RuPaul Was Just Inducted into the Hall of Fame

RuPaul Charles is already on Hollywood's Walk of Fame. That happened last March. And, the multi-hyphenate mogul Hall of Fame via his namesake showRuPaul's Drag Race. Well now, Ru has been officially added to California's Hall of Fame as well -- unsurprisingly, this is a first for drag queens.

This week, RuPaul became one of ten inducted into California Museum's California Hall of Fame. The recipients, which included Dr. Maya Angelou, Tony Hawk, George Lopez and Wolfgang Puck among others, were all named at the event by state Governor Gavin Newsom and his wife, First Partner Jennifer Sibel Newsom.

"There is perhaps no one person that has done more to dismantle the limiting "man box" we put our boys and men into that RuPaul," Sibel Newsom said, in her presentation for Ru. She pointed out that the icon has completed 15 studio albums, published three books, appeared in 50 films and television shows, and was the first man to ever be the face of a major cosmetics campaign. "RuPaul [and his show RuPaul's Drag Race] has simply made American media and our larger culture a more inclusive place, and he has done it with incomparable fabulousness." (The section starts around 1:51:00 in the below video.)

Charles appeared on stage in an all white suite, and gave a speech speaking to how he wound up being born in San Diego: in the 1950s his parents moved to California in one of the final waves of the Great Migration that saw Black folks move en masse out of the South. He went on to say that spirit of trailblazing and ingenuity was thus cultivated within this community of people in California, and he sees his new medal, and slot in the Hall of Fame, as an acknowledgement that he has carried on that legacy.

Ru has quite a year next year. In addition to RuPaul's Drag Race, the queen will host RuPaul's Drag Race All Stars, RuPaul's Drag Race U.K., and RuPaul's Celebrity Drag Race. On top of all of this, Ru stars in the scripted Netflix series Aj and the Queen.