Amanda Holden is receiving criticism today for comments she made on her Heart FM radio show about Paul O’Grady, in this wake of his tragic passing. In an attempt to pay tribute to the late TV presenter, who died suddenly aged 67, she said to listeners ‘You know what I loved about him [Paul O'Grady], he was not woke in any way… He really had massive opinions on everything.’
Holden’s comments immediately began to trend on Twitter, with people questioning whether she truly understands what the word ‘woke’ means given that Paul himself was intensely supportive of human rights and regularly spoke out against discrimination.
Paul O’Grady was not only a drag artist (side bar, you can read his funniest quotes as Lily Savage here), but an anti-austerity campaigner and advocate to end the stigma around AIDS. He stood up for trans people, called out greedy politicians and dedicated his later years to animal rights as an ambassador for Battersea Dogs and Cats Home.
‘I’m married to a ballet dancer, I’ve got a daughter, two grandkids and was married to a Portuguese lesbian barmaid. It doesn’t get much more woke,’ he previously joked in an interview with The Sun.
Holden hasn’t responded to backlash but now, people are sharing Paul O’Grady’s most ‘woke’ attributes and quotes – because guess what, it’s not a bad thing to care about social justice and inequality. No matter how the word has been co-opted by those seeking to invalidate the way oppression permeates our society, being ‘woke’ doesn’t mean being over-sensitive or precious about minor issues. Rather the opposite, it means fighting for social justice across all of its intersections, and that’s exactly what Paul O’Grady stood for.
So, let’s celebrate how ‘woke’ Paul O’Grady was, shall we? It’s certainly something he can rest easy knowing he was, he changed the lives of countless people using his platform for such worthy campaigning – and he deserves to be remembered for that.