Proudly Said

🎙️ What's This Episode About? Jonathan Rippon is a queer musical comedian, singer, songwriter and former BBC television producer, who appeared on Britain's Got Talent in 2025 performing an original song called First Time in Blackpool, earned three yeses from the panel, and has been building something rather brilliant ever since. Recorded at Clockwise offices in Liverpool with a view of the Albert Dock, during Liverpool Pride weekend, having already done karaoke at Cooper's Townhouse that morning and a set at Hot Water Comedy Club the Sunday before. He is very much at home in this city. Jonathan joins John to trace a career that has run on two parallel tracks for most of his life: television production on one side, from winning a competition to appear on Number 73 as an 11-year-old to producing The Saturday Show for BBC One, and performance on the other, beginning as a choral scholar at King's College Cambridge, singing at venues including the Sydney Opera House and the Royal Albert Hall, and more recently combining his voice with stand-up comedy and original musical songs. Three years into that combination, things are moving quickly. He talks about what BGT actually looks like from the inside, the editing decision that accidentally turned a perfectly innocent lyric about an Anton deck chair into something considerably less family friendly, and how the audition became a launchpad for everything that's followed: a manager, a growing live schedule, his own comedy night JR's Secret Sauce at the Top Secret Comedy Club in London, and a monthly queer comedy night at the Birdcage Bar in Brighton. He also talks about a viral cycling video that got five million views and earned him a free Swiss bike, which was not on the original career plan. There's also an extended and very joyful conversation about Kylie, including the story of meeting her in a BBC corridor, a pen running out at exactly the wrong moment, and Kylie getting down on her knees to empty her handbag to find another one. It became a song. Of course it did. It's warm, funny, and full of the kind of enthusiasm that makes you want to go and buy a ticket to something immediately. Find out more about Jonathan at jonathanrippon.co.uk. 🗣️ Why Listen? If you're seeking genuine conversations that reflect the diverse experiences within the LGBTQ+ community, Proudly Said offers a platform for those narratives. 📣 Connect with Us – ProudlySaid.co.uk Subscribe: Stay updated with new episodes. Share: If this resonates with you, share it with others who might find it meaningful. Feedback: We value your thoughts. Reach out with comments or suggestions. Support: Join The Front Row for less than £3 a month, supporting a local queer creator, or buy us a bespoke coffee or three! 🙂

🎙️ What’s This Episode About? Nikias Tomasiello is an online personal trainer, certified nutritionist, and trans man who moved from Italy to Portsmouth, then Brighton, then Liverpool, which he and his partner both loved immediately and stayed. Episode 70 of Proudly Said, filmed on a very sweaty day in late July. Nikias joins John to talk about a fitness journey that turned out to be about a lot more than fitness. Growing up in Italy with no awareness that trans men existed, Nikias spent his teens being bullied for his weight, developed anorexia, and only began to understand why when he noticed that his experience of having the condition looked completely different to everyone else around him. It was that realisation, years later, that helped him put the pieces together about who he was. It's an unusually thoughtful route into a conversation about identity, and Nikias tells it with real candour and a very dry sense of humour. The conversation then moves into what Nikias does now and why it matters. Working as an LGBTQ+ focused personal trainer, he talks about the barriers trans and non-binary people face when it comes to fitness: gym anxiety, safety, being handed programmes that don't reflect who you are or what you actually want from your body. He talks about how he approaches things differently, starting with questions rather than assumptions, and the clients whose lives have shifted through the work they've done together, one of whom went from training at home for three years to walking into a gym for the first time. It's a warm, thoughtful conversation about body, identity, and what it means to help people feel at home in themselves. If you're interested in working with Nikias, you can find out more at fittotransformtraining.com and follow him on Instagram @nikias_fittotransform 🗣️ Why Listen? If you’re seeking genuine conversations that reflect the diverse experiences within the LGBTQ+ community, Proudly Said offers a platform for those narratives. 📣 Connect with Us – ProudlySaid.co.uk Subscribe: Stay updated with new episodes. Share: If this resonates with you, share it with others who might find it meaningful. Feedback: We value your thoughts. Reach out with comments or suggestions. Support: Join The Front Row for less than £3 a month, supporting a local queer creator, or buy us a bespoke coffee or three! :)

🎙️ What’s This Episode About? Content warning: this episode contains adult themes, explicit discussion of sex work, recreational drug use, online harassment, and mature content throughout. It is intended for audiences aged 18 and over. Jay Mitchell describes himself as Liverpool's number one OnlyFans creator, and in this episode he sits down with John to talk about pretty much everything. They cover how Jay got into content creation, going from a shy lad who only felt comfortable after a few drinks to someone who has built a career being unapologetically himself on camera. Jay talks honestly about the realities of the industry, including what it actually pays versus what people claim it pays, the business of collaboration with other creators, and the constant battle with Instagram's algorithm and shadowbanning. The conversation gets into chemsex and drug use within gay spaces, what consent and safety look like in less regulated corners of the industry, and why Jay prefers the freedom of independent content creation over studio work. They also talk about the growing tension between platforms trying to restrict adult content creators and a community that sees sex work as legitimate work, as well as what viral hate looks like when a post escapes its intended audience and lands in the wrong algorithm. It is funny, frank, and at times surprisingly thoughtful. Jay is exactly as unfiltered as you would hope. Find Jay on Instagram at @jay.mitchellx and on OnlyFans at Jay Mitchell. 🗣️ Why Listen? If you’re seeking genuine conversations that reflect the diverse experiences within the LGBTQ+ community, Proudly Said offers a platform for those narratives. 📣 Connect with Us – ProudlySaid.co.uk Subscribe: Stay updated with new episodes. Share: If this resonates with you, share it with others who might find it meaningful. Feedback: We value your thoughts. Reach out with comments or suggestions. Support: Join The Front Row for less than £3 a month, supporting a local queer creator, or buy us a bespoke coffee or three! :)

🎙️ What’s This Episode About? Janethan Jeffery is a Manchester-born musician, content creator and self-described 'spicy Jonathan'. His name is January and Ethan put together, and yes, he has to explain that constantly. He joins John at Brewers in Manchester's Village, recorded on quite possibly the hottest day of the year, with cold drinks that were definitely not helping. Janethan talks about growing up as a quiet, timid kid in Manchester who didn't actually like music until his early teens, joined the glee club mainly to get out of PE, and then became so obsessed with understanding how the voice works that he spent years quietly building a skill nobody knew he was developing. By his own account he wasn't particularly good for a long time, and his Caribbean mum made sure he knew that. He got there in the end. The conversation gets into how Janethan built a following on TikTok through comedy covers of viral British cultural moments, and how that audience then discovered he is also a genuinely serious musician making original music, which people find slightly confusing. He talks about navigating a creative life with autism, the way hyperfocus can disappear you from the world for two weeks while writing a song, and why running a social media account is, for him, one of the hardest things he does. There's also a really enjoyable thread about the state of the music industry, what it actually takes to build a career as an independent queer artist of colour, and what Janethan wants his future to look like. He wants to be on all the stages. He means it. This conversation is a very good sign that he will be. It's chaotic, funny, surprisingly candid, and a great deal of fun from start to finish. Follow Jonathan on Instagram here: https://www.instagram.com/itsjanethan 🗣️ Why Listen? If you’re seeking genuine conversations that reflect the diverse experiences within the LGBTQ+ community, Proudly Said offers a platform for those narratives. 📣 Connect with Us – ProudlySaid.co.uk Subscribe: Stay updated with new episodes. Share: If this resonates with you, share it with others who might find it meaningful. Feedback: We value your thoughts. Reach out with comments or suggestions. Support: Join The Front Row for less than £3 a month, supporting a local queer creator, or buy us a bespoke coffee or three! :)

🎙️ What’s This Episode About? Theo UK Rose is a professional dancer and performer currently touring the UK in The Bodyguard. John catches him in a dressing room at the Liverpool Empire, squeezed in between a matinee and an evening show, which is exactly the kind of chaotic scheduling that makes touring theatre what it is. Theo talks John through how he got here: growing up dancing to the Wiggles, training from the age of 11 at the Hammond in Chester before moving to Laine Theatre Arts in Surrey, and landing his first professional contract before he'd even finished his final year. He is candid about what life on a touring production actually looks like day to day, the logistics of shared accommodation, napping on dressing room floors with a foam roller as a pillow, the strange rhythms of two-show days, and the cast bonds that form when you spend a year living out of a suitcase with the same people across the country. The conversation takes a more honest turn around body image and the pressure that comes with performing in costumes every night, sometimes feeling great in them and sometimes not, and what it takes to fuel a physically demanding show without tipping into patterns that don't serve you. Theo is refreshingly open about it, including the times it has gone wrong. There's also the bigger picture: a growing TikTok following built on just being himself, ambitions around TV work, a future fashion brand he can visualise clearly but hasn't quite figured out yet, and a very firm declaration that he would absolutely do a gay Love Island. He's warm, funny, and genuinely good company, even when the room is 30 degrees and there's another show in two hours. It's an easy, enjoyable conversation about what it really takes to build a career doing what you love, and what keeps it worth doing. 🗣️ Why Listen? If you’re seeking genuine conversations that reflect the diverse experiences within the LGBTQ+ community, Proudly Said offers a platform for those narratives. 📣 Connect with Us – ProudlySaid.co.uk Subscribe: Stay updated with new episodes. Share: If this resonates with you, share it with others who might find it meaningful. Feedback: We value your thoughts. Reach out with comments or suggestions. Support: Join The Front Row for less than £3 a month, supporting a local queer creator, or buy us a bespoke coffee or three! :)