RuPaul Charles — known to most as RuPaul, the host of the 29-time Emmy Award-winning reality competition show RuPaul’s Drag Race — has picked up several maxims during his 63 years.
“Don’t take life too seriously,” said a high school drama teacher in San Diego. “If you can’t love yourself, how the hell are you going to love someone else?” ends each episode Drag Race. And then there’s this gem: “You’re too damn sensitive and you remember too much.” This one came from his late mother, Ernestine, who died in 1993 and was nicknamed “Evil Miss Charles” by the neighborhood kids.
In some ways, his mother’s advice shaped RuPaul’s entire life — and career. “I learned that she was actually talking to herself,” RuPaul tells PEOPLE. “That sensitivity shaped my intuition and my instinct. A recall I could probably do without.”
6-ft. 4 in. (without heels) the fate of the future drag performer began with a prophecy. When Ernestine was pregnant with him, a psychic told her that her son would become a star. Since then, RuPaul says he’s felt “anointed” by that promise and has spent his life working to fulfill it.
Below, an excerpt from his new memoir House of Hidden meaningshe reflects on how his drag persona came to be and what “Evil Miss Charles” thinks of it all.
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‘House of Hidden Meanings’ by RuPaul.
The 1980s, especially in New York, are remembered as an age of excess. At the time I started accepting it, drag was a political statement; depending on the context, it could clearly be read as a middle finger to the consumerist, normative culture of Reagan and his followers. By the dawn of the nineties, the culture had merely doubled down on the worship of wealth, beauty and glamor that had dominated the eighties. I had no money, but I could serve sex and fashion — no problem.
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I adopted a drag aesthetic that was striking and seductive – a style I described at the time as somewhere between a “black hooker” and a “soul train dancer”. My proportions were just right for that: long, long legs and a tiny waist that I didn’t have to cinch. I didn’t have to wear socks. I would put on a bra, or even just a pair of rolled up socks in a bra, and call it fashion. I would wear short skirts or tunic dresses that I could cut out on a sewing machine, do a big Donna Summer hairdo, big lined lips, huge eyelashes and silly earrings.
The culture at the time was obsessed with supermodels, a fascination that simmered for years. Fashion at that time celebrated the most elite forms of beauty, those superhuman beings with long limbs that were the epitome of glamour.
In Milan, a friend pulled strings to introduce us to the Versace fashion show; we had seats at the last minute at the back of the stands. The experience was exhilarating, ending with four of the world’s biggest supermodels lurking in oversaturated gowns: Linda Evangelista, with a platinum blonde pixie, in shocking red; Cindy Crawford, lush and shiny hair, in a black halter; Naomi Campbell in electric yellow; and Christy Turlington, flirtatious in a little black dress. They chanted George Michael’s words “Freedom! ’90.” They were perfection. When you looked at them, you could hardly breathe.
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Looking at them from the back of the hall, I wanted to be like them.
The following fall I returned to Milan for the Versace show. This time, Gianni Versace flew me there to perform at the after party. During the show, he brought me backstage. I took photos with the models, wearing a bright blue wig and a tight dress. Naomi Campbell is at my feet. Christy Turlington is staring at me. And I grin with delight, as if I always knew this moment would come.
I always felt that my path to fame would have to be through music, not acting; there was no room in Hollywood yet for someone like me. Hollywood did not “become” different then, nor is it today. If I made enough of an impact with music, I thought, maybe I could transfer those credits to film and television.
When Jimmy Harry and I were listening [‘Supermodel,’] there were some funny lines inspired by Linda Evangelista’s famous quote about refusing to get out of bed for less than $10,000 a day. But the best thing about the song was the title. We took that idea, which seemed to be in the zeitgeist, and started writing our own version.
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Now I see that everything was headed that way. Everything I’ve experienced – the ups, the fears, the joys, the downs, the discoveries – has shaped me into the force I will become. This body, with its supermodel proportions, that always stood out, that was never masculine enough for the world? Now it had a purpose. The love of performing I honed as a child to make my mother laugh? Now he would take his rightful place on the global stage. Even the fact that I’ve always had an uncomfortable relationship with sex—now it would become my superpower.
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RuPaul at the 2019 Met Gala.
Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images for The Met Museum/Vogue
The drag scene I grew up in was always raunchy, sexually charged, bluesy. What if I took all that and made it mainstream? What if I make it so fun, so cute, so family-friendly that you can show it to your grandma? What if I brought the same glamor that wowed me at the Versace show to every appearance I made—but did it with a wink, a winning smile, and an air of sweetness that I’ve always found irresistible in others?
When I was standing in a pizzeria on Sixth Avenue and heard “Supermodel” playing on the Z100, it came as no surprise. It was like the most obvious thing in the world. The single was not a radio hit. It didn’t even crack the Top 40. But that’s when the idea of RuPaul was born, and people outside of my world were inspired to talk about me and androgyny and drag in a way that was unprecedented.
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I’ve mastered the art of naughty-lite: two spoonfuls of Diana Ross, a pinch of Cher, a shake of Dolly Parton, all sealed with the friendship of the Walt Disney family. I used to be cloudy – confusing, a thing that only some people could understand. I finally focused, just in time for the whole world to see.
After “Supermodel” came out, MTV News wanted to do a feature on me. I have outlined my philosophy for veejay. “They’re all drag queens,” I said. I quoted the queen Mark told me about all those years ago in Atlanta: “You’re born naked, and the rest is a hassle.”
The next week I went back to see my mother in San Diego. I knew he was dying. We turned on MTV and watched the segment air. She looked in awe, and then she looked at me. “N****, you’re crazy.”
It was so easy to say – it was none of that. But beneath it was an ocean of hidden meanings. I heard the victory lap in her voice as she lay dying, being my mother. It was the same living room where I acted for her — And now I was on that screen! I couldn’t imagine more magic than that. At that moment I felt that there was some divine force at work that had nothing to do with her or me, in which we were just players.
From the book The House of Hidden Meanings: A Memoir by RuPaul. Copyright © 2024 RuPaul Charles. Excerpted by permission of Dey Street Books, an imprint of HarperCollins.
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