Long before La Voix made her way into the hearts of many on RuPaul’s Drag Race UK and dazzled Saturday-night audiences on Strictly Come Dancing, she was quietly plying her craft in a very different arena: stage makeup.

La Voix, the glamorous alter-ego of 45-year-old Chris Dennis, was, at the time, a freelance makeup artist working at Charles Fox in Covent Garden, a beloved haunt for theatre kids, film creatives and anyone who knows their setting spray from their spirit gum. On one August evening in 2009, two men arrived in the store wanting ageing makeup, supposedly for a music video. Latex. Lines. A little silvering. Nothing unusual in the world of theatre illusion.

Except this illusion wasn’t destined for a stage; it was headed straight into one of the most audacious jewellery robberies in recent history.

Speaking on the Little Did You Know podcast in 2021, La Voix recalled the surreal moment with trademark comedic flair. The pair of customers, she said, were “a bit standoffish and a bit rude,” hardly unusual behaviour in London, but still memorable. Assisted by a friend, she spent four hours meticulously creating believable older men out of two perfectly ordinary clients. Latex was applied, wrinkles sculpted, and reality gently reshaped.

When the transformation was done, the men admired themselves in the mirror. One reportedly quipped, “My own mother wouldn’t recognise me now.” They paid £450 in cash and vanished into a waiting taxi.

Only later did La Voix discover the truth: those very disguises walked straight into a high-stakes robbery. She had unwittingly given criminals the gift of unrecognisability and, in doing so, accidentally became part of true crime folklore.

But if there’s one thing this story proves, it’s that drag queens really are masters of transformation. La Voix has always had range; she just didn’t expect her skills to be weaponised for a diamond heist.