‘Drag Race’ has taught me a lot about how to form community, to take myself less seriously and lose some ego.
I get along with Australians really well. Everyone’s usually really cool, and it’s always a drag to leave.
Right when I was starting to experiment with drag, my mom was diagnosed with cancer, and during her chemo treatment, she lost all of her hair. And for her, the idea of being a fem with no hair was really difficult.
It’s easy to get tired of religious fundamentalists. They’re such a bore. They have no sense of mystery. It’s a drag, man.
Being a parent means my time use has to be a bit more focused, but it also gives me a new non-writing dimension to my life, which is a healthy thing. I can’t wander along for weeks with an idea drifting through my head – I have someone who will drag me back into life, and that’s a good thing.
I watched the classics as a kid, and I could tell that Bugs Bunny in drag was a cartoon and a joke. It didn’t make me start dressing in drag.
I love that drag is a way for people to vacation in the gay nightlife, but… it’s quite a different experience to perform for a gay audience than a straight audience.
Drag allows people to celebrate their individuality, together.
I would have hated for my ‘Drag Race’ moment to have come down to lip syncing a Whitney Houston song.
In my early career I was sort of anti-drag. I said, ‘Drag is dumb and boring, and I want to be an effing weirdo and go crazy and rebel.’ But now it’s like I’ve come to respect and understand how deep and traditional drag as an art form is.
I’m not willing to drag my fans down a road I don’t believe in. That’s just my one little principle. I’ve only got one, and that’s it.
Wild horses couldn’t drag me away from a summer on the Stockholm archipelago.
Drag Race’ has given many super-talented people 15 minutes of fame… Many don’t strike while the iron’s hot though and are only really seen again sitting at finales or reunions for the show.
So my reason for doing drag, at first it was because I wanted to express this thing I had kind of stored deep down inside of me and now that I’ve let this thing loose, this monster out into the world and I kind of got that out of my system now.
‘Drag Race’ doesn’t claim to represent drag as a whole. ‘Drag Race’ is a reality show. If you see real drag shows, we just do drag and respect each other’s art and who your real identity is – name, gender, hair color, anything.
I thought doing drag in the beginning was fun: playing dress up.
Being a drag queen out on the subway or out on the street is still not the most safe thing you can be doing.
It takes a long time to drag myself out of bed, and at night I’m buzzing. As a young man it was helpful, but now I’d like to be tired when I go to bed and alive in the morning.
Even if I hadn’t won ‘Drag Race,’ even if I’d never been on, I’d still be working my tail off, creating live shows, magazines, videos, anything I possibly could!
At things like DragWorld and Drag Con, you see young people come out in droves and be moved to tears, or hear their stories about how they found strength in what we do.
That’s the thing: when I listen on public transport, my headphones act as a separator – a wired barrier between me and the nearest people. Yet my podcasts drag me through the depths of human nature.
I had the worst birthday party ever when I was a child because my parents hired a pony to give rides. And these ponies are never in good health. But this one dropped dead. It just wasn’t much fun after that. One kid would sit on him and the rest of us would drag him around.
Drag is political.
I did not spend a lot of money. I realistically spent maybe, maybe $3,000 to go on ‘Drag Race.’
I think that’s what happens when drag starts to go mainstream: All of a sudden, you’re watching ‘The View’ and there are three drag queens on there and it’s not a joke. Yes, we’re here, we’re queer and you better deal with it. ‘Cause we ain’t going nowhere.
Those trying to drag me down through piracy, I want to tell them that I will somehow achieve what I want. I am focused enough to achieve what I want and give the audience what I can.
When I auditioned for ‘RuPaul’s Drag Race,’ I said I’m gonna get on ‘RuPaul’s Drag Race,’ I’m gonna win it and it won’t be the most impressive thing I’ve ever done.
Sometimes, if the people in your life really drag you down, you need to stop spending time with them.
I think for many people, they think that being in drag means you want to be a girl. Being trans and doing drag is completely different.
I love drag queens and they love me.
Sometimes I write for other drag queens.
I want make sure I’m showing up for the people I’m really close to and my family, and so finding a balance is really important. But I don’t want to quit drag at all. I want to be 90 years old and I want them to prop me up in the doorway and have hot dudes dance around me like Mae West. I really do!
I love the process of dressing up, and people that dress up, and serving looks and drag queens and club freaks and all of that.
Money isn’t important, but you have to have enough, so you don’t have to think about it. Thinking about money is a drag.
My solo show, ‘A Lot More Me,’ is part drag show, part burlesque show, part circus show, and part fashion show.
I’ve loved car racing all my life. I watch NASCAR regularly, and drag racing because we have Raceway Park in New Jersey. I think I got it from my father.
Drag is a gift.
I’d love to do a show in Vegas with drag queens. The tackier the better.
‘Drag Race’ really offered me a platform to have a lot of people listen to what I have to show them, and I want to showcase the whole community I know.
The beautiful thing about ‘Drag Race’ is it’s the most inclusive television show, probably on the planet. It’s the place where kids go because they feel like they don’t fit in anywhere else. It’s the place they go to feel safe.
You had to be, I want to say 12 or 13 to drag race, but I was drag racing probably like at 8, and then it was overlapping. I was starting to rap, but I was still drag racing around 9 or 10, until I finally was like, ‘You know, I don’t want to do this no more. I just want to rap.’
I don’t define drag. Drag is defined by me.
You’d never catch me dead in a pair of fishnets! For one thing, they are not practical. And for another thing, it’s just like a tacky drag queen.
If you drag your shoe a bit those plastic spikes or rubber spikes can be almost as bad as metal spikes.
On New Year’s Eve, 2000, my friends and I were going to a party in Melbourne and I decided to do it in drag. It was the happiest night of my life.
Drag isn’t a selective club. It’s something everyone can be welcomed to.
Drag a $100 bill through a trailer camp and there’s no telling what you will find.
I care deeply about ‘Drag Race’ and drag. It’s my life and it changed my life.
I just want to be a shining leader for the LGBTQIA-plus community. Drag queens have always been the leaders of the community.
Drag was not only my introduction to womanhood, but my introduction to entertainment. It was the first time I realized that I could move a crowd.
I listen to ‘This American Life,’ ‘Serial,’ ‘S-Town,’ ‘Feast of Fun.’ I listened to ‘What’s the Tee?’ And that has really helped me throughout my entire drag career – podcasts have been a mainstay in my life as a drag artist.
To get the opportunities I’ve gotten has been insane. But also interesting. With the Starbucks commercial, I found it fascinating that once it was on the Internet, tons of people, especially gay people, were like, ‘Why did they choose drag queens to showcase our community?’
It’s going to take generations of gay people marrying before these things start to feel natural. We haven’t had it long enough to remake it as our own, so it does feel like you’re getting dressed up in straight drag to do it.
I started out as being a diva in a golden dress and now to a more bearded drag artist guy in boots.
Before I fought Adonis Stevenson in 2013, I had 4lbs to shift in a morning before weighing in. I had zero energy left to train, so the nutritional adviser said the only way was to drag it from my body in a hot bath full of salts.
The inspiration of my drag is the history of drag, the long tradition of drag queens being at the forefront of queer activism. That informs my drag style, and in a sense, that is the direction we need to go in the future.
I come from regional, small-city drag, where if you won Miss Des Moines, Iowa, and you did something bad, or you were being a role model, your crown was taken away.
The only time you will ever see me in drag is when I am – What? Getting paid. It is my job.
Most people think they don’t have anything to relate to a drag queen, but shockingly there’s a lot we can talk about.
When I wrote ‘PG-13,’ I had just won ‘RuPaul’s Drag Race,’ all my nightmares had come true, and I was a brat. I was a privileged brat overnight.
I can’t wear same clothes and drag on a character forever.
Everybody does drag for different reasons.
I have an art magazine about drag called ‘Velour,’ named after myself, and I have a monthly show called ‘Nightgowns’ that curates and presents some of the most creative and high-quality drag in a professional theater setting.
