RuPaul Trivia | 50 facts about the famous Drag Queen

RuPaul is an American drag queen, television judge, recording artist, and model. He’s best known for the reality competition series RuPaul’s Drag Race.

Let’s find out more about RuPaul!

1. RuPaul Andre Charles is his full name.
2. RuPaul, is an American drag queen, television judge, recording artist, and model.
3. He is best known for producing, hosting, and judging the reality competition series RuPaul’s Drag Race.
4. Born and raised in San Diego, California, RuPaul later studied performing arts in Atlanta, Georgia.
5. He the settled in New York City.
6. Soon, he became a popular fixture on the LGBT nightclub scene.
7. He 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).
8. He became a spokesperson for MAC Cosmetics in 1994.
9. He raised money for the Mac AIDS Fund and becoming the first drag queen to land a major cosmetics campaign.
10. He later received his own talk show on VH1 called The RuPaul Show.
11. Actually, he hosted the show for over 100 episodes while co-hosting the morning radio show on WKTU with Michelle Visage.
12. RuPaul’s Drag Race was created in 2009, which has gone on to produce fourteen seasons in the United States.
13. The show has also seen success internationally, with several international variants of the show being made, such as RuPaul’s Drag Race UK and Canada’s Drag Race.
14. This has also inspired several spin-offs of the main show, including RuPaul’s Drag U, RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars, and RuPaul’s Secret Celebrity Drag Race.
15. He is also featured as a host on other reality television series such as Skin Wars, Good Work, and Gay for Play Game Show Starring RuPaul.
16. RuPaul has made appearances in films such as Crooklyn (1994), The Brady Bunch Movie (1995), To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar (1995), But I’m a Cheerleader (1999), television shows such as Girlboss (2017), Broad City (2017), and Grace and Frankie (2019).
17. He later created and starred in his own Netflix original television series AJ and the Queen (2020).
18. In addition, he has also published three books: Lettin’ It All Hang Out (1995), Workin’ It! RuPaul’s Guide to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Style (2010), and GuRu (2018).
19. RuPaul is considered the most commercially successful drag queen in the United States.
20. Fortune noted him as “easily the world’s most famous drag queen.”
21. For his work on RuPaul’s Drag Race, he has received eleven Primetime Emmy Awards.
22. He’s the most-awarded person of color in the history of the Primetime Emmys.
23. In 2017, he was included in the annual Time 100 list of the most influential people in the world.
24. Outside of film and television, he also continues to write and record music, releasing fourteen studio albums as of 2022.
25. One of the most notable examples of this discretion is his long-term relationship with Georges LeBar. RuPaul and Georges have been together for over 25 years, spending time not only in Los Angeles and New York City, where RuPaul works but also in Wyoming, where Georges owns a ranch.
26. Georges LeBar, who is Australian, met RuPaul while dancing at a nightclub in 1994.
27. What’s even more curious about Ru and Georges’ relationship is that they only decided to get married 23 years in, and pretty much no one connected to RuPaul was informed or invite.
28. RuPaul took a break from Hollywood. In the late 1990s, RuPaul worked as a radio host alongside Michelle Visage to help launch the New York City radio station WKTU.
29. However, in 1998, Ru decided that it was time for him to step away from Hollywood for a little while, moving to Wyoming with his then-boyfriend Georges LeBar and reevaluating his place in showbiz.
30. Around 2004, RuPaul had a soft comeback with the release of the Red Hot studio album. Then, in 2006, he released his first-ever remix album, ReWorked.
31. During that period, Ru expressed a particular distaste for media in general, noting that mainstream outlets were purposely shutting him out. Finally, 2007 saw the release of Starrbooty, which has since become a cult classic.
32. It wasn’t until 2009 that RuPaul found his place on television again, with the release of RuPaul’s Drag Race. That was 11 years after the end of VH1’s The RuPaul Show.
33. RuPaul is 6’4” in height, and gets even higher when he wears heels (ofc).
34. RuPaul wears size 13 in shoes, which is, unfortunately, an uncommon size for shoes made for women.
35. More often than not, you will see RuPaul looming over even the tallest of guest judges on Drag Race, including the very tall John McHale who was featured on the judging panel for season 11.
36. Needless to say, substance abuse is certainly something that he struggled with for most of his life, and Ru has never shied away from talking about his experiences with alcohol, marijuana, and acid, among others.
37. To the New York Times, RuPaul revealed that he started smoking marijuana as early as 11 years old.
38. Somewhere in the late 1990s or early 2000s, RuPaul made the decision to embrace sobriety, meaning that he has been sober for around 20 years.
39. Following the immense success of RuPaul’s Drag Race and its iconic lip syncs, non-LGBTQ+ shows started to take notice that pitting two people to ‘lip-sync’ against one another was indeed a very fun format for TV. In recent years, Jimmy Fallon began introducing lip sync battles to NBC’s The Tonight Show, and Spike TV created an entire series called Lip Sync Battle.
40. In RuPaul’s Drag Race he often tackles deep issues.
41. When asked by Vulture about what his favorite moment on Drag Race is, RuPaul responded by saying that he always thinks “about Roxxxy’s story when she revealed she was abandoned at a bus stop as a 4-year-old.”
42. In season 5, contestant Roxxxy Andrews broke down on the main stage after a challenging Lip Sync For Your Life, revealing that she had been abandoned by her mother. Given that Drag Race judge Michelle Visage was also made an orphan as a young girl, Roxxxy’s story resonated on a very deep level with the judges.
43. While RuPaul regularly releases pop songs like “Call Me Mother” and “Born Naked,” fans may be surprised to learn that this musical style is drastically different from Mama Ru’s punk rock roots.
44. A feature on Far Out Magazine details how the Atlanta-based band would regularly play around the Ponce de Leon Avenue, which had legendary bars that were LGBTQ+-friendly.
45. Their first ever concert was in a small bar called The Nitery, which is a stark contrast to the kind of stages Ru finds himself on today.
46. Αccording to WatchMojo, RuPaul has loved cars since he was a kid, even ‘borrowing’ his dad’s car at age 11 to go on a joyride.
47. The queen will sometimes post photos of his dream cars on his Twitter account, which include a ’76 Cadillac Seville and a 1970 Benz 280 SL. In fact, he even used to star in a web series called RuPaul Drives (still available on YouTube), which features some of his lovely automobiles as he interviews celebrities and drag queens.
48. He was kicked out of high school.
49. His name is inspired by his parents South Louisiana home, particularly its food. He explains how “the ‘Ru’ is literally the roux in a gumbo,” which a tasty classic Creole dish.
50. RuPaul’s spot in the Hollywood Walk of Fame speaks volumes about his contribution to the art of drag.