Bold & Beautiful: Poison Grace

Under the glow of stage lights, Poison Grace commands the room. She enchants the crowd with her creativity, precision, control and impossibly long legs. 

Equal parts sensuality and power, it’s easy to believe Poison Grace was born filled with confidence and self-assurance. But before Poison Grace, there was Jeremy Sidwell. And they spent years desperately trying to understand who they were beyond religion and take control of their life. 

Sidwell grew up in Utah, a state known to be rigid in its societal and gender expectations and deeply entrenched in Mormon culture. At 18, they served an LDS mission in Poland, but upon returning and giving a homecoming talk, a church leader criticized their haircut. “I just dedicated two years of my life to the church,” Sidwell recalls. “And you’re worried about my hair?” 

Soon after, they returned to the streets of Europe — this time with electric blue hair and a mission to break every missionary rule. There, surrounded by people who were open and accepting, they could experiment and explore what it meant to live authentically. “It was the first time I realized you could be gay and be liked,” Sidwell says.

Their early twenties were a difficult journey punctuated with nights out that left them feeling empty, until they finally reached a breaking point. Sidwell woke up in a hospital after an accidental overdose, forced to finally confront his pain. Even amid medical bills and family fallout, they were able to transform this period of crisis into a second chance at life. 

“We all deserve to live, not struggle, not survive,” they say. “The richest place on Earth is not Dubai, it’s not LA. It’s the graveyard. Because that’s where all of the dreams anyone has ever wanted died. And I realized I never wanted to leave the graveyard richer. So that was a big reason I went into drag and started making music. Because I deserved to live.” With a renewed sense of purpose, Sidwell dedicated themself to their art and creative expression, and Poison Grace was born.

Poison Grace describes drag performance as an art form to fully express herself. In her previous life, she was forced to hide key aspects of herself to appease those around her. But with drag, she could lean into femininity, sensuality and beauty in a liberating way. “[In drag,] when your femininity comes out, your masculinity literally gets tucked away. I find it really beautiful that drag can switch from masculine to feminine,” she explains. Gender became more fluid and life more freeing when Poison Grace could fully integrate into queer, artistic communities.

She’s spent years composing and performing tongue-in-cheek numbers that played on Utah culture. Think: BYU soaking scandals, “Pie and Beer” Day and red politics. 

Chair dancing is one of Poison Grace’s most iconic performance elements. She was mentored in aerial and pole dance by Sarah Childs, who passed along her knowledge and prepped her for the industry. But she quickly realized most bar stages couldn’t accommodate an aerial or pole apparatus. A chair, however, could go anywhere. “Three tricks,” she says, “is all it takes to gobsmack an audience.” While successful in the local drag scene and still performing to this day, Poison Grace says, “I’m ready to move from my Christina Aguilera era to my Cher-a: Mother of the House, owner of the club.” 

Partnered with Craig Sorensen, Poison Grace co-founded the entertainment company Equinox Entertainment. After about three years of producing shows, the combination of bar politics and constant work started to burn them out. In response, Equinox went digital and rebranded as a promotion company.

Now, she works closely with JRC Events, an established production company, and is learning the business side of entertainment, like booking tours, promoting shows and the intricacies of production. It’s a pivot that gives her more control over her drag career while opening doors to other forms of artistic exploration, like furthering her music career. 

In 2021, she released her first single, “Trauma Pancakes.” In drag, most performers use existing music, and to Poison Grace, creating original work felt like an important step from interpretation into ownership. She followed it with “Batter Up (BOY TOY)” and has been working on an album at her own pace. “On my own dime, and on my own time,” she quips. 

Her journey has not always been easy, but it has bloomed into a beautiful, inspirational life. Follow Poison Grace @thepoisongrace to keep up to date with her music releases on Spotify and Apple Music. You can see her perform at Metro Music Hall on April 25, and keep an eye on JRC EVENTS for all upcoming shows she’s producing or starring in.

Read about more divas doing drag in UT:
Bold & Beautiful: Salina Marina
Bold & Beautiful: Daddy the Clown