RuPaul Andre Charles is a professional drag queen, television personality, actor, musician, and model. Ru is best known for producing, hosting, and judging the reality competition series RuPaul’s Drag Race. He has several accolades, including 12 Primetime Emmy Awards, three GLAAD Media Awards, a Critics’ Choice Television Award, two Billboard Music Awards, and a Tony Award. He’s been on the scene since the early 90s, which means Ru has three decades under his belt. To quote the queen herself, “I’m the Queen of Drag.”
Over the last few years, Ru has expanded his drag empire to the four corners of the earth.
He now has British, Australian and New Zealand versions hosted by RuPaul, as well as Chilean, Thai, Canadian, Dutch, Spanish, Italian, French, and Philippine editions with their own respective hosts. He also started an international All-Stars competition hosted in The United Kingdom and Canada.
In 2018, the show became the first to win a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Reality-Competition Program and a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Host for a Reality or Reality-Competition Program in the same year.
This feat has since been repeated three times. It looks like “She done already had hers,” which is a saying that Ru uses often.
When I say global takeover, I mean just that.
Ru now has his sights set on Asia. Emmy-winning production company World of Wonder, the company produces Rupaul’s Drag Race, has partnered with a third-party agent, O4 Media, to help develop RuPaul’s Drag Race in new territories around the continent, including India, Japan, Singapore, South Korea, and a new season of the existing Drag Race Thailand.
Ru has opened so many doors for Drag Queens and the LGBTQ community as a whole. To have someone so successful from a community under constant attack, especially in the 80s and 90s, prompts me to say proudly, “YOU BETTER WERK!”
