by RuPaul
- Pantyhose
- Corset
- Push-up bra
- Gym socks rolled up tight (for breasts)
- High-heeled shoes
- Hotpants, mini-dress
- Gloves
- Clip-on earrings and assorted jewelry
- Press-on nails
- Wigs
- Perfume (I recommend “Whore”—for she who is)
- Cocktail purse
- A lot of time to get dressed
- Positive love energy
In a swift single move I rip off my robe, and I’m totally naked as I rummage around my apartment for my corset and push-up bra. Half the thing about getting dressed the next day is finding where everything went as it flew off my body the night before. By the time I get in after a big night of glamour, my corset is cutting me in half. It’s killing me! So I tear off all my clothes and rip that corset off faster than you can say, “Honey I shrunk the kids.”
Taking a fresh pair of tucking panties from my linen closet, I begin that time-honored ritual known as “tucking.” Tucking is a delicate procedure that I have described as an ancient Chinese secret. On other occasions I have said that I am “sitting on a secret,” and that’s really it in a nutshell. This is what you do; you put your tucking panties on. There are different types of tucking panties, such as specially made things called “gaffs,” but I prefer to use girl’s bikini bottoms. Mine are size small and made out of very-tight-woven Spandex. Then you take your penis (preferably your nonerect penis), and pull it back toward your butthole, pushing everything—balls and all—backward. In this way the front part of your pelvis is flat and your balls are between your legs, bisected by your penis, which is headed south toward the border. The penis lifts and separates the two contenders so that you have one testicle on either side delicately nestled like eggs between your thighs. It’s important not to get a hard-on as you begin the process. From this point on put all thought of romance or sex out of your head. If you get aroused, all hell could break loose.
Then you adjust the fierceness of the tuck by pulling your panties up between your butt-cheeks in the back. Once in place, the panties will keep the whole package securely wrapped and bonded. I’ve been told that I have the fiercest tuck this side of the Mason-Dixon line, and I have the scars from the panties to prove it. Generally, as long as the tuck isn’t too tight, it doesn’t really hurt. But one wrong move can have the effect of a nutcracker and make the strongest of drag queens shriek, “Girl, call me a cab.”
Then you put on your panty hose. I wear Woolworth’sown brand, Cameo, tall, sheer-to-waist. Now this can also be tricky. Since they are only the second thing you put on, you have to be very careful not to get a run. So many times I’ve gotten a run in my hose just as I’m running out the door—late! They’ve sent monkeys to the moon, why can’t they invent panty hose that don’t run? What is the problem here?
If I’m wearing support hose, getting a run is a moot point. If I’m wearing a bathing suit, I often wear opaque skin-tone support hose, because while I want to look naked, I don’t want to feel it. Aerobic instructors on TV love this stuff. If you don’t have support hose, my tip is to wear two or three pairs of panty hose—and they’ll give you that secure, opaque feel.
Now it’s time for the corset or waist cincher—although I prefer the former. For this I call in Juan, who’s glad to return from exile. The corset is hooked in the front and tied in the back, and it gives you a tighter feel than a waist cincher. You hook up the latches on the front, and then you tighten it like tying a pair of shoes in the back. You pull, and you pull, and you pull until you get the desired effect—which is, ideally, a total inability to breathe. In the interests of survival, though, I normally compromise and tie the knot while I can still breathe, barely.
My nude bodysuit is designed to give the effect of being nude underneath, no matter what I am wearing. It’s rather like a flesh-colored bathing suit. Made specially for me, it has different strap arrangements—strapless, criss-cross, or spaghetti straps—and can accommodate any couture outfit. It also has built-in titties.
At this point in the game I look like an exotic alien from Star Trek. I am in hose, corsetry, and body suit, but basically still butt naked. My head is also totally shaved. But apart from that I am now, basically, womana.
Not only am I ready, but I am panting for the luxurious embrace of glamour. Tonight I will be wearing a gorgeous Todd Oldham creation. Once the dress is on, I go to put my hair on. Never put the dress on after the wig. Wigs are more than a piece of hair. A cat without its coat would look pretty freaky, and a peacock without its feathers would look downright ugly. A wig is like your fur—it’s your second skin. So the wig is crucial, and to look remotely credible it needs to soften the harshness of a man’s face. I wear lace-front wigs, which are very expensive. But I’m worth it. Now, lace-front wigs have a transparent mesh that is like netting. It’s invisible to the eye, and once it’s on you cannot see the line. To secure it you put a little glue near the sideburns of your head—although for the glue to stick you have to take off the makeup from those areas first.
The hair has been designed, styled, and delivered prior to this evening by top stylists. I have a special hatbox that carries the head and hair of RuPaul. It’s actually a kick drum carrying case, lined with foam, with a mannequin head bolted in the middle. Most of my wigs will fit in this with room to spare. Once the wig has been styled, set with hair spray, and stashed in my box, you could play basketball with it. As you can imagine, some wig creations exceed carry-on hand luggage dimensions. Rather than face any hassles, I prefer to check my hair and forget all about it—something I feel comfortable doing with my specially built box.
After the wig it’s shoe time, and kids, shoes are not to be taken lightly, especially when you have a size-thirteen pair of apple turnovers like I do. Shoes can either make or break the illusion—and if they are not the right size, they can break your feet as well. There is nothing more unsightly than a wobbling supermodel. You have to glide down the catwalk. The proper way to strut your stuff has nothing to do with your feet, it’s all in your head. If you believe you can walk on air, you will walk on air, and walk on air I do in shoes from Frederick’s of Hollywood. I buy in bulk, because after one or two wears there’s nothing left. My favorites are nude mules because the strap over the toes is clear plastic, and that accentuates the legs, allowing them to taper off without interruption. I was there just after the L.A. riots and all the size thirteens had been looted. There must be a lot of gangsta queens prancing around the City of Angels.
But I don’t have time to think about that now, because I’m late. The limousine is purring downstairs, and everything else that needs to be done happens real fast: shoes, jewelry, and gloves all go on simultaneously in the wink of an eye. As I fly out the door, the last thing I do is give myself a quick spritz of my perfume, Whore—I created it for she who is. Forget Poison, Passion, Free Willy, and all the other two-bit perfumes flooding the market. Whore is the ultimate when it comes to fragrant jewels, and, unlike all those others, Whore hits the spot. It takes a licking and keeps on ticking. Just one squirt and it has grown men barking like dogs.
On the ride uptown I have time to catch my breath, make a few final adjustments, and savor the moment. I know that as I step out of the stretch at the premiere, careful not to squish my updo, the paparazzi will go crazy. In that blinding orgasm of a thousand flashbulbs, all the effort, all the pain, and all the plucking will have been worth it. Knowing the pleasure that my fans will get from the photograph of me in tomorrow’s Women’s Wear Daily, looking flawless and gorgeous, makes me wanna cry real tears.
I was born RuPaul Andre Charles.
Recently, I was talking to my cousin who told me the story of when my mother proclaimed me a star.
“Hey, Toni,” Aunt Enorris yelled, “what you gonna call the baby?”
“His name is RuPaul Andre Charles,” my mother replied. “And he’s gonna be famous
, ‘cos ain’t another motherfucker alive with a name like that.”
And if you knew my mother, that’s exactly what she said, ‘cause she had a mouth like a sailor.
My mother kept a copy of Ebony magazine from July 1960. The cover story was on Fats Domino, and inside there was a photo spread of him and his friends hanging out by the bar in the living room of his mansion. One of the friends in the picture was called Ripoll Roberts, and my mother had drawn an arrow pointing to his name with “Boy” written alongside it.
Both my parents were poor country folk from Louisiana, way out in the boondocks. They met in Beaumont, Texas, on a blind date. My dad, Irving Charles, was in the army and served in the Korean War. They married in Houston, Texas, where my mother gave birth to my twin sisters. Later they moved to San Diego during the great western migration, like so many other blacks from the South. My father was working as an electrician for McDonnell Douglas, the aircraft manufacturer, when I was born.
Our house was a California tract home in a modern development called Michelle Manor. It was a yellow three-bedroom house with a patio, which my father built in the back, and one-and-a-half bathrooms (one bathroom didn’t have a tub in it). There was a two-car garage, a kitchen, living room, front yard, and a backyard with a big palm tree and lots of foliage. There were only four house prototypes within the development, so every fourth house was identical. The house across the street was exactly the same as ours. But no baby drag queens lived there.
So much has happened in that house. I can tell you a story for every nick in the wall. You name it, everything about that house is written on the walls. Take the burn mark above the dirty clothes hamper in the bathroom; at age thirteen, I used to sit on the toilet and practice smoking with my mother’s Tarryton cigarettes. One day I placed a cigarette on the hamper while plucking my eyebrows. The next thing I knew the cigarette had fallen into the hamper and started a fire. Luckily, I did not panic, but grabbed the shower head and doused the flames before they burned the whole house down and everything in it.
Then there’s the nick in the bedroom wall where my sister Rozy tried to hit me with a hammer. I ducked. She swung, and hit the wall. Afterward I just laughed—that pissed her off even more.
But my favorite mark has to be the handprint above the light switch in the kitchen. One summer’s day my sisters and I were all hanging in the kitchen when my mother came home from work. She walked in the door and as usual started telling everybody what to do: “Renae, get off your high-yellow ass and go get the clothes off the clothesline.” Renae rolled her eyes and sucked air through her teeth. Mama caught this out of the corner of her eye and went to give Renae a backhand slap. Renae instinctively jumped out of the way and Mama’s hand slammed into the wall, leaving a print and a crack. We all busted out laughing as Mama jumped around the house screaming every curse word imaginable.
My memory suggests—and research corroborates this—that I wasn’t a mean or bratty little boy. I was a good baby. You could just sit me in the corner and I would be fine—no screaming, just content. My sister Rozy, on the other hand, needed lots of attention. If you sat her in the corner, she would start crying and you’d have to say, “Come on, it’s okay.” Rozy and I fought with each other a lot. At breakfast we would put the cereal box in front of each other’s faces so we wouldn’t have to see one another. Then we would fight over who got to read the back of the box first. Captain Crunch was our favorite. Apart from my spats with Rozy, I was very sweet and sensitive.
My neighbors were kind and generous, and often they would take me under their wings. I would go over to my neighbor Stark’s house, where they would fix me breakfast. Stark was about twenty-five, a big, burly black man who was in the navy. He lived with his girlfriend, Billie, and her three children. He used to yell out to me in the morning, “Ruru, come on over here and have some scrambled eggs. They’ll put hair on your chest!” He never struck me as the kind of man you said no to, so I always took him up on his offer — not realizing then how problematic a hairy chest might be for certain career choices.
Another of my earliest memories was sitting on my father’s shoulders watching television. I liked to lick the top of his bald head because it was salty. I remember the commercials from back then more than the actual television shows. I used to love Edie Adams doing those Tiparillo cigar commercials. She would do big Broadway-style production numbers in gorgeous evening gowns, dripping with fur, and surrounded by male dancers. The commercial would always end with her saying, “Why don’t you come up and see me some time?” I had no idea that she had stolen the line from Mae West, but I loved it all the same. At the other end of the scale was the commercial for Dutch Master cigars, with thirteen old Dutchmen standing around in black Pilgrim outfits and huge white collars. Those guys scared me to death.
I remember telling my mother once “Mama, from now on call me ‘Education,’ ‘cause I’m gon get me a education.” I knew all along that she loved hearing that and still remember her leaning out of the front door and yelling, “Education, education, education” when it was time to come in for supper. That was our little joke. It was rather ironic since I was never very good in school. I always tried to do well and be the teacher’s pet, but they never picked me. Instead, my teachers would send me home with notes complaining about the fact that I was forever looking out of the window and daydreaming. My second-grade teacher wrote a report card that said: “RuPaul looks out of the window too much. He needs to focus on what’s going on inside the class.” Forget about it! To this day, if there’s an open window, I can just gaze out and leave the planet. I’m like a big balloon, and unless I’m careful to keep myself on the ground, I just drift right off into outer space. The teachers said that if only I applied myself, I could be quite good. Eventually, I took that advice—not in terms of being good at the homework, but in terms of applying myself.
After school I would hook up with my friends and we would all hang out in the Canyon. For a while Albert was my best friend and we had a big thing building go-carts by stealing the wheels off shopping carts and nailing them to two-by-fours stolen from the development being built up the street. We had a tree house in the Canyon and we would go there and smoke cigarettes. I wasn’t a saint, but at least I wasn’t carjacking or getting fucked up—yet.
At some point all gay children realize that they are different, out of sync or set apart from what everyone else is doing. I think this often happens sooner rather than later—years before you have any idea what sex is or who Liza Minnelli is. I have a memory of me at five years old, lying in the fetal position in the hallway of my house. I remember looking down at myself, so it must’ve been an out-of-body experience, and I was thinking to myself, “I’m insane, I’m crazy.” Even then I knew I had a different perspective on the world. I was not doing the same things other kids were doing, and I was looking at things as an observer, as an outsider, like an alien.
For example, I always wondered why people didn’t say, “Okay, everyone, just stop! Do you feel insecure? Do you feel like you’re not worth crap?” If people only did that the answer would be, “Why yes, I do feel those things. Let’s talk this through.” Why, I wondered, did we just carry on ignoring our feelings, pretending that they didn’t exist? Why didn’t we take the time out to do something about them, so we didn’t have to feel that way anymore? I just could not shake the sensation that I didn’t belong, and that this was not my real home. You know what? It isn’t. Planet Earth is a high school from hell, and we are all just students here. When I realized that, I screamed out loud. I’ve always felt like a foreign exchange student, a resident alien. You come here for one thing and one thing only, and that is to learn. I used to spend a lot of my life waiting for the day I could quit school, but then I came to realize that so long as we are alive we never leave school. Life is a series of high schools, one after the other. And if you don’t study, do your homework, and learn enough in one lifetime, you just get sent back and have to do it all over again.
Because I was always so sensitive, I’d often get my feelings hurt, and would cry easily. Mama would say something to me—she could be very harsh—and I would go and cry. Other times I got upset by kids or my older sisters teasing me. Even when I was really young, kids would come up to me and say, “You should have been a girl, and your sister Rozy should have been a boy.” Before I knew anything about my sexuality, people would say, “You’re a sissy,” and I’d say, “What?” They weren’t shy about saying the same thing twice. “You are a sissy,” they’d say, and I would cry even though I had no idea what they were implying. “You’re too sensitive, too sentimental” Mama would say.
And of course the whole boy/girl thing was an issue because I felt like neither one nor the other, and looked like something altogether different. When Christine Jorgenson, the first sex change, got her operation my sister Renetta cut out an article about it and gave it to me. I said, “Why are you giving me this?” She said, “Oh, you should read about this.” “Hmmm,” I thought to myself.
Generally, I did wonder what the deal was; why was I so different from the other boys, and why was it so difficult for me to blend in? I loved being around girls because they were free to express themselves emotionally, and I have always felt that emotions are what being a human is all about. Boys, on the other hand, were blind to their emotions. They denied their feelings by acting or lying, and I couldn’t understand why they would do that. There were times when I thought there must have been a mistake, that maybe I was a girl stuck in a boy’s body. But, after puberty, I was quite happy being a boy. I have always felt quite straightforward and uncomplicated about being a man who likes other men.
When I was ten, I tongue-kissed Tiny, the girl across the street. I also took her panties off—mainly because I wanted them for myself! I may have even touched her kooter. Everybody teased us and said, “Oh look, they’re boyfriend and girlfriend.” I went along with it, and would say, “Yeah, me and Tiny across the street, we’re boyfriend and girlfriend.” Then, when I was thirteen, I tongue-kissed a girl named Queen Esther, and that was the extent of my romances with the opposite sex.