RuPaul says drag stopped being fun once he became famous
The drag superstar made history as the first ever drag queen to host SNL
By Steve Brown
Words: Steve Brown
RuPaul says drag stopped being fun when he became famous.
There’s not a name out there who will not know the name RuPaul or have never heard of RuPaul’s Drag Race and it’s no surprise.
Hosting 11 seasons of US Drag Race, four All Stars seasons and last year’s Drag Race UK, RuPaul has become a household name.
He also landed his first scripted Netflix series AJ and the Queen and became the first ever drag queen to host Saturday Night Live and the first to cover Vanity Fair.
But while appearing on Late Night with Seth Myers, Ru opened up about being one of the most famous drag queens in the world and admitted it stopped being fun once he became famous.
He said: “When I got famous, that’s when the drag fun ended for me, honestly.
“I couldn’t terrorise y’all’s neighbourhoods anymore because I became the face of drag!”
Ru – who is set to host the twelfth season of RuPaul’s Drag Race this month – also went on to explain how he created his current persona.
He continued: “I’ve always been ambitious and I’ve always liked to look under the hood to see how things actually worked.
“So I knew that if I was was going to do drag and make it above 14th Street so to speak, I had to calculate the image.
“What I did was I had one part Dolly Parton to two parts Cher, one part David Bowie and a big heaping spoonful of Diana Ross.
“Then I took the subversive sexuality out of my persona so Betty and Joe Beercan could invite me into their living room and you know what it worked.”