The incident involving drag queen Coco Jumbo falling through Universal Sydney’s upstairs stage and seriously injuring one of her legs has been labelled a “freak accident” by the nightclub’s boss, who says an investigation into the matter found the club had done nothing wrong.
Speaking on singer Andre Cordova’s Sabotage podcast in an episode published this week, Universal Sydney licensee Dillon Shaw revealed that the Oxford Street venue had paid Coco Jumbo for loss of wages while she recovered.
An ambulance was called on the night of the March incident and surgery was performed on her leg. There were no broken bones, but Jumbo told Gay Sydney News at the time that she had received “a slice to the bone under my kneecap” and that she would be put on crutches for several weeks. Shaw also told the podcast a tendon was pierced.
“Oh God, we nearly killed Coco,” Shaw said on the podcast. “She’s working back with us now. Thank goodness it was… nothing that we did wrong. It was just a freak accident.
“We heavily looked after her through her out-of-work stage. We all felt really bad. It was terrible because we’re all really good friends with her. I’m also her boss.
“She took it like a trooper, she worked really hard to get back to work and obviously [we] put everything into place to make sure that something like that would never happen again.
“But yeah … it was pretty traumatic. It was not good.”
A “full investigation” was conducted, Shaw said, “but it was just completely marked as a freak accident”.
“There’s nothing wrong with the stage, nothing that could have been done differently. We’ve got different policies and procedures in place and yeah hopefully it will never happen again.”
Shaw went on to explain how the incident was the “most shared horrific thing”, referring to videos of the incident, also shared by Jumbo herself, being distributed widely on social media.
“Everyone had their phones out because it was quite an amazing song [I Will Survive by Gloria Gaynor] she was performing to,” Shaw said.
The club’s boss said that while some things in the entertainment industry could be brushed off, there was “no hiding from” Jumbo’s incident.
He said Jumbo was now “all healed up” and performing again. “She’s got a hot scar on her leg,” he said.
“It was pretty deep. It was like a decent-sized gash … it went through … one of her tendons and deep but … she’s back dancing and larger than life.”
Editor’s note: This post has been updated to remove a brief mention of an event involving drag queen Trixie Mattel that Universal Sydney licensee Dillon Shaw told the Sabotage podcast his venue once hosted. Shaw joked about getting into trouble from his upper management for spending too much money on the event and revealed what he believed it cost. Shaw has since clarified that the figure he provided was inaccurate as it was split with an event promoter. Neither the promoter nor Shaw would clarify the total cost.
Gay Sydney News editor