Heartbreaking details of The Vivienne’s ‘secret’ lethal ketamine addiction revealed by drag star’s family

The family of drag star James Lee Williams, better known as The Vivienne, have revealed that the television favourite kept their ketamine addiction a secret from loved ones for several years. 

Williams died of a cardiac arrest linked to the party drug and powerful painkiller in January. 

Speaking now, their sister Chanel said the family only learned of James’s struggle with drug addiction after watching them on RuPaul’s Drag Race in 2019. 

In a 2019 episode of the show, the Liverpudlian star revealed to viewers they had been addicted to ‘party drugs’ for four years. 

‘I couldn’t leave the drugs at the party, it was constant,’ they said, breaking down in tears. 

The Vivienne also previously described ketamine as their ‘breakfast, lunch and dinner’ at the height of addiction and at one time their drug use led them to be hospitalised three times in a single month. 

Although Chanel said her brother had managed a long period of sobriety before relapsing, James had kept this later drug use hidden from them as well.

Chanel said she was now been left wondering if there was something she could have done something to prevent her brother’s tragic death. 

‘Had I asked the questions or just looked for the signs, would the outcome be different?’ she told the BBC. 

James, just 32, was found dead in their bathroom of their home, in Chorlton-by-Backford, near Chester. 

Police confirmed there were no suspicious circumstances surrounding the death, with the family later revealing James’s heart had stopped due to ketamine side effects. 

Chanel said she believed that — despite James speaking openly about prior drug struggles — her brother’s successful career had made it difficult to seek help. 

‘He was at the height of everything he was doing and I think because he’d said it in such an open platform, it’s really difficult to come back and say you’re struggling again,’ she said. 

Chanel said she and her family are now to tackle the stigma surrounding addiction as part of James’s legacy. 

‘It’s hard for me because I think if that stigma wasn’t there, would my brother have sought the help he needed,’ she said. 

‘To think that if we’d known, or if he’d have felt able to talk and really reach out for the help that was needed, the outcome could’ve been different.’

The family are also calling for the Government to reclassify ketamine as a Class A drug, up from its current Class B status.

This would put ketamine on the same level as cocaine and heroin and carry the highest penalties for possession, supply or production. 

Ketamine – which can be bought for the same price as a takeaway coffee – is said to be the dealers’ drug of choice because its Class B status means less jail time than being caught with Class A drugs.  

Chanel said there are a portion of young people who look a drug classification as warning system and therefore think ketamine is safer than other drugs. 

‘If I can help one family to not feel what we are feeling, then it’s all worth it,’ she said.  

Ministers are currently seeking expert advice on the potential re-classification of ketamine, concerned about a rise in young people taking the drug.

Data show the number of people with ketamine dependence seeking help from NHS drug and alcohol services have doubled in recent years — from 1,140 in 2019 to 2,211 in 2023. 

Rehabs UK also received 4,000 inquiries in 2023, with ketamine representing 30 per cent so far in 2024, up from 15 per cent in 2023.

Figures, released by the Office for National Statistics, show one in twenty (4.8 per cent) 20 to 24-year-olds in England and Wales last year admitted to taking the drug.

This is despite Gen Z increasingly shunning other types of drugs including cannabis, cocaine and MDMA, also known as ecstasy. 

Nearly 7 per cent of today’s 16-24 year olds have experimented with ‘Ket’ – commonly taken at all-night raves. 

For comparison, 2.3 per cent of Gen Xers quizzed before the turn of the century had ever tried the substance, originally used as an anaesthetic in animals like horses and humans. 

There has been growing interest in ketamine, also known as Vitamin K, Special K or Ket, as a potential mental health treatment over the past few years. 

The drug increases levels of a glutamate in the brain, a neurotransmitter crucial to mood regulation, learning, memory, and information processing.

Ketamine therapy works by taking an extremely low dose of the drug, to provoke its glutamate boosting effects, and then working through issues with a trained psychotherapist.

By taking the drug, a patient opens up emotionally and becomes more receptive to therapy, advocates claim.

The treatment has attracted high-profile endorsements from the likes of celebrities such as Sharon Osborne, Chrissy Teigen and Elon Musk.

However ketamine therapy, as it’s known, was also linked to the death of Friends actor Matthew Perry, who was found drowned in his hot tub in 2023.