RuPaul's Articles

RuPaul
The Foxy lady knows nice isn't easy.

Out Magazine -November 1996

IF RUPAUL SOUNDS A LITTLE TIRED, because forgiven. After all, he’s not been sitting around munching bonbons and catching up on his sleep. After several years away from the charts, Ru is set to launch Foxy Lady (Rhino) – his sophomore effort as the world’s most successful drag queen recording artist. However, as anyone who’s been near a television, radio, bookstore, or movie theater during the past three years will surely note, the only thing more conspicuous than RuPaul’s absence from the recording studio has been his presence practically everywhere else. “Life is fabulous,” he submits, dreamily. “I’ve hit pay dirt in terms of having real fun and tearing down walls around my heart.” As far as his heart is concerned, we’ll have to take his word fox it, but as for his career, pay dirt is clearly an understatement. Since his first album, Supermodel of the World (Tommy Boy), launched into the pop-cultural stratosphere, his autobiography – oddly titled Lettin’It All Hang Out (Hyperion) – has been through several printings and is now a paperback hit. He has appeared in To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar and The Brady Bunch Movie and its sequel. And more recently, two appearances arranged as one- shot deals – a turn as a DJ on New York’s new dance-music radio station WKTU and as host of VH1’s RuPaul’s Party Machine – have both been extended, the DJ-ing indefinitely and the VH1 gig as an eight-show series, The RuPaul Show, now airing Saturdays. And this is not to mention the many other TV appearances, live performances, starring roles in music videos, and spokesmodel gigs. So if, while chatting in the relative calm of his manager’s office, Ru comes off as a tad sleepy, we can cut him a little slack, Come to think of it, that’s probably the least we can do, We could well toast the fact that this erstwhile denizen of Atlanta’s and New York’s rather nasty drag scenes has risen to become, as he himself puts it, the “Queen of All Media.” For if by cleaning up his notoriously ribald routines, he has dragged countless millions just a bit closer to the notion that difference does not equal danger, a glass might be the least we raise in his honor, Of course, there are those who would argue that RuPaul’s success has had a strange downside. The unexpected effect of the high-gloss polish is that he hardly seems like a drag queen at all. Gone are all the vulgar profanities, raunchy escapades, and less-than- fabulous hairstyles of his notorious early days. Die-hard dragsters familiar with his hilarious appearances as the front “man” for Atlanta club sensation the Now Explosion, or his shocking turn as Star Booty in the self-styled fantasia of the same name, can’t be blamed for feeling a little cheated by Ru’s current role as drag’s great calming influence – a good-will ambassador who could almost be mistaken for one of his supermodel colleagues on MTV’s House of Style. His slickly glamorous approach and patented “Everybody say, Love!” routine may sell records in the Mall of America, but many a hard- core drag aficionado pines for an edgier time. On the other hand, anyone who knows him well will quickly remind you that RuPaul is nothing if not focused, and he has little time for naysayers, crybabies, and nostalgia buffs. He may be multitalented, but his true gift lies in his king-size ambition. He has never apologized for giving audiences what they like and how they like it. Naturally, as his appeal has widened, the shepherd has cannily shifted his shtick to accommodate a larger flock, Not that Ru doesn’t care deeply about the feeling that lies at the heart of all his work. To those who wish he’d get back to his roots, he replies that he never left. “I just do what I do, just keep chug-a- luggin’. If they like it, great. If not, OK.” Indeed, his look may have evolved, but the message remains the same. Sounding ready to turn in for the night, Ru muses about what his ever-increasing throngs of admirers should take away from his work as author, singer, dancer, actor, model, and, finally, star. “I want the world to know that it’s gonna be all right. You can stop hating yourself. The party is just beginning.”

– JULIAN FLEISHER

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