RuPaul

About

RuPaul is an American drag queen, actor, model, singer, songwriter, and television personality.

Born and raised in San Diego, California, RuPaul later studied performing arts in Atlanta, Georgia. He settled in New York City, where he became a popular fixture on the LGBT nightclub scene. Ru achieved international fame as a drag queen with the release of his debut single, “Supermodel (You Better Work)“, which was included on his debut studio album Supermodel of the World (1993).

He became a spokesperson for MAC Cosmetics in 1994, raising money for the Mac AIDS Fund and becoming the first drag queen to land a major cosmetics campaign. Ru later had his own talk show on VH1 called The RuPaul Show, which he hosted for over 100 episodes while co-hosting the morning radio show on WKTU with Michelle Visage.

Since 2009, he has produced and hosted the reality competition series RuPaul’s Drag Race, for which he has won eight Primetime Emmy Awards.

As an actor, RuPaul has made appearances in films including Crooklyn (1994), The Brady Bunch Movie (1995), To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar (1995), But I’m a Cheerleader (1999), Hurricane Bianca (2016), the Comedy Central series Broad City (2017), and the Netflix original programming Girlboss (2017) and Grace and Frankie (2019).

RuPaul is one of the most commercially successful drag queen in the United States.