Raised in the suburbs of Brisbane, Jenek discovered a passion for song, dance and performance from an early age. So much so, he made a promise that he would find a bigger stage. A few years and a move to Sydney later, he discovered his other half - and someone who needs no introduction - Courtney Act.

The well-known drag queen was born at the turn of the millennium after a friend suggested Jenek try drag for a New Year's Eve party. And to ensure that he dressed to impress for such an occasion, Jenek sought the help of drag queen and friend, Vanity Milan, over lunch.

It was Vanity who steered Jenek away from being a redheaded nightclub singer called Ginger LeBon, instead suggesting he went for a cuter, girlier name such as Courtney.

It's hard to believe now, two decades on, that Jenek didn't immediately click with the name Courtney. For most, that's the name Jenek is best known as. But, as Jenek describes in his new memoir, Caught in the Act, it wasn't until he started breaking the name down into syllables - trying to make some sense of it - that it started to come together.

"I said the name 'Courtney' slowly and broke down the syllables trying to find a hidden meaning," he writes.

"Court-an-ey. Caught in the. Caught in the Act! And there it was. My name. Courtney Act. Poor old Ginger LeBon never got to see the light of day. Probably for the best."

You would be misled to think that at that moment, Courtney Act was brought to fruition as completely as we know her today. It was her conception - sure - but she wasn't a fully formed persona yet, because Jenek wasn't a fully formed person yet.

As much as Caught in the Act is about Jenek's life - his experience on Australian Idol, RuPaul's Drag Race, Celebrity Big Brother UK, and Dancing with the Stars - it's also about searching and finding oneself, largely in the spotlight. But, as Jenek says, luckily without social media.

He was able to make mistakes without it coming back to haunt him. (Although, many would have loved to see Courtney Act's Instagram take on the infamous 2003 paparazzi shot of Rob "Millsy" Mills and Paris Hilton taken on the balcony of a hotel balcony. As the book reveals, Courtney Act was in the room at the time).

But no matter how ready Jenek thought he was to be successful at 21, he says he's glad it played out the way it did.

"If you told me at 21 just wait till you're 40, I'd be like, are you f***ing serious? I'm not waiting that long. But that's the beauty of it all," Jenek says.

"As you get older, you are able to look back and see that maybe in my 20s, I was always at the next thing wondering 'is this it?'. And now I realise that all of those moments contributed to who I am as a human and who I am as an entertainer and that they were all important facets.

"I think about people who were on Idol or who got success young, you see them struggle later on and go through those different phases of rebellion because that public image isn't in alignment with who they actually are. So I'm glad that it didn't work out because then I got to define who I am on my own terms."

It's interesting taking a look back at the first time Australia met Courtney Act on Australian Idol in 2003. When you look at her today, she is the epitome of glamour and style. Back then, appearing in her frayed low-rise jeans and crop top, that wasn't exactly the case. Admittedly though, it was the early noughties and that was the style.

The show itself was in its first season and was one of the country's first attempts at reality TV as we know it today. Everything was new and exciting.

Jenek, looking for his big break, first auditioned as himself only to be knocked back. So he returned the next day, this time as Courtney Act, impressing the judges and even seemingly convincing two of them - Marcia Hines and Mark Holden - that she was female.

Courtney Act continued in the competition and Australia started to fall in love with her - which, arguably, had a lot to do with the fact that judge Ian "Dicko" Dickson was an immediate fan, and would regularly flirt with her on the show despite being straight.

"Dicko saw my potential when I was on Idol. I think that I could absolutely see that I could have broken through and had a pop hit. Obviously, I didn't but I could see there was an opportunity for that," Jenek says.

While she was voted out early on, this popularity and potential saw the producers continue to bring Courtney Act back - first as a Wildcard, which saw her fail to make the top 12, and then for guest appearances during the final rounds. She performed during the finale and went on tour with the final 12 around Australia.

For a brief moment, Jenek thought he'd made it. Courtney Act, along with the other Australian Idol contestants, were the biggest stars in Australia. And in a way, Courtney Act's notoriety was - and still is - more impressive than that of Guy Sebastian and Shannon Noll for the simple fact she didn't make it to the final 12.

"That first burst, everything that my 21-year-old self imagined being famous meant, for two weeks came true," Jenek says.

"It was so thrilling because we were on tour, performing to 14,000 people a night. It was a rock-and-roll fantasy. But you quickly realised that you're a part of this juggernaut and that it wasn't necessarily my fame alone."

It was in the middle of this that Courtney Act was offered a record deal to record her debut single - making her the world's first drag queen to be signed to a major label. Behind the scenes, Act was given the option of two tracks - Caught in the Act, which was about coming out of the shadows, and Rub Me Wrong, the overly sexualised track the record company preferred.

Despite advice from friends and family, Act went with the record company's choice and it fell flat, debuting at number 29, before quickly dropping out of the top 40 a week later.

The other thing that came about during this time was the push by record executives for Courtney Act to assume the identity of a female, ignoring the fact that Australia was already in on the joke.

It's a marketing approach that is unthinkable in 2021, but for 2003, no one seemed to bat an eyelid.

"I think that everyone was trying. I think the record companies and publicists and management, everybody had the right intentions," Jenek says.

"Looking back at it with a 2021 mind, I don't think the impact was right, and I think the intentions were mislaid but I think that I was still grateful for that opportunity.

"It's that challenging thing where you look back and you're like, wow, that's kind of f***ed if you think about it from today's mindset. But at the time, it was a whole bunch of people trying to make something work, but with a little understanding of queer identity, and still with all of the systems and structures of power that had impacted on queer people over decades and decades."

It's that type of attitude that encapsulates who Jenek - both in and out drag - is. Fast forward to the present day - to a time where Jenek now knows who he is - Courtney Act uses her public profile to educate audiences on issues such as gender identity, sexuality, marriage equality, anti-racism and more.

Even in Caught in the Act there are "Courtney Facts" dotted throughout the book giving definitions and explanations to terms such as queer, bisexual, transexual and the difference between gender and sex.

"I wanted to make sure that everyone was quite literally on the same page," Jenek says.

"I'm sure there are lots of gay men out there who might have an idea of trans identity or about drag or not know what an intersex person is, things like that.

"We say LGBTQIA2+, but I don't know that most people have let themselves fully interrogate what all of those acronyms mean. Even explaining different things like the T-word, and why we shouldn't use it because I know there are still gay men who will use that word.

"I'm just trying to give my best idea of what all of these terms mean, knowing that I've probably, even in writing them, gotten some things in disagreement with what other people might think. But hopefully, they're more useful than not putting them in there."

It's being vocal about topics such as these - and Jenek's mission to educate people on topics that not too long ago were taboo - that has earned him respect and admiration from the public both in and out of drag.

No matter whether Jenek is himself or Courtney Act, there is an authenticity to these messages - even when they are wrapped up in the sensationalised nature of a drag queen. And it may have taken a couple of decades to get to this point, but the destination Jenek has reached means there is a seat for him (or Courtney Act) at the table to seriously talk about these issues and connect with people.

"I was just at the doctor and I was literally in the cubicle, doing my sexual health check-up, and when I walked out to wash my hands, there was the older, presumably gay man who was 'Oh, it's not often you're in the bathroom with a superstar'," Jenek says.

"And then he was like 'thank you for all the work that you do'. So I feel that people's acknowledgement of me these days usually is a little bit deeper.

"I think for a long time when I was younger, I was there because I was sensational. But the Australian people are more familiar with me now, and people seem to connect with that. And especially queer people, obviously, because we've been so starved of representation for so long. And so it's really validating as a human when a man in the toilet says something like that."