RuPaul’s Drag Race star Michelle Visage has a massive fan base worldwide, but she keeps her family life away from the spotlight. However, the doting mum has always spoken candidly about her daughters' heartbreaking struggles with depression. 

In an interview with OK! Magazine, the star opened up about her older daughter, Lillie Case’s mental health journey. She revealed that her daughter had suffered from severe bouts of depression and lost most of her teenage years because of it. 

Lillie was suicidal for a while. But she’s been three years on the other side now. 

Visage also shared that she had encouraged Lillie to "date everything" to help her discover her romantic preference. Her daughter had dated a boy and for a while identified herself as bi, but then she realized she preferred girls over boys. 

Instead of identifying herself as gay, Lillie prefers to be known as queer. 

On How She Helped Her Daughter

In the same interview, the Strictly Come Dancing star iterated that she and her family tried everything to help Lillie before turning to medication. They tried to take a holistic approach to Lillie’s recovery, but opted for medication and therapy when it was not working. 

She added that people mostly disregarded children’s mental health, and instead of helping them, told them to deal with it and stop complaining. Visage then opined that such negative thoughts mostly came from Instagram, which is why Lillie would log out for a month. 

Visage gushed about how proud she was of her daughter, coming out stronger after battling her illness and taking pride in standing out from the crowd. She recalled the time Lillie did a TED Talk and confessed that she recorded the entire thing and could not hold back her tears. 

I recorded the whole thing and was in tears. She was embracing who she was after battling the darkest demons a kid should battle.

She then added that her daughter was weird, just like her, and that was why she advocated for the LGBTQIA+ community. She believed these misfit kids needed people fighting for them. 

On Battling Her Own Diseases

While Visage was helping her daughter to recover, she was fighting her own battles. Visage has always been open about her debilitating struggle with Hashimoto’s disease, a condition where your immune system attacks your thyroid.

She was diagnosed with the condition when she was just 29, and the star struggled with managing the symptoms such as fogginess, hair loss, fatigue, dry skin, and sudden weight gain (among others). She suspected it was from her breast implants. 

After 20 years of suffering, she stumbled upon a Facebook group where women were sharing similar stories. This confirmed her suspicions, and thus she removed her implants.

You can catch Visage's health journey on her new documentary Explant, which premiered on Tribeca on June 23.