We’ve been married 25 years and my husband still can’t keep his hands off me, says Michelle Visage
THEY say absence makes the heart grow fonder and Michelle Visage couldn’t agree more.
The RuPaul’s Drag Race judge spends weeks at a time filming in the UK while husband David Case stays in California, but she believes the distance has strengthened their 25-year marriage.
She says: “We understand the benefits of being apart because when we come together, it’s that much sweeter and that much more wonderful.
“I don’t think we are meant to be together 24 hours a day, seven days a week, as married people.
“So in our situation, absence makes the heart grow fonder. It works.”
But Michelle admits she has a rule that any passionate reunions have to wait until she has slept off her jetlag.
“I come home the first night and he’s hands-on and I’m like, ‘Nope’,” she says.
“First night, I get to sleep as your body does need to adjust.”
Another relationship rule they both adhere to is having regular date nights and going hiking together.
“The most important thing to me is every day we walk,” says the three-time winner.
“We hike together for three and a half miles. It keeps us healthy.
“Then every night, we have our TV watching. We’re bingeing Peaky Blinders at the moment.”
Despite her feisty personality, there are some sexy activities which Michelle, 54, approaches with caution.
Health scare
A no-go is sending naughty snaps of herself to her other half when she’s away, in case they fall into the wrong hands.
She says: “He’d love that. I don’t do that because I’m way too scared.”
The star, who grew up in New Jersey as Michelle Shupack, met her husband when she was singing in the girl band Seduction.
David, a successful screenwriter from Los Angeles, was starting out as an actor when he was introduced to Michelle at an industry party.
They married in 1997 and have two daughters Lillie, 22, and Lola, 20, with David putting his career on hold to raise the girls while Michelle worked.
But the former Strictly star admits, despite their current set-up, he would rather be by her side at all times.
She says: “If it were up to my husband, he’d come with me everywhere for the most part.
“But the truth is, when I’m away I’m working and I don’t have a lot of time to be with him and do what we would want to do anyway.
“He came over recently when I was working and we had a day trip to Stratford-upon-Avon, one of our favourite places. We love Bath. We love going to all these lovely places.”
Michelle, who appeared on Celebrity Big Brother in 2015, admits she would consider moving to the UK with David in the future.
“I very much look at it like my home,” she says.
“My husband and I constantly have conversations about England, because that’s where we fully see ourselves landing, to be completely honest.
“There’s a weird warmth that I get when I’m there. When I touch down in Heathrow, I walk out and I say, ‘Oh, I can breathe. I’m home.”
Michelle reveals she was shaken when David suffered a health scare recently.
“My husband helps me with everything, whether it has to do with the kids or my business or he’ll read my contracts that come through,” she says.
“He was sick recently and I had to bring him to hospital. It was all OK. But I remember coming home without him and thinking, I don’t wanna be here without him.
“He’s my left hand now. I wouldn’t wanna do this with anybody else. I’m very lucky.”
In Hollywood, a long marriage is the stuff of fairy tales, but Michelle is frank about the dynamics of their relationship and how it thrives on regular therapy.
“We work on it. We are honest, and we communicate,” she says.
“There are therapists that we have separately and if we need to do it together, we do.
“It’s preventative. My husband and I had a session last week.
“It was a great session. We had our eyes opened and enlightened.
“When you go through that, it brings you together even more because you understand one another.
“Therapy is a game changer.”
It may sound a bit too Hollywood for some, but Michelle says Brits shouldn’t be afraid to try it.
“Therapy saves lives,” she says.
“I have this discussion all the time with my British friends and family because it is so not British to have a therapist.
“That discussion needs to be changed because, first of all, you can get a therapist on the NHS.
“The problem is you have to wait a long time.
“It is the most incredible thing to be able to talk to somebody who doesn’t have anything invested in you.
“It allows you to stop holding yourself emotionally accountable for things that have nothing to do with you.”
And while 20 per cent of men and 19 per cent of women in the UK admit they have cheated on their partner at least once, Michelle insists neither she or her hubby would ever stray.
She says: “I think that David and I both have each other’s interests at heart.
“We argue, people argue, that’s just life. But we also know that no matter what, we want to be with each other.
“We don’t wanna go outside of the marriage. We’re not interested in that.
“We’re interested in making it work with one another. And that’s at the core of everything.”
When it comes to their daughters, Michelle’s parenting ethos is that she is mum first, friend second.
“My husband and I just live for our children. I think I’m a cool mom, but I’ve always been a mother first,” she says.
“There are times I’m sure that they don’t like what I represent because I say no or I confront things.
“They’ve never been a fan of Michelle Visage, the TV personality.
“They’ve just been more of a fan of Mom.
“I have one gay child and she has said in writing, thank you so much for everything you do for us, for our community. But again, you’re always Mom first to me.
“It’s a beautiful thing to hear.”
And while we’re used to seeing her dolled up, Michelle keeps things low key when at home with her kids.
“I think that the kids look at me differently when I’m all done up and it’s kind of like an eye roll,” she says.
“Then I come home and whack off the lashes, the make-up comes off, the heels come off. Although my husband would love me to keep the heels on.”
As a staunch LGBTQ+ supporter for decades, Michelle is the perfect person to showcase Virgin Atlantic’s new gender-fluid uniform policy and pronoun badges.
Michelle says of the drive: “It is a joy, mostly because of the message and that Virgin Atlantic had the balls, so to speak, to be vocal about it.
“This world in many ways is going backwards.
“I feel like we need the movers and the shakers like Virgin Atlantic to speak up, so people do feel welcome, and included.
“So, if somebody who is cisgender female and presents as a female wants to feel ultra-feminine, she can wear her skirts and her heels and do what she wants. But if a trans non-binary person wants to do the same, they’re welcome to do that.
“And that’s the beauty of it.”
- To find out more about Virgin Atlantic’s inclusivity commitments head to or follow the airline on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter.