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RuPaul Covers Vanity Fair, Reveals Drag Persona Is Named 'Monster'

RuPaul Covers Vanity Fair, Reveals Drag Persona Is Named 'Monster'

RuPaul, out of drag, laughing while giving a speech.

That was ... unexpected.

MikelleStreet

This is RuPaul's world, and we're all just living in it! At least that's what the cover line says for the business mogul's new (and first) cover of Vanity Fair. And I'm sorry but we love to see it!

RuPaul is a cultural phenom. Her history is well documented and if you ever thought she was having a moment before, she's certainly having one now! This year she's covered Interview Magazine and bagged a profile in Vogue -- that should have been a cover. This Vanity Fair feature, which is for the glossy's January issue, only stamps the legacy, but also, surprisingly is still full of fun tidbits.

While Ru is full of her usual self-help wisdom and fortune cookie philosophy, she also speaks about the creation fo the criminally tall drag persona that has become the most well known face in drag history. For example, though we call her Ru, the blonde who hosts RuPaul's Drag Race is actually named Monster and was a reaction to people requesting Ru in drag at a time she was trying to do more of a David Bowie aesthetic.

"I changed my ideas about myself," Ru told Vanity Fair. "I said, I'm gonna do this in drag. Not only am I going to do this in drag, I'm going to do it in glamazon drag. And I'm going to take some of the sexual subversiveness out of it and make myself like a Disney caricature, so that Betty and Joe Beer Can won't feel threatened by the sexual aspects of drag. They won't be threatened by the fact that I'm actually mocking identity. That was the scientific combination that I used to break through to the mainstream. So that's what I did. I enlisted the help of all my friends, my tribe members, and together we came up with this look. That's how 'Supermodel' happened. That cracked the code."

And just like that, we have our Black Barbie of drag!

Elsewhere in the feature, the queen talks about her upcoming show AJ and the Queen -- which is a show that includes a kid, not a kids' show that includes a drag queen, -- dodges questions about the whole trans performers debacle, and reveals she's bought a new home in Beverly Hills worth a reported $13.7 million.

Not bad for a boy in drag!

RELATED | Watch the Teaser for RuPaul's First Netflix Scripted Series

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Mikelle Street

Mikelle is the former editorial director of digital for PrideMedia, guiding digital editorial and social across Out, The Advocate, Pride.com, Out Traveler, and Plus. After starting as a freelancer for Out in 2013, he joined the staff as Senior Editor working across print and digital in 2018. In early 2021 he became Out's digital director, marking a pivot to content that centered queer and trans stories and figures, exclusively. In September 2021, he was promoted to editorial director of PrideMedia. He has written cover stories on Ricky Martin, Miss Fame, Nyle DiMarco, Jeremy O. Harris, Law Roach, and Symone.

Mikelle is the former editorial director of digital for PrideMedia, guiding digital editorial and social across Out, The Advocate, Pride.com, Out Traveler, and Plus. After starting as a freelancer for Out in 2013, he joined the staff as Senior Editor working across print and digital in 2018. In early 2021 he became Out's digital director, marking a pivot to content that centered queer and trans stories and figures, exclusively. In September 2021, he was promoted to editorial director of PrideMedia. He has written cover stories on Ricky Martin, Miss Fame, Nyle DiMarco, Jeremy O. Harris, Law Roach, and Symone.