Willam Bart Belli (born June 30, 1982), often known mononymously as Willam, is an American actor, musician, and drag queen from Philadelphia.
Known for her abrasive personality and vain persona, Willam is perhaps one of the most notorious contestants to ever appear on RuPaul's Drag Race, having been only one of two contestants (to date, the other being Sherry Pie) to be ejected from the competition, despite having been one of the favorites to win that season. Outside of drag, he's also known for his bit parts in film and television, most notably the recurring role of Cherry Peck on Nip/Tuck, and Emerald in the 2018 remake of A Star is Born, alongside fellow Drag Race alumnus Shangela.
Willam is also a recording artist, having released two studio albums and a bevy of singles throughout his career. From 2012 to 2014, he was a member of the pop group DWV, alongside drag queens Vicky Vox and Detox Icunt. Some of their most popular songs include "Chow Down" (a parody of Wilson Phillips' "Hold On"), and "Boy Is A Bottom" (a parody of Alicia Keys' "Girl on Fire"). Since their split, Willam has been performing regularly with fellow Drag Race alumni Courtney Act and Alaska Thunderfuck as The AAA Girls.
In 2018, Willam and Alaska began the Race Chaser podcast, recapping every season of Drag Race from the beginning. The success of Race Chaser led to the creation of Moguls of Media ("M.O.M.")
, an LGBTQ-focused podcast network in association with Forever Dog, which has launched several titles featuring other Drag Race alumni.
Bibliography:
- Suck Less: Where There's a Willam, There's a Way (2016)
Selected filmography
- American Pie: The Wedding (2003) as Butch Queen
- Nip/Tuck (2004 — 2006) as Cherry Peck
- CSI: NY (2007) as Candy Darling
- Another Gay Sequel: Gays Gone Wild! (2008) as Nancy Needatwat
- Jiz (2008-?) as Spooge, a parody of Riot
- Criminal Minds (2009) as Walter Patterson (episode: "...To Hell")
- Southland (2009) as Sheila
- BloodRayne: The Third Reich (2011) as Vasyl Tishenko
- Wonder Woman (2011 pilot) as Fake Marilyn Monroe
- RuPaul's Drag Race (2012) as himself
- RuPaul's Drag U (2012)
- CSI (2012) as Dahlia (episode: "Code Blue Plate Special")
- Fun Size (2012) as Qwerty
- The New Normal (2013) as Nana Drag Queen (episode: "The Goldie Rush")
- @Midnight (2016, 2018) as himself (contestant)
- Hurricane Bianca (2016) as Bailey
- UNHhhh (2017) as himself (episode: "Willam")
- When We Rise (2017) as Jason Snyder
- A Star Is Born (2018) as Emerald
- Super Drags (2018 — present) as Lady Elza (English dub)
Discography
as Willam
- The Wreckoning (2012)
- Shartistry in Motion (2015)
- Now That's What I Call Drag Music, Vol. 1 (2018)
with The AAA Girls
- Christmas Queens EP (2015)
- Access All Areas (2017)
Willam Belli provides examples of the following tropes:
- Berserk Button: Do not dare feature pedestrian quality video production or bad fashion/makeup advice in your so called professional videos, or Willam "will" read you to filth. Case in point: this video.
- Breeland's mere existence is enough to annoy Willam.
- The Cameo: Along with her fellow AAA Girls Alaska Thunderfuck and Courtney Act, Willam appears in the music video for "Power" by Little Mix, since band member Jade Thirlwell is a massive fangirl of drag.
- Drag Queen: Primarily of the "fishy" variety, but with elements of camp.
- The Fashionista: He's pretty open about being a clotheshorse.
- Gender-Blender Name: Willam isn't firmly associated as being either masculine or feminine.
- Hypocrite: Has gone on record blasting her fellow Ru girls for certain behavior that she, herself, has been guilty of. On her Podcast Race Chasers she calls out queens for making fun of each other for having messed up teeth as that's not something everyone can control ... but she has (on camera) made fun of Phi Phi O'Hara for having a snaggletooth.
- It's All About Me: Willam's persona; brought up to eleven in the Pride challenge on Drag Race, in which he covered her float with stickers of her face.
- N-Word Privileges: Makes liberal use of "faggot", "fag", and other typically homophobic slurs in his videos and performances.
- Permastubble: He's often clocked for having noticeable facial hair while in drag. When he did a video with Trixie Mattel, he put Trixie's hand up to his chin already in drag and Trixie described it as "whatever's beyond sandpaper, that's cactus, a full cactus".
- Pronoun Trouble: Never uses feminine pronouns even when fully in character, making him a very rare case of this trope being applied to a cis person using standard cis pronouns.
- Refuge in Audacity: Pretty notable for his lack of filter, especially in Willam's Beatdown, her The Soup-esque web series.
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here: His disqualification from Drag Race was said to be from getting conjugal visits from his husband, which was against the rules, but that's a half-truth. While he was secretly seeing his partner, he was purposely breaking as many rules as possible to get kicked off, as he clashed with the producers over how contestants were treated, and he ultimately decided he didn't need to win the season to further his career. To this day he's a huge critic of the show and RuPaul and has understandably not been brought back for All-Stars or other officially-related productions, despite being a fan-favorite.
- Spell My Name Without An I: As he's quick to tell you, it's not William, it's not will.i.am, it's Willam.
- Tall Poppy Syndrome: Willam is often accused of having a proportionately inflated ego, owing to the fact that he was already a successful performer before appearing on Drag Race.
