Willam Belli (, born June 30, 1982), mononymously known as Willam, is an American drag queen, actor, singer-songwriter, comedian, reality television personality, author, and YouTuber. Willam came to prominence as a contestant on the fourth season of RuPaul's Drag Race in 2012. She was the first contestant to be disqualified from the competition.
Before appearing on Drag Race, Willam worked as an actor, most notably playing the recurring role of transgender woman Cherry Peck in Ryan Murphy's medical drama Nip/Tuck. She has continued to perform in a variety of films, television series and web series, often in drag. In 2018, she appeared in the critically acclaimed film A Star Is Born. For her performance on the dark comedy web series EastSiders, she was nominated for a Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Digital Daytime Drama Series.
Since 2012, Willam has recorded three albums of comedy music, mostly consisting of parodies of popular songs. Her second album, Shartistry in Motion, debuted at number one on the Billboard Comedy Albums chart. Between 2012 and 2014, she recorded several songs as part of the group DWV (alongside drag queens Vicky Vox and Detox), including the parodies "Chow Down" and "Boy Is a Bottom", whose music videos were viral successes. Following the breakup of DWV, Willam formed another drag supergroup, the AAA Girls, with Courtney Act and Alaska Thunderfuck.
Early life
Willam Belli was born in Philadelphia to Debbi Ruzic Belli. Belli is from a Catholic background. His mother discovered he was gay when she caught him in an incestuous relationship with his male cousin when he was young. He is of Italian and Yugoslav heritage. He has an older sister, Samantha. He lived in Florida for middle school and high school. Belli's father worked at the Kennedy Space Center. His aunt is television director Mary Lou Belli.
Growing up, Belli frequently illustrated dresses, to which many people assumed that he wanted to become a fashion designer, but he asserted that he designed the garments with the intent to wear them himself. He later worked in costume design in theatre, and, at the age of 13, he was put in drag for the first time in Jesus Christ Superstar at a community theater. From there, he would dress in drag to watch performances of The Rocky Horror Show, and was paid for a drag performance for the first time at the age of 16.
Belli was overweight when he was young but lost the extra pounds by becoming vegetarian. At the age of 16, he was legally emancipated from his parents. Belli met his husband, Bruce, at 19. They were married on September 9, 2008. They separated in 2015.
Career
2000–2008: Beginnings
Belli's first acting credit was as the role of a street hustler named Bart Jaker on two episodes of The District (2002) and his first TV appearance was on an episode of the game show Street Smarts. He later appeared in the TV series Boston Public, Cold Case, The Shield, My Name Is Earl and most notably Nip/Tuck as the transgender character Cherry Peck. Throughout the 2000s he would go on to play small roles in many television shows. He also had a small role in the film American Wedding.
In 2008, Belli was featured on the single artwork for the song "Breakin' Up" by Rilo Kiley. He has also modeled as part of the Tranimal Master Class Workshop at the Machine Project, which was photographed by Austin Young.
2009–2010: Drag career
Belli is a member of the band Tranzkuntinental, which made its debut at The Roxy in 2009. The band was started by Charlie Paulson and Xander Smith and features drag queens Detox, Kelly Mantle, Rhea Litré, and Vicky Vox.
In January 2011, he was featured in Rihanna's music video "S&M" along with Detox and Morgan McMichaels as back-up dancers.
2011–2012: RuPaul's Drag Race and further success
World of Wonder contacted Willam's management asking for her to audition for the fourth season of RuPaul's Drag Race. She decided to apply after being rejected for an acting role in Don Johnson's pilot, A Mann's World, when the casting director of the pilot (which later went unaired), who had previously cast Willam in Cinema Verite, did not cast her because she was not a "name". The role later went to Cara Cunningham. In November 2011, Logo TV announced that Belli was among 13 contestants competing on the fourth season. Fellow castmate Chad Michaels had competed with Belli in the California Entertainer of the Year Pageant in 2010. Belli won the main challenges in the episodes "Float Your Boat" and "Frenemies", but was disqualified in the latter. In the episode "Reunited", Belli stated that her disqualification was due to conjugal visits made by his husband in his hotel room. In the years since airing season 4, however, Belli has refuted the "official story" in multiple interviews.
Belli's most recent reassertion about the circumstances of her disqualification is in an interview with YouTuber Joseph Shepherd in February 2019, where Belli claims that the so-called "official" reason was just a fabrication by the show's creators for the purpose of portraying a more palatable scenario of Belli's departure from the show. In that interview, Belli claimed that the genuine reason for his removal was due to increasing hostilities and issues between the contestants and the crew, and that, whenever she had broken the rules, she would report it directly to production in hopes of being removed from the show. Belli claims that many members of the crew were rude and condescending towards the drag queens in general, with some of the crew members not even bothering to try to learn the contestant's names—sharing one example of a crew member repeatedly calling season 4 fellow contestant Latrice Royale "La-something", despite all the crew having cards with the photographs of the queens/contestants (in and out of drag) worn around their necks. At one point, Belli verbally barked at a production member for not knowing Latrice's name "just because [Belli] felt like it". Belli, along with cast members such as Royale and Chad Michaels, attempted to make a stand against the production members.
Belli also claimed that, outside of filming hours, the queens were not being adequately fed, noting that $75 was all that was allocated to feed the 12 contestants. Belli claims that this necessitated visits to the store for food, also revealing that she frequently got other contestants high and/or drunk, attempted to steal items from the set such as feather fans and RuPaul-branded Ironfist shoes, and had access to a computer in her hotel room, which was outlawed by production, in order to run her "go-go boy side hustle". She additionally claimed to have had sex in the bathroom of Micky's Weho, a local club, with producer Steven Corfe, whom she had previously made apologize to her for asking her to leave Untucked after Belli spoke out about "emotional manipulation" being done to Jiggly Caliente over the one-year anniversary of her mother's death. As the two were being escorted out of the bathroom after being discovered having sex, Corfe is said to have thrown a cup at the performer on stage that night, fellow Drag Race alum Raven, getting the two ejected from the club. Outside of the club, the duo ran into more World of Wonder staff members, including Drag Race producer Chris McKim (claimed by Belli to be Corfe's best friend), who had to physically separate the two, as they were still "making out". Weeks later, Corfe allegedly contacted Belli again and invited her out to lunch with the intent to chat with her and "get [Belli] back in with World of Wonder", of which Belli obliged. According to Belli, the conjugal visit story was made up by producers and she agreed to "go along with the excuse" so that "everyone looked okay". Belli used the publicity of his disqualification to release his single "Chow Down", which was a parody of Wilson Phillips' "Hold On" that addressed the 2012 Chick-fil-A same-sex marriage controversy. The song…