Sydney icon Minnie Cooper wins record breaking fourth DIVA entertainer of the year award
Image: Candy Box and Sheila Bliege at the DIVA Awards 2018. Image: Ann-Marie Calilhanna.
The DIVA Awards for 2018 were handed out at a somewhat low key (but very glamorous) cocktail event at the Stonewall Hotel last Saturday night.
All the winners were very well received – and a new record was set.
The DIVA Entertainer of 2018 is Minnie Cooper. Minnie took out the top award for a Sydney working drag performer for a record fourth time, winning first in 2005, and again in 2007 and 2012 – that’s a massive thirteen years at the top of her game, a truly impressive achievement. One likely to never be beaten.
It’s been a big year for the ever-popular performer. She finished a 15-year residency of Thursday nights at ARQ nightclub, having collected a record number of awards for ‘Best Show’ along the way.
She created her one woman cabaret show ’From Chorus Boy to Leading Lady’ and had a feature role in Channel 7’s ratings winner All Together Now.
Minnie told me: “I was actually genuinely very surprised that I won Entertainer of the Year because I have won it before, I just thought I’ve had my time in the sun. I’m very humbled the showgirls thought I was deserving. I have had such a wonderful year doing different things with drag. This was the icing on the cake. I’m truly grateful.”
Sydney’s Show of the Year went to ‘ARQcrylic’, starring Charisma Belle, Sia Tequila, and Coco Jumbo.
Showing the changing face of the drag scene, the DIVA Rising Star went to Pomara Fifth who is a resident hostess at the Stonewall Hotel on Thursday nights and was a very popular winner with all in attendance.
There was a lot of competition for the Belle of the Ball award which went to Carmen Geddit who looked stunning in a Kirsten Damned cocktail number.
And topping off the evening the much-loved Candy Box was inducted into the DIVA Hall of Fame by the one and only Chelsea Bunn.
Her speech was one only one a close girlfriend could make; just the kind you hoped she never would. Much like the whole evening, it was lots of fun – with the high camp monitor turned to full on.
