Article - Amanda Bynes Tweets "My Dad Is as Ugly as RuPaul," Drag Race Host Gets the Last Laugh

from eonline:

RuPaul couldn't sashay away from this one.

Amanda Bynes slammed the RuPaul's Drag Race host—and her own father—today on Twitter, when she wrote, "My dad is as ugly as RuPaul! So thankful I look nothing like you both! I had nose surgery after my mug shots so my nose and I are gorgeous!"


RuPaul, in an attempt to remain classy and teach followers a little bit about psychology, responded with, "Derogatory slurs are ALWAYS an outward projection of a person's own poisonous self-loathing @AmandaBynes."

RuPal then topped it off with a joke that's an oldie but a goodie (and kinda perfect in this situation), "I'm a man, duh!"

Classic.

Throwback Thursday: RuPaul on the Big Breakfast 1993

Check out RuPaul being interviewed by Paula Yates on the Big Breakfast from 1993...

'Think like a drag queen': Nicole Richie takes fashion tips from RuPaul on new episode of AOL series #CandidlyNicole

From Dailymail.co.uk

There's no better way to start a week than taking drag queen fashion tips from RuPaul.

That's according to Nicole Richie, at least, who tweeted, 'If you didn't start your Monday running into RuPaul then you haven#t lived or loved' to kick off the fifth episode of her new AOL web series #CandidlyNicole. (CLICK HERE TO WATCH EPISODE)

On the four minute webisode released Tuesday, the 31-year-old reality star and host sat down with 52-year-old RuPaul, the most infamous of all cross-dressers, at Decades, Hollywood's destination for vintage couture and modern luxury consignment.

The pair talked about a wide variety of topics, from RuPaul's favorite designer and supermodel to the tricks to putting on eyelashes to different drag queen slang.

However, the Logo reality competition star was determined to find something for Richie that would take her look to that 'drag level.'

'We want you to be glamazon,' RuPaul explained to Richie, after telling her she wouldn't be wearing her usual gypsy storyline. 'The drag mentality is taking what you have and turning the volume up to 14…'

The famous drag queen and musician wasn't dressed in his trademark wig and glittery dress either.

Wearing a cherry red suit, pink button-up, white sandals and glasses, RuPaul transformed into a fabulous fashionista, advising Richie as she tried on a wide variety of outfits that would rival the stark and memorable number she wore to this year's Met Gala.

Richie tried on a number of outfits while RuPaul gave his brutally honest opinion.

Her coat of purple feathers didn't go over very well, nor did a yellow dress with a hat flaunting a plume of orange feathers which Richie felt was 'a little Vegas.'

RuPaul also taught the mother of two how to properly stand like a drag queen, stick her chin out and make her neck as long as possible.

Finally, Richie slid into a glittery pink dress which RuPaul loved.

'I wouldn’t go this sparkly in my real life,' The Simple Life star proclaimed.

'We don’t concentrate on real life,' RuPaul responded. 'We concentrate on drag. You're born naked and the rest is drag.'

RuPaul Nominated For Reality Host Of The World By TV Critics

From NewNowNext

From ghetto-fabulous to glamazon—to award winner? Our favorite supermodel of the world, RuPaul, has just been nominated for Best Reality Host in the 3rd annual Critic’s Choice TV Awards by the Broadcast Television Journalists Association. This is the awards show that television critics and writers vote for—the people who devote their lives to the small screen. (They’re the folks who helped catapult a little show called Homeland into a critical and fan favorite last year.)

It was no easy feat making the cut: Emmy darlings like Modern Family, 30 Rock, Mad Men and Girls were either shut out or got a measly one nomination. We’d tell Ru not to $&% it up, but we’re sure she’s got it on lock.

BEST REALITY HOST

• Tom Bergeron (Dancing With the Stars) – ABC
• Cat Deeley (So You Think You Can Dance) – FOX
• Gordon Ramsay (Hell’s Kitchen/Masterchef) – FOX
• RuPaul (RuPaul’s Drag Race) – Logo
• Ryan Seacrest (American Idol) – FOX
• Kurt Warner (The Moment) – USA

New Music Video - Lick It Lollipop

Here it is, in all of it's glory:

LICK IT LOLLIPOP



And if you haven't purchased the song yet, do it NOW:

iTunes
Amazon

Throwback Thursday: RuPaul On The Ricki Lake Show in 1997

In 1997 RuPaul appeared on The Ricki Lake Show. There was an interview, two performances (Snapshot, A Little Bit Of Love) and a drag competition.

Enjoy....

Pre-Order RuPaul's Drag Race Season 5 DVD

Have the "RuPaul's Drag Race is over blues"? Well you don't need to, because RuPaul's Drag Race Season 5 is available for pre-order now via Amazon.com

This is the description on the site:

"RuPaul's Drag Race By now RuPaul's Drag Race has earned its reputation as the most outrageous, most dazzling and most hilarious competition show on television. The new season is even more jaw-dropping, as we've assembled the most beautiful and talented cast ever to compete for the title of 'Next Drag Superstar.' Their transformations from ordinary men into glamourous and legendary goddesses will amaze you. Their authentic and hilarious personalities will fascinate you. This season promises to be the most talked about yet—with new challenges, new judges, and a brand new cast that's really worth tweeting about! If you're not watching it, you're not part of the most fun & unique pop culture conversation to happen around the water cooler, on facebook, and beyond!

This product is manufactured on demand using DVD-R recordable media. Amazon.com's standard return policy will apply.

This product is expected to play back in DVD Video "play only" devices, and may not play in other DVD devices, including recorders and PC drives."

It looks like the discs will probably include Untucked, but no word on what the bonus features are. 

Click here to pre-order your copy now.

The Glamazon Megamix Music Video

Check out this "Glamazon Megamix" music video that we made:



It includes the following tracks:

Drag U (Kaneshiro Katz Bohen Pointy Paradise)
Glamazon (Matt Pop Edit)
The Beginning (Album Version)
The Beginning (Jared Jones Edit)
Superstar (Hollywood Royalty Remix)
Responsitrannity (dootdoot Remix)
If I Dream (Matt Pop Edit)
Click Clack (Make Dat Money) (Album Version)
Peanut Butter (feat. Big Freedia)

All songs are avaialable on iTunes! Please support RuPaul by clicking the tracks to purchase them from the itunes store. 

'A Bitch I Have to Know': A Q&A With RuPaul's BFF Michelle Visage

from spin.com

May 6 2013, 5:23 PM ET
by Julianne Escobedo Shepherd

Tonight is the finale of Season Five of RuPaul's Drag Race, when we'll find out who will be crowned the next Drag Race Superstar (on LOGO, 9/8 CST). And for every exit, there's a fete: in New York City, this season's entire cast will descend on XL Nightclub for a party hosted by none other than Michelle Visage, Drag Race den mama and RuPaul's best friend. SPIN interviewed the inimitable Visage in February in West Hollywood, discussing everything from her beginnings in the New York club scene to her days as a radio host (with Ru) on New York's KTU, to becoming a television personality (and the official announcer at her teenage daughter's track meets). In homage to her quick wit, her strong personality, and her gigantic hair: Michelle Visage.

If you haven't read our full RuPaul profile, do it now!

How did you get into the club scene in New York?
I moved to New York City in the '80s to be an actress and to be on Broadway. That was always my dream. Growing up in New Jersey, teen clubs were your life. I'm not kidding! That was it. I was literally tied up five days a week with teen clubs, my parents would drop me off, like, I didn't even drive. So I must have been 14, 15, 16. I moved to New York City to go to the American Musical Dramatic Academy and get my degree in musical theater, and I missed it. I was only half an hour from the city where I grew up and I was planning on coming home every weekend. But my mother was not having it. She was like, "You moved to New York to be a star. You're not coming home." She was basically saying, "You're not welcome." I was like, "I'm your child! Why are you doing this?" Throwing a fit. She was like, "Look. I'm gonna get you a fake ID" — 'cause I never drank, ever, so she knew that wasn't an issue. And she was like, "You're gonna go to these clubs and you're gonna network. You're gonna meet people and you're gonna figure it out."

I started going to the Underground and made friends with this group of 20 or 30 people, gays and hags. They took me in like immediately. They started teaching me about voguing, and I met Willi Ninja. I started walking balls and voguing every night of the week. Susanne Bartsch found and hired me to bring voguers to some of her club nights. So I was going to college, doing this at night, and in the day I was a receptionist in the garment district. "Casablanca and Fundamental Thiiiiiiings?" That's how I answered the phone.

How did you meet RuPaul?
I remember seeing Ru at parties and being like, "Who is this crazy, seven-foot-tall, Afro-wearing, short-skirt, earing-crazy bitch?" We used to just see each other like hey girl, but I had Seduction to worry about. I was always sober, they were always a mess, and as vogue started becoming more popular, the news started covering it. As it got more attention, Madonna incorporated it, and the whole thing took off. Then Ru came out with "Supermodel" at the same time I came out with the Soul System song, "It's Gonna Be a Lovely Day." I remember seeing him at a Hot 97 event like, "I don't know if you remember me" and he goes, "Bitch, stop right there. Not only do I remember you, I used to watch you at the Red Zone seeing you perform, and I go that bitch is a star. Your little blonde ass boppin' all around. I had my eye on you for years." I was like, Oh my God, really? That was in '92. So then KTU happened. They put us on to do a radio show, long story short, the rest is history.

Then you were on The RuPaul Show on VH-1.
I said to him, "I don't know if I ever had the words to thank you for what you did for me by bringing me to VH-1," and he was like, "Bitch, would you just shut up? I bring you because you make me look better." And he meant what he said tongue in cheek, and there was love in it, but it's true: we're a pair. We complement each other in ways that you don't find anymore. We finish each other's sentences, I can look at him and know what he's thinking. I don't even get that with my husband. It's a crazy, soulmate scenario in a gay man-hetero woman sort of way. It's not a queer dear/fag hag, fruit-fly situation. It's really a deep-seated, love and respect admiration society. I don't know how else to say it without it sounding cheesy.

You're like that old comedy duo from the '60s, Mike Nichols and Elaine May.
I won't have seen him for years, and no time passes. When Drag Race happened and they tried to get me for Season One, I let him down, because I had a boss who wouldn't let me out of my contract. But anything he does, he always brings me with him. I don't know if I have the words to say how grateful I am because in this business, nobody does that. I know he does it because he has a vision, you know. If he had his own sitcom he'd bring me with him. He's a special entity that way. I think Ru lives his life that way, with all purity. It's really pure and truthful. And that's missing in this world.

After Seduction and Soul System happened, I had this kind of pop career. Unfortunately, our producers did us wrong so there was not going to be any longevity with them. I didn't know what to do next. Was I going to start auditioning for Broadway again? I really wanted to focus on film and television, but I didn't know I should be moving to L.A. So, I had a stripper who lived with me at the time. She was making three grand a night easily, the lower end of $5,000 night at Scores when it first opened, when Howard Hughes used to talk about it all the time. It was the shit, every celebrity in the world was there, every girl made tons of money, they flew in girls from all over the country. So my girlfriend was a stripper, gorgeous girl, and at the same time KTU was starting.

I grew up a radio junkie and my best friend from Jersey called and was like, "They're playing all of our music" — the old club stuff, the freestyle stuff. So my brain started turning like, okay, this is time to change my career, I'm not going to be a pop star anymore. And I literally got my boobs done because I was like, I am gonna be a stripper. All this money my friend makes, I was like I have a personality on top of this, I'm gonna make bank. But then when I got my boobs done I was like, I don't wanna take my clothes off! I worked at a strip club called Goldfinger's. I hosted hot oil wrestling. I saw the money the girls were making. Now I didn't have to take my clothes off, I was just the sassy chick on the mic, but it is what it is, I had to work. My pop career didn't make me any money, Seduction made zero dollars. We got robbed. So my stripper roommate comes home and goes, you know that station you wanna get on? I think my manager at Scores is gonna be on. So long story short, we set up a meeting, then it was fashion week and they're like, "We're bringing in RuPaul to try him out, we want you to be his co-host for a week." I was like, this is like a dream! They brought him in and it was magic. They signed us that week for a year... a few months into there he brought me in to VH-1.

And now Drag Race, which is so mainstream...
Ish, it's mainstream-ish. We've got a lot further to go. Thank God LOGO took a role in this and took a chance, because now we're able to show the world what we as a community have to offer. Not just drag queens, but depth and friendship and beauty and talent, that's on par with everybody else out there making movies and doing mainstream television. So thank God for LOGO.

Do you think the mainstreaming-ish will help you get a nighttime talk show, which is your dream?
I don't know if it's about mainstreaming. I'm a heterosexual, married woman with children, I'm a mother, who's also a track mom, who cooks, and cleans. And I just happen to be an ally for the gay community. In a different way than a Kathy Griffin or a Margaret Cho, who I admire and respect and revere. I'm just different. LOGO's taken lots of chances on me personally, I do their NewNowNext stuff, etc. I think they're starting to get that I'm more than just critiquing drag queens.

Do you think Drag Race is opening up how people see drag? That it's not just camp or pageant but that you can be a Sharon Needles or a Leigh Bowery.
We'll use Sharon Needles as a perfect example, we'll use Pandora Boxx, we'll use Jinkx Monsoon — people pigeonhole drag into kind of a man wearing a girl's dress. They didn't realize that drag queens and crossdressing were two totally different things, and then RuPaul comes out and blows their mind. And they're just like what? What is this? I've had so many people come up to me over the years saying, "I heard Ru's a straight guy who's married with kids." Uh, no straight guy is gonna look that good. You've seen what crossdressers look like: Dennis Rodman. And he's on the high end of the crossdressers. But I think what it's doing for drag queens is letting people know there's some older queens who have a bad taste in their mouth because they haven't gotten on yet or whatever. but there are many forms of drag. Regional forms of drag, 'cause you gotta think somebody from New York City is gonna do drag differently than someone from Des Moines, you know? It is just completely showing the world that there are so many aspects of drag. Helping these kids who feel like they wanna do drag and aren't that pageant girl, realize there's other ways of self-expression.

But they also have to try. Every season there's someone I hone in on to try to push them out of their comfort zone. This season it's Jinkx Monsoon, in the past it was Chad Michaels and Carmen Carrera. I feel like they do what they do so flawlessly, that I wanna see what else ya got. What are the other tricks up your sleeve? It makes them uncomfortable and that's what I'm going for. You cannot grow in this life if you do not challenge yourself.

I want to talk about your outfits. So, in one episode of RuPaul's Drag Race All-Stars, you're wearing these gigantic gold lamé sleeves. You're sitting next to guest judge Rachel Dratch, who is very small, and your outfit looks like it is going to eat her alive.
Yes, "The Velociraptor." Those sleeves were supposed to be straight up, but I couldn't see anybody else on the judges' panel. And Marco Morante had made it, and there was no alternative, no plan B. So I had to wear it, and they were freaking out cause the sleeves were in everybody's shot, but I couldn't do anything about it! It was All-Stars! All-Stars gets all-star glamour, right?

You've been called the Simon Cowell of Drag Race for speaking your mind on the runway. But people get really mean to you on the Internet.
When people come for me, they don't know my background. These children don't know I come from balls, they don't know what the fuck I know. They challenge me, but all I need to say is, do you really think he'd have me on there just to make him happy? This is Ru's livelihood, you really think he's gonna have my ass on there if I don't know what the fuck I'm talking about?

What's your most striking memory of RuPaul from the early days?
I think it was at the Copa Cabana. There was a performance artist, Lady Hennessey — a woman who used to perform with us at Susanne's party. And by perform I mean, she would get up on stage, light her bush and her tits on fire, and shoot milk from her nipples. She never stopped lactating. Every time I saw her onstage, I would duck and cover. I remember vividly she used to do this trick where she'd tie up 100 feet of stockings into little knots, and run 'em up into her vagina. And all of a sudden Ru comes out, and she hands it to Ru, this disgusting end of a stocking. I'm sure Ru was drunk or high or something, but he pulled it and ran across the whole club over everybody's heads. And I am just like, disgusted. And Ru says, "Hayyyyy," with his Afro and his little short miniskirt, like, "Hayyy, holla!" I was like "That is a bitch I have to get to know."

Interview - RuPaul Runs The World

From spin.com

April 1 2013, 3:13 PM ET
by Julianne Escobedo Shepherd

On the 20th Anniversary of "Supermodel (You Better Work)," the towering Queen of All Media is both revered and more relevant than ever, presiding over a compulsively watchable drag race to fabulousness. JULIANNE ESCOBEDO SHEPHERD laughs and cries with the inspiring performer behind the empire.

Three-quarters through every episode of the drag-queen competition reality show RuPaul's Drag Race, a camera pans onto a glimmering, iridescent pink runway. A triad of triumphant brass instruments dramatically herald RuPaul's entrance. "Cover girl! Put the bass in your walk!" Voice booming through the speakers, her spellbinding look so singular that it only could be soundtracked by her own music. "Head to toe! Let your whole body talk!" Strutting down the runway, RuPaul is nothing less than America's Supermodel of the World, giving face that says "serious business," wearing vampy, fashion-forward gowns in various flavors of sequins, tulle, and chiffon. As she reaches the end of the proscenium, the song's punch line hits: "And.... what?" RuPaul strikes a prolonged pose, emphasizing her hourglass figure, runway-ready stature, and signature cascade of hair, blown-out, sprayed-up, or pulled into an asymmetrical victory roll.

Drag Race spends most of its weekly, hour-long run on the tribulations of its contestants, who are competing for the title of "America's Next Drag Superstar." But when the above segment rolls out every episode, nobody forgets for a second who's boss: the Atlanta-raised, New York-defining drag star who's been captivating hearts and pushing pop culture forward for two decades. In 2013, exactly 20 years after RuPaul first landed in American living rooms via "Supermodel (You Better Work)," his fame and popularity has, somewhat unpredictably, skyrocketed. Through the success of RuPaul's Drag Race — and a social climate that is, at present, increasingly supportive of LGBTQ cultures — he has eclipsed his original firebrand ascension to fame that began in 1993.

Since the Clinton era, RuPaul has released five full albums of ebullient dance music and two books; he's currently on his sixth LP and third tome. As the queen mamacita of Drag Race, which airs on Viacom's LGBTQ hub Logo, the 52-year-old performer has enabled a whole new generation of queens to become nationally famous, insuring that his legacy will endure. It's the most fun-to-watch show on television, plus RuPaul is exposing "the art of drag" — the toil that goes into it, the skill set and gumption it requires — like never before, via television or otherwise, to a mainstream, international audience. And it's working: Drag Race's fifth-season premiere scored more viewers that evening than CNN's Piers Morgan Tonight, and this season is the show's most-watched yet, marking a 33 percent increase in ratings for Logo as a network. In 2010, Logo began airing a spin-off, RuPaul's Drag U, in which former Drag Race contestants give fashion-challenged biological women drag makeovers. The RuPaul franchise has essentially become synonymous with Logo; the network even airs commercials tailored to the audience, starring former contestants, most recently with Drag Race sponsor Absolut, and the travel website Orbitz.

Drag Race's fanbase reaches far beyond drag performers and the LGBTQ audience. With its strongest viewership in the 18-49 age range, the show has a strong Twitter presence and enjoys popularity among a straight demographic that, 20 years ago, might not have existed as openly. Says Michelle Visage, Drag Race judge and RuPaul's longtime best friend, "I get more and more straight men who are married and say, 'My wife watches the show and I just wanna say on behalf of all of us, we love the show.' The husbands are the ones who are reaching out!" Incremental progress, sure, but it's a long way from the days when RuPaul coined the tagline, "You can call me 'he'; you can call me 'she'; you can call me 'Regis & Kathie Lee'... just as long as you call me, baby!"

As RuPaul strides into the sprawling dining room of West Hollywood's Palihouse Courtyard Brasserie, his entrance is of a slightly less formal caliber than on Drag Race, but he makes no less of a stunning impression. At six-feet-four-inches, his svelte body renders him more towering; it's also the way he carries himself, with perfectly straight posture and an aura of warmth and dignity. Firm handshake, too, even though it's 7:30 in the morning. Ru, as his friends call him, is both an insomniac and a morning person, and today he has been awake since 4:44 a.m. (When he can't sleep, he listens to Eckhart Tolle's audiobook for The Power of Now, subconsciously absorbing its message.) He's carrying a blonde leather laptop bag and wearing one of his impeccably tailored plaid suits — this one by Moods of Norway, a former Drag Race sponsor. It's his street uniform when he's not dressed in custom Zaldy gowns. On a recent episode of Drag Race in which the contestants competed in a "RuPaul Roast," the Dallas queen Coco Montrese sent up Ru's suits, saying he looked like "a black PeeWee Herman." (Ru crowned Montrese the challenge winner.) He slides into a velvet couch that looks like the furniture that Greta Garbo had on the set of Camille, orders a coffee and an egg-white omelette, and spills the T.

"I've been interviewed for 30 years and it's awful," he says, cheerfully. "I've been on both sides; I've interviewed people and I do an okay job, I guess. But it's awful. Because you feel like you have to defend your life, which is such an interesting concept. It's not an easy process to sit down and talk about, 'What's your motivation?' Because as I'm answering, I'm working it out for myself at the same time."

For 20 of the past 30 years that RuPaul has been an interview subject, he has had to represent himself not just as a musician and performer, but also as a default ambassador. In the '90s, as the first drag queen to reach his level of international fame, he held court with his own talk show on VH-1 and New York radio station WKTU (both with Michelle Visage); he also appeared in major motion pictures like The Brady Bunch Movie and Spike Lee's Crooklyn. In 1993 alone, after the Larry Tee-assisted smash "Supermodel" playfully assured would-be Shantés, "It doesn't matter what you wear / It's all about your savoir faire," all the way to the Billboard Hot 100, he presented at the MTV Video Music Awards, signed on as the first face of M.A.C. Cosmetics, recorded a duet with Elton John, and was photographed holding baby Frances Bean Cobain (dad was a fan). He also made an appearance on late-night show Arsenio during which host Arsenio Hall resisted cutting to commercial because he was so compelled by RuPaul's chutzpah — the moment Ru credits for propelling him into the mainstream. There was even the RuPaul doll, a Barbie-esque poseable figure created in 1993 by Jason Wu, who later gained fame as the fashion designer whose gown Michelle Obama wore to the 2008 Inauguration Ball.

While setting such landmarks, he represented and promoted a sort of confident, spiritual guidance for gays, queens, and anyone else outside the mainstream, through his feel-good music, charming personality, and sheer embodiment of eleganza. "It does seem like yesterday...It's an amazing story," says RuPaul. "In the movie Network, they talk about 'TV Movies of the Week.' As a kid, I remember thinking, how can I make my character a character that's worthy of a 'TV Movie of the Week'? That was the criteria."

RuPaul Andre Charles has a habit of referencing television shows, movies, and music in casual conversation; he's a student of his own media. Born in San Diego, California, he began to bloom in Atlanta, idolizing both Diana Ross and Renetta, one of his three sisters; the latter turned him on to music and drag by proxy, introducing him to the music of Sylvester and passing him an article about Christine Jorgensen's sex reassignment surgery. He credits his beloved mother, a Tarryton-smoking spitfire named Toni Charles, with giving him his famous ability to coin a phrase. (Her favorite read was "you pussy-mouthed motherfucker"; the neighborhood kids called her "Mean Miss Charles.") Ru's parents divorced in 1967, and he lived with his mother and sisters in a tract home in a San Diego subdivision.

"I had to play dumb when I was a kid, because everyone [in my neighborhood] judged me," he says. "I have written about it, where I would go out to the beach and come back, and they'd say, 'Oh, you think you're better than us?' And I'd be like, 'Okay, I get it. I don't think I'm better than you, but you think I'm better than you, so I need to get the fuck out of here so I can find my people.' Even back then, I was thinking, 'I need to get to New York, I need to find the Warhol group, and I need to hang out with them." He laughs. "They'll get me! I need to find my pride!"

In his 1995 autobiography, Lettin It All Hang Out, Ru writes about feeling different as early as the age of five: "Even then I knew I had a different perspective on the world. I was not doing the same things other kids were doing, and I was looking at things as an observer, as an outsider, like an alien." One obviously might surmise that RuPaul's "alien" feelings came from knowing he was gay (in his book, he described "always [feeling] quite straightforward and uncomplicated about being a man who likes other men"), but his outsider sense seems more likely to come from his acute sensitivity. "I've always been interested in what else is here, what lies beneath," he says. "As a little kid, I wanted to be accepted by people, but I was put outside of society. I would think, 'What am I doing? What are they not seeing? I can figure this out, I will figure out what they're doing and I will make them love me.' So I sat back, figured it out, and was like, 'It's a hoax, it's facade bullshit!' So I stayed outside of society. And the process of figuring out what's going on, that part of my adventure has never ended. Even as a kid in the '70s, I was reading all those self-help books, like I'm OK, You're OK. My spiritual practice reminds me of what's really real, what's really hood. It's no wonder that I'm involved in drag, because drag is about mocking identity, mocking the facade. Drag is an extension of the realization that, 'You mean, the thing I think I am, I'm not really?' Exactly. So have fun with it. Change it. That's why I think drag comes up against so much opposition from people, because the ego knows drag is a threat to the ego."

When he was a teenager, RuPaul moved with his sister Renetta and her husband to Atlanta so he could attend an arts high school, and it was there that he got his first taste of show business. By 1982, he'd landed a spot on The American Music Show, an Atlanta cable-access program, with a group he created on the fly called RuPaul and the U-Hauls. Their dance routines and je ne sais quoi landed them a spot as regulars, and soon Ru became a drag-punk fixture on Atlanta television and in local clubs, performing with the U-Hauls, and singing in another group called Wee Wee Pole, which played "new wave tribal melodies."

"I've still never gotten used to myself in drag," he says. " Even the first time, what struck me was how other people reacted to me, in a way that I'd never been reacted to before. So I thought, 'That's interesting. I'm gonna keep that information tucked away, maybe I can use that later.' And here we are. Hahah!"

Ru's roots have always been in punk rock, and as his star grew in ATL, he began writing "books" — essentially fanzines — with names like Freak Sex and New York Is a Big Fat Greasy Ho. It was inside New York's greasy ho-ness that RuPaul really took off, first as a go-go dancer working at the East Village drag-punk bar the Pyramid, and later as Starrbooty, a recording artist and b-movie persona that solidified his "black hooker" era of drag. One moment stands out from the New Music Seminar — a precursor to CMJ and SXSW — in which he took over the lobby of the Marriott Marquis in Times Square "wearing shoulder pads, a G-string, some sort of Mad Max androgynous whatever," he says, laughing. That was in 1986, and it was the first time he'd met Randy Barbato, the man who would become his manager and lifelong friend. "He looked at me," says Ru, "and I could see in his eyes all the dreams I'd thought of for myself, he was reflecting back at me. And I thought, you see what I see, don't you? He didn't even have to say anything, he could see it. And here we are, all these years later."

World of Wonder, Barbato's production company with partner Fenton Bailey, has been with RuPaul for more than 20 years, and they are producers of Drag Race. The WOW office sits on Hollywood Boulevard, among the tourists and sidewalk stars, just up the block from Grauman's Chinese Theatre and the Dolby, where the Oscars were held just a few days before. It occupies an art deco building whose lobby is musty with the crumbling glamour of old Hollywood, but possessing a history as rich and storied as the inhabitants who call it their hub. A storefront served as the WOW Gallery in the late 2000s, where WOW employee/former club-kid James St. James staged shows with themes like "Dial M for Madonna" and, presciently, "Bettie Page: Heaven Bound" — it currently houses a Bettie Page chain store hawking '50s va-va-voom dresses. In the late '70s, the space that is now WOW's basement was the site of storied Los Angeles punk club the Masque, home to seminal bands like the Germs and X — the graffiti remains intact, and among the scrawls is a giant hot-pink declaration that "Go-Go's Rule," spraypainted after the group got their Hollywood star in front of the building.

These days, the basement resembles a vandalized flea market: aisles of dusty tapes from WOW's archives, haphazardly placed paintings of RuPaul, and a small, unceremonious green-screen studio where Ru records Drag Race: Untucked, the show's half-hour, behind-the-scenes look at each week's contestant drama. "RuPaul," says Barbato, "has always been punk rock. When I met Ru he was wheat-pasting posters of himself on the streets! He's the most glamorous-looking punk rocker there's ever been! It's always been the core of what he is."

RuPaul is sitting in a World of Wonder conference room in another perfect suit, at the head of a table beneath a painting of the word "YES." He's regaling a handful of WOW employees with tales of his hero, Judge Judy. "She says, how much did that cost you?" — Ru cups his hands to his mouth — "'Uhhzero. Dollars.' Just like that, 'Uhhzero. Dollars.'" Then Ru laughs the infamous laugh — guttural, pervasive, sometimes cackly, and very contagious. It's so wonderful, and so indicative of RuPaul's zippy spirit, that two versions of the laugh function as the intro and outro sound effects everytime Drag Race cuts to and from commercial. Whoever thought that up was brilliant: It's a laugh of such joyous quality that you want to put it on a loop, just to make you happy. And it punctuates every third sentence, part of Ru's magnetism.

"The ideas for Drag Race came from my experience in the business," says Ru. "All the challenges came from everything I've done, which is radio, producing myself, marketing myself, dissecting what it is that could take me from below 14th Street to mainstream Betty-and-Joe Beercan. And we also wanted to celebrate drag as an art form, which during the post-9/11 era had really gone back underground. When a culture is engulfed in this hostile fear, gender identity issues really have to go underground because people don't have time for it and it fuels their fear. But everything is cyclical and I could sense that it was time again. So, celebrating drag. Also with my own legacy, to bring these young kids through me to build a platform for them to become stars. Because truth, I was the only bitch in the game for 20 years at this level. So now, my girls rule the world! Apparently all the girls round the country hate my girls because the only way to get a booking is if you're alumni from RuPaul's Drag Race! Hahaha!"

Drag Race's format blends and spoofs similar competition reality shows — mostly America's Next Top Model and American Idol — and depicts the competing drag queens in their element, making costumes, jokes, and lip-syncing. "It wasn't like we wanted to use a template," says RuPaul, sipping his coffee. "Inherent in drag is that we're making fun of everything, we're winking left and right at everything. Obviously the template for a reality show is pretty much set, so there are similarities, but we have more license to have fun."

Season five of Drag Race is particularly rooted in Ru's personal history. Along with the "RuPaul Roast," there was an episode themed "No RuPaulogies," in which the queens were tasked with re-enacting Ru's life story in a Black Swan-meets-Mahogany style performance, effectively schooling audiences on the high points of Ru's life prior to "Supermodel." In a quasi-ballet format, the queens depicted Ru's young obsession with Diana Ross; the early-twenties period when she and her friend, legendary drag performer Lady Bunny, became "the toast of the town — well, at least the Lower East Side" — and pre-fame Ru, when she "hit rock bottom" thanks to drug and alcohol abuse, and had "two choices: to die, or to die trying." If the show seems particularly reflective now, it might be because Ru has reached the time in his life where he recognizes the enormity of what he's overcome and what he has accomplished.

Also, drag is having its biggest resurgence since the 1990s. RuPaul has been held up as the poster girl for drag queens, certainly because he's hardworking, personable, and gorgeous, effortlessly displaying the magnetism needed for any modicum of star quality. But in 1999, he took a five-year reprieve from public life after recognizing that the tide was turning — moving his New York home base to West Hollywood, though he still keeps an apartment in Manhattan's West Village. Now, he can fully appreciate how it's swung back.

"Our culture had to ease up on the hostility on the gender issues," says Ru. "Obviously, I made it through the '90s at first, when Clinton got into office. But towards the late '90s, there was a feeling of hostility, especially after '98. I went on Hollywood Squares in 1999 and I could tell that the audience, even some of the stars on the panel, there was a certain animosity towards me and what I was doing. At that point, I was so exhausted from not just explaining myself, but trying to explain drag and reminding people I am an entertainer, I am not a fucking ambassador to keep reminding you what the difference between a transvestite and a transsexual is…Barbara Walters would interview me, and she knows the answer, but she'd always ask because she thinks she's doing a service to the people at home who don't know. Well, fuck those people at home who don't know! There's nothing you can do that will bring them up to speed, so stop kowtowing to them. Actually, it's their choice, really. We want to make programs for smart people. Don't lower yourself for fuckin' idiots."

The present season of Drag Race has proven, more than any other, how important the show is to the universe of LGBTQ-and-allies. Tears have abounded: In episode seven, "RuPaul Roast," the Orlando-based pageant queen Roxxxy Andrews broke down, detailing being abandoned at a bus stop by his mother at the age of four. (Tragically, the night that episode aired, Andrews' mentor and drag mother, Erica Andrews, passed away from a lung infection.) And in episode three, Monica Beverly Hillz admitted that she was not just a drag queen, but also a transgender woman. It was a first for network TV, and an important moment, as trans* people are often still met with hate and fear even by some cisgender gays. But as Monica looked at Ru with fear and trepidation, Ru responded with a stare of intense love and said, "I invited you here because you were fierce. You deserve to be here, and that's why you're here. You have to believe in yourself. The only person who does not believe in you is you. Stay strong, Monica Beverly Hillz."

Over breakfast, RuPaul says that Monica's admission was a complete surprise, and that no one on set knew that she was a woman until she a said so. "That type of self-realization in front of the camera in front of millions of people around the world is the struggle that every human alive goes through. That self-declaration is the human plight," says Ru, in a steadfast tone. "It not only shows the tenacity of the human spirit, it shows the vulnerability of it. It's the common thread that we all want to be recognized for who we are, we all want to be loved, and we all want to be accepted. Even the toughest, most courageous queen who's fought the biggest battles, in their own family, in the neighborhood, with mother and father, to get on that show and say to the world, 'Here I am. And I'm gonna be proud of who I am, I'm not gonna apologize for who I am.' That's why our show is so much more than men in pussycat wigs and cha-cha heels. That's what people connect with."

If there's such a thing as Drag Race's moral center, RuPaul serves that function, repeating taglines he has used throughout his entire career, especially, "If you don't love yourself, how in the hell you gonna love somebody else? Can I get an amen?" That line goes back to the 1980s and '90s, when RuPaul was a performer in New York at a popular party called Love Machine — the last stop before he became an international star. Now, the motto represents how he has become a drag mother, of sorts, to his Drag Race girls, supporting their careers but also encouraging them to accept themselves as they are. "Before, gay portrayals in the media were so limiting, like a caricature of a homo. A parody almost," says Manila Luzon, alumni of Drag Race All-Stars, Drag U, and Season 3's first runner-up. "Now that we're seeing that you can be a really masculine football player and a homosexual, you can be a really girly boy who likes to dress in women's clothes, I think that it's just been adding to the whole discussion about homosexuality and society."

Michelle Visage, who met Ru in the late '80s when she was the leader of house and freestyle trio Seduction and Ru was working the go-go circuit, says, "These beautiful queens are all amazing and perfect in their own way, and none of them could do it without Ru giving them the opportunity. I think most of them realize that. Ru's this kind of untouchable entity, and they just sit there like, 'I can't even believe I'm in his presence.' It's pretty neat to see my best friend in this revered, kind of pious state. Almost like a deity, really."

After breakfast, back on the velvet couch, RuPaul puts me to work. He's auditioning for a sitcom pilot for ABC, and we run through the script, memorizing moderately funny lines that would cast him as the irreverent shopboy at a high-end department store. He's not too pressed about getting the part — "I already have a job," he giggles — but Barbato has been encouraging him to do more acting, so he's picking up some of his first scripted TV work since he cameo'd on Ugly Betty in 2010. His most recent role was on the ABC comedy Happy Endings — he played a hairdresser, a fact that seems to emphasize the lack of diverse gay roles on television, even for RuPaul, supermodel of the world.

Soon, we're in his white Mercedes GLK350, rambling down Laurel Canyon's fertile slopes, headed for the ABC-Disney lot in Studio City. Deep in the crevices of his carefully curated iPod, which contains more than 35,000 MP3s, he's uncovered and is cranking the Magician remix of Lykke Li's "I Follow You," a song he discovered recently from the film Rust and Bone. RuPaul is notorious for programming playlists for his friends, curating according to their personality and voraciously seeking out new songs that he often tweets out as "Cardio Jam"s of the day to his approximately 325,000 followers. "He's like the music concierge to the rich and famous of Los Angeles," says Randy Barbato. "You know how Amazon and Netflix see what you're buying and they know what your tastes are? Ru knows his friends' interests in an intuitive way, so he'll make us playlist and personalize it. He'll know to, like, reduce some of the Cher on my playlist. He loves soul the most, but his music taste is genuinely across the spectrum."

Like everything else about RuPaul, his iPod is organized meticulously. He is a prolific absorber of pop culture — a quality which has helped keep him relevant — and is just as prolific at creating music as downloading it. His last two albums, 2009's Champion and 2011's Glamazon have spawned a plethora of remixes, and many of his songs, like "Cover Girl," are used in Drag Race. His most recent single, "Peanut Butter," is a collaboration with Big Freedia, the New Orleans bounce-music queen.

RuPaul mostly makes electronic dance music, with house and pop being the mainstays, but the way he's recorded most of his recent songs recalls his punk roots — in a closet in the bedroom of Lucian Piane, a.k.a. RevoLucian, the young producer and collaborator who moonlights as a Grammy-winning composer. "Ru has taught me so much about life, in general," says Piane. "We talk a lot about people who don't fit in, and that's one thing that's so cool about Ru is that it's never bitchy or catty or negative. It's about challenging yourself to be better. I think that's why so many people listen to the songs at the gym," he says, laughing.

Positivity is central to the RuPaul philosophy, as heard on the sweet electro track "Responsitrannity" ("Don't forget who you are /... We are all-stars"), or on the throwback-housey "Live Forever" ("With all my heart and all my soul, I know love will save us!"). But the outsider identity is hard to shake. Like many of the queens on his show, Ru says he has spent most of his life trying to attract the attention or approval of others. It's a need he can trace back to his estranged father.

Ru's father lived in Los Angeles after his parents' tumultuous divorce, and in Lettin It All Hang Out, he writes about feeling abandoned and unloved by him. "He said that he loved me, but he wasn't there when I needed him," wrote RuPaul. "So he sent me a message that love is painful and that you can't trust people who say they love you." He wrote that his father would schedule a visit and never arrive, and that behavior affected all his relationships with men.

"I spent a lot of my career trying to get him to get on board with...validating me, right? And I worked through that, like, don't spend your time there, because he doesn't have that computer application," says RuPaul, slicing off bites of omelette. "You don't go to a Chinese restaurant and order lasagna. Go to a nice Italian restaurant! Hahaha! I remember one time my father talking about so-and-so got her a job over at the post office and they have good benefits over there, and so on and so forth and I'm like, 'Oh my god. Do you realize I've been on HOLLYWOOD SQUARES'? Helloooo! I've been on Hollywood Squares! How does that compare with the post office? Hahaha."

As Drag Race becomes more popular, RuPaul is imagining ways to branch out. He is currently working on his third book, and developing a new fragrance as a follow-up to his '90s scent called "Whore: For She Who Is." (Unfortunately, he says, it probably won't be called "Whore: Resurrected.") He is looking further into merchandising, and taking each day as it comes. He has kept friends and collaborators for decades — Randy Barbato, Michelle Visage, Zaldy, and photographer Mathu Anderson. He's even been with the same man — the artist and Wyoming rancher Georges LeBar — for 19 years; they met on the dance floor at New York's Limelight.

"[Georges is] a lovely, kind person. Being able to experience that in my life, it is" — Ru chokes up, and tears come to his eyes — "honestly, absolutely my greatest achievement allowing someone to love me like that. It is amazing. Talk about getting outside of yourself and getting out of my own vampire drama in my head. Hahaha!" Ru is crying and laughing at the same time now. "Like my sister Renetta, I feel squeamish when she tells me how much she loves me. It wakens me from my whole vampire drama, to go, 'Kiddo, can you accept how fucking awesome you are?' Then it teaches me how to do that for other people. Most people don't have the cojones to go there, so they put up this front. They buy into the fantasy of a Diane Warren song or a Nancy Meyers film, when the realness is much more interesting," says RuPaul, Supermodel of the World.

"It takes so much more guts to face up to the light."

RuPaul's Drag Race airs Mondays on LOGO at 9 p.m. EST.