AlterElton.com – Rachel Kramer Bussel
Josh Kilmer-Purcell is not your average drag queen?or even your average former drag queen. The boyishly handsome ad agency exec recounts his drag past in the recent memoir I Am Not Myself These Days, detailing his four-hour booze-filled transformation process into Aquadisiac, or Aqua, complete with live fish swimming in her breasts, along with his dramatic relationship with his crack-addicted escort boyfriend, Jack.
While the tale sounds outrageous, Kilmer-Purcell didn’t realize he had a book in him until after he retired from drag.
?I never saw my life unfolding as a story. I was too busy f***ing up to consider any cash value in it,? he admits in a recent interview with AfterElton. ?Many of the people in my life at the time have resurfaced, and they remind me of stories that I’d completely forgotten.?
Jack is as vivid a character as Josh in the book, his over-the-top yet controlled lifestyle quickly drawing Josh into its web. Theirs was a story that had staying power, becoming the central focus of the book and Kilmer-Purcell’s motivation for writing it. ?I realized that all my friends were beginning to make fun of certain unorthodox boyfriends/girlfriends in their past. Why? They obviously still meant something to us. I’ve had hundreds of boyfriends?why couldn’t I forget this one?? he explains.