then concluded the interview with RuPaul with the chilling admission: ‘I just had to stop. The doctors were telling me I was gonna be dead by the time I was 30.’
In 2019, Welsh-born Williams claimed he had got clean in part due to the support of his husband, David Ludford.
The pair met in 2017 in Gran Canaria before marrying two years later. However, the relationship broke down, and their divorce was finalised in 2023. It is unclear whether their split played any role in Williams’s relapse into drug taking.
‘David was a support to James, in more ways than one,’ a friend of Ludford’s admitted to the Mail this week. ‘So there was always going to be a risk of relapse after their separation. Divorce is never easy. But by that point James was super famous and you can imagine the distractions that come with that lifestyle.’
Last December, Williams completed his last professional job, a short stint playing the Child Catcher in a touring production of the Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. However, as one source working on the production said, it wasn’t just ‘lollipops and ice-cream’ that Williams was indulging in during those fateful days on the road.
The source claimed Williams – who sometimes used the pronouns they/their – was ‘clearly not clean during the run’.
After the tour, Williams returned home to Chorlton-by-Backford near Chester where he lived with his dog named Panda.
On Friday January 3, Williams appeared to be in good spirits. He had an exchange over WhatsApp with his neighbour and friend Janine Godbold in which the pair agreed to meet up the following day to go shopping and share dinner.
The first indication that anything was wrong came later on Friday evening at 8.22pm, when Williams spoke with his best friend of 16 years, Bobby Musker.
Musker told the inquest on Monday this week: ‘I could kind of tell when they [Williams] was on it [ketamine], so I could tell he had taken some.
‘Because I have seen them on the drug I could tell when they had taken it, but if you were just meeting them now you wouldn’t be able to tell,’ Musker continued.
And indeed, Williams’s father, Lee, was unaware his son had consumed drugs when he spoke with him at around 9.30pm the same evening. Lee revealed that his son ‘seemed fine’ and had said he was going to take a bath.
On Saturday January 4, Williams failed to turn up to meet his sister, Chanel. Nor did he keep to his meeting with neighbour Janine or reply to a string of text messages sent by best friend Bobby.
Little did the friends and family know that at the time, The Vivienne was already dead.
The frightful story unravelled the following day on Sunday January 5. It began when Williams’s PR manager, Simon Jones – who represents household names including Ant & Dec and Girls Aloud – called Musker to say he couldn’t reach The Vivienne and asked Musker whether he heard from him.
Following the call, Musker said he had a ‘bad feeling and knew something wasn’t right’.
He immediately phoned Williams’s neighbour, Janine, who he knew had a spare key.
Janine herself was worried. Williams had failed to turn up the previous day for their shopping trip, something she’d originally attributed to the heavy blanket of snow that had fallen across Cheshire and the fact that the phone signal in the area was intermittent at the best of times.
In her chilling testimony, Janine recalled having a ‘weird feeling’ as she approached the property shortly before midday with her son, Ryan, because ‘there were no footprints in the snow and the lights were on.’
Things became increasingly eerie after Janine knocked on the door which brought Panda the dog thundering down the stairs who seemed to ‘throw himself at the front door’.
Janine took out the key Williams had entrusted to her and slowly opened the door. Immediately, Panda rushed past the pair and relieved himself outside. It was clear the dog had been locked inside for days.
‘I went into the kitchen and Ryan went into the living room,’ Janine told the inquest earlier this week. ‘We were calling their name and there was no answer. All the lights were on.
‘As we got to the top of the stairs, Ryan went one way, and I turned right… I looked at James’s bed which was all ruffled, I initially thought Panda had ragged the quilt on the bed.
‘And then I walked past James’s bed and into the bathroom…’
What Janine saw in the bathroom will stay with her forever. There were objects – including the star’s phone – surrounding the tub. And inside, looking as though ‘he was sleeping’, was the motionless James Lee Williams, his head resting just above the waterline.
‘I screamed for Ryan,’ Janine continued, fighting back tears. ‘I kept hold of James because I didn’t want their face in the water, I kept talking to them…’
It was around this time Janine called Bobby Musker, who recalled: ‘Jan was screaming. It was either Ryan or Jan, it is all a bit of a haze. They were saying: “He’s in the bath, he’s in the bath.” I told them to do CPR. Then the phone went down again. Then I had to ring Chanel and tell her that [her brother] had passed away.’
A paramedic driving along the nearby M53 was assigned the case at 12.13pm and arrived 15 minutes later. Meanwhile, Janine – lost for what to do and clearly in shock – tidied James’s belongings away and cleaned up his bedroom.
At 12.22 PM Cheshire police were alerted to reports of a death at an address outside Chester and dispatched a car.
The paramedic arrived on the scene first and ruled Williams dead at 12.31pm. Rigor mortis had already set in and the star was cold. It was clear that the body had likely been lying there for some time.
Both Janine and Ryan denied seeing any drug paraphernalia in the room. However, DS Thomas Philpotts revealed that his team later found a total of five empty ‘snap’ bags, used to contain drugs, strewn across the bedroom and in the bathroom bin.
Pathologist Dr Butterworth’s post-mortem ruled out any evidence of drowning and instead concluded the death should be recorded as cardio-respiratory arrest due to ketamine use. Senior coroner Jacqueline Devonish then concluded on Monday – over six months after that day in January: ‘On the balance of probabilities, I am satisfied that James Lee Williams’s death was a misadventure. He took ketamine but he did not intend to end his own life.’
The use of ketamine has spiralled out of control across much of Liverpool with Labour councillor Lynnie Hinnigan recently calling for it to be reclassified as class A and alleging that the currently class B drug is ‘stealing the futures’ of Liverpudlian teens.
Back in 2019, The Vivienne spoke of how he’d ‘love to help people in my position’.
‘Drag and the gay scene is riddled with drugs and abuse and I don’t think there’s enough support out there,’ he said.
Williams certainly achieved his aim of highlighting the dangers of drugs, especially ketamine. Tragically, in doing so he paid the ultimate price.
