You may know all of the secrets behind RuPaul's Drag Race, but Rupaul has some secrets of his own.
“You better work!” Those words are still stuck in the minds of basically every adult or millennial who grew up in the '90s, courtesy of the tremendous drag queen pioneer known as RuPaul.
RuPaul has said in his biography that he doesn’t care what gender pronouns people call him, as long as they call him, and he’s carried that decisive sense of self into the realms of movies, TV shows, and music.
From Billboard’s Dance Music/Club Play chart to cameoing in Crooklyn, Ugly Betty, and Walker, Texas Ranger, there’s been much more to the host of RuPaul’s Drag Race than meets the eye, which fits a person who’s made a career out of a dynamic and sassy drag persona.
RuPaul’s been breaking barriers for drag queens and the LGBTQ community for more years than the Internet has existed, and has won Emmy and GLAAD awards for his work.
He’s been controversial lately, as the 10th season of his show RuPaul’s Drag Race starts. In interviews, RuPaul has had some real verbal gaffes regarding the trans community, which have touched off a firestorm of controversy.
Here are the 16 Crazy Things You Didn't Know About RuPaul.
16. He was embroiled in a controversy in 2018 about transgender people
RuPaul was never one to mince words, but when asked to comment on whether transgender woman can compete on RuPaul’s Drag Race, he wasn’t kind.
He said in an interview with The Guardian that he would “probably not” let trans women compete on his TV show, and that people who identify as a woman change when they change their body.
Though RuPaul issued a rare apology via Twitter addressing the public’s concerns, the trans and LGBTQ community have been up in arms following RuPaul’s interview, and it remains to be seen how their reaction will affect the show as it enters its tenth season.
RuPaul may have to be much more careful about his words moving forward, even though his drag persona is famously outspoken.
15. He was kicked out of high school for being absent too often
RuPaul’s personality was apparently too big for high school, as he was kicked out of Patrick Henry High School in the 11th grade due to persistent truancy.
This only makes the premise of his show RuPaul’s Drag U on the LOGO channel even more ironic, which featured RuPaul and other judges evaluating new drag queens.
He later found himself at the Northside School of Performing Arts near Atlanta, Georgia, where he’d moved with his sister Renetta to study the performing arts.
However, according to his biography, he didn’t graduate from there either.
It turns out that he didn’t need to graduate from anywhere, and he later moved from Atlanta to New York to make his name in the club scene.
