Lettin It All Hang Out

by RuPaul

  So they came and got me, brought me backstage, and said, “You’re going to have to help hold him up and get him onstage.” Now I have always helped little old ladies across the street, but I thought, “Oh brother, that’s great. I can’t walk out and make my entrance, because I am going to have to nursemaid Milton Berle who’s just going to insult and abuse me.” But stiff upper lip, mustn’t grumble. Backstage while we were waiting to go on, they got a stool for him to sit on and after what seemed like an eternity, we were announced and out we went.

  By this point I was really miffed, I’m seething and thinking, “This little fucker.” The first thing he did, as I recall, was put his arm and shoulder across my tits as though he was leaning on them. That got him a cheap laugh. Then after some inane banter he threw me the line, “You know, RuPaul, thirty years ago when I was on television, I used to wear dresses.” To which I was supposed to say, “How interesting. Why did you give it up?” This was all to set up his reply, which has to be one of the lamest jokes this side of the First World War: “Because it was a drag.”

  But of course, dear reader, you may know that I didn’t say that. Instead when he said, “You know, RuPaul, thirty years ago when I was on television, I used to wear dresses,” I simply said, “That’s interesting. You used to wear dresses, and now you wear diapers.” The line came to me out of the blue, and as I said it I thought, well, this is fair enough, this is part of that Borscht Belt humor. It was straight out of the book The Milton Berle School of How to Be a Jackass, ba-dum-ba-dum. I was just giving him the same that he was giving me—except it was a little bit funnier. Two people can make jokes at one another’s expense. But then I remember the hush that fell over the audience. I could hear some people laugh and some people go “Oooh.” It was almost like an earthquake had struck. It was this extraordinary thing. As a drag queen I was assigned this role of being the kitchen mop. But because I didn’t play the role I was supposed to play, everyone got all huffy. Oh, sure, wipe the floor with a drag queen, but with an old man? How could you!

  Then Aerosmith came out and we presented them with the award, and they threw me some shade. “See you, toots,” Steven Tyler said. Christian Slater set the seal on the whole thing by coming back after the commercial break and saying what a nice guy Milton Berle was. And I suppose I was the Wicked Witch of the East. Well, for the record, he is not a nice guy, as many of the people who have worked with him have since told me. They are of the opinion he got just what he deserved that day. Of course, what I should have done in the dressing room is said, “Listen, motherfucker, get your goddamn hands off me,” and then gone out there and been Miss Black America. I wish I had done that. But I didn’t, and in spite of my regrets I did get to send the message that Miss Thing is not going to be treated like a doormat. Something, I have learned, that can work both for and against you.

  The MTV Awards was my first surreal Hollywood experience—like something out of a Jackie Collins novel. There’s no doubt that I did provide the drop-dead-oh-my-God-I-can’t-believe-he-said-that moment of an otherwise boring show. The next day it was all over the papers, and I, the Queen of Everybody Say Love, was christened Rude Paul. And that was the worst part of it, because I have worked so hard not to be perceived as a bitchy queen who would read an old man, tearing him down to my level, which is what he was doing with me.

  The very next day I flew back to New York. I dropped my bags and ran straight out of my apartment, out of drag, to go and get something to eat. There was this guy parked in his car talking to this guy on a bicycle. They didn’t know me and I didn’t know them, but they were reliving the whole thing. For a while Miltiegate was the story that would not lay down and die. I certainly provided him with a bit of free publicity. He dined out on that story with everyone from Vanity Fair to Howard Stern. For someone who supposedly rues the day he ever met me, he can’t talk about it enough.

  But, actually, to put it in perspective, there was something else that happened that day that was far more interesting than all that: I got to meet Courtney Love and Kurt Cobain. I was on my way back from the press tent having given them all a piece of my mind, and suddenly I heard these voices calling out, “Oh my God, look it’s RuPaul!” I turned round and there they were—the King and Queen of America. They were like excited fans: “Oh my God I’ve got to get my picture taken with RuPaul!” said Kurt. As we were posing, Kurt explained how they had come to see me in Seattle, but by the time they got there my show was over and I was gone.

  RuPAUL’S FAVQRITE ACTORS

  It was hard for me to choose my favorite actors because so many of them are working that hyper macho thing, and to tell you the truth, the masculine aspect of our culture just doesn’t appeal to me. Here are some exceptions.

  - Willem Dafoe: Menacing in Wild at Heart.

  - Charles Nelson Reilly: Work!

  - Paul Lynde: Funny as hell.

  - Matthew Modine: A sweet, sensitive man.

  - Brad Pitt: Something for everyone.

  - Richard Burton: A voice of gold.

  - Marlon Brando: An American classic.

  - Rip Taylor: Nobody does it better.

  Then Courtney handed me their baby, Frances Bean. I think the baby’s leg got scratched by one of my rhinestones because she started crying—either that or she needed her diaper changed.

  They stick out in my mind from the nightmare zoo of that day. They were such nice, ordinary people. They weren’t just schmoozing me—they were as thrilled to meet me as I was to meet them. It was a warm, wonderful, and genuine encounter.

  I saw them again later in the year when I was on Saturday Night Live, and they, purely by chance, were the musical guests. Courtney and I ate lunch together in the canteen. It was the season premiere, and it was just like back-to-school day with the new kids on the block in one corner, not quite sure of the lay of the land, and the old pros in the other. Mike Myers didn’t look too happy to be back at school. Anyway, Courtney and I gassed up a storm, and when the show was taping they came and took refuge in my dressing room from all the record company executives, business people, and hangers-on who were crowding out their dressing room. They even sang a bit of “We Wish You a Merry Christmas” for my television Christmas special (which was going to air that year on Channel Four in England). They really were so sweet, down to earth, and vulnerable.

  And now, of course, Kurt is dead. He was young and beautiful and to the outside world had it all. After all, he was rich and successful and had made a real go of it doing what he loved to do, working with his creativity. But I think there’s no getting around that twenty-something roadblock. That point in your life—astrologically when Saturn returns to your birthplace—when have to take a massive reality check. You finally have to face the fact that things are never going to be the way you thought they would be. It’s at this point that you have to abandon many of the romantic ideas you had growing up—and that’s hard because, until now, you’ve staked your life on them. Now, of course, this isn’t an insurmountable problem; in fact it’s a great opportunity for a richer and more challenging vision of life. But imagine if you had success at a young age, and you’re a star, and everyone’s telling you that you’re wonderful, fantastic. There’s just one catch: You don’t feel like a star, and you don’t feel wonderful or fantastic—in fact you don’t even feel like a human being. Each morning you wake up feeling like shit and thinking, “Is this all there is?” because all the glamour and the applause doesn’t feel like you thought it would.

  In fact, it doesn’t feel like anything at all. And if everyone’s telling you how good you’ve got it, how successful you are, how much you have achieved, well, that must leave a pretty bitter taste in your mouth.

  At least if you’re down and out and feeling suicidal at twenty-eight, you can steel yourself with the hope that things will get better. But if you’re twenty-eight and at the top, you must not only feel pretty disappointed but also trapped—for the only way for you to go is down. At least that’s my ana
lysis. Sadly, it won’t bring him back, and I think we all wish that he had not gone.

  My exchange with Milton Berle and encounter with Kurt Cobain have both reinforced my belief about how important it is to live your life according to no one else’s rules but your own.

  There are so many rules imposed on us about what we should do, what we should say. Boys should be boys, and girls should be girls. But says who? Little boys should wear blue and little girls pink, you should not wear white shoes after Labor Day, you should not pick your nose. Tell me who says that? Where do these rules come from in the first place? Who says you can’t bend over backwards and eat bugs if you want to? I guess the bugs would probably say you can’t do that, but assuming that they are willing and consenting bugs, then there’s no problem. Let’s wig out eating bugs.

  Seriously, these rules aren’t our Creator’s rules. If he had not wanted us to pick our noses, he would not have made it so that our fingers could fit in our noses, and, talking of orifices, he would have figured things out differently if he had not intended for boys to have sex with boys and girls to have sex with girls—in addition, of course, to boys and girls having sex with one another.

  And it goes on from there: Men can’t do this, women must do that, blacks mustn’t do this, and gays can’t do that. Okay, says who? I don’t care if the President of the United States made a law about it tomorrow, if it’s not true for you, forget about it. There is no higher authority on the planet, when it comes to deciding what’s best for you, than you. Life is a banquet, so you should eat until you’re full, and do as you please as long as you’re not hurting anybody else.

  So when people try and rein me in with rules and dos and don’ts, I have always thought that it is absurd, and on the many times that I have come up against this resistance, this tsk tsk tsk, I have always chosen to follow my heart rather than follow their rules.

  You can’t get satisfaction living your life according to someone else’s rules. The second time I went on the Arsenio Hall Show, Bill Cosby was also a guest. Now, he had an ax to grind on that show, mainly about HBO’s Def Comedy Jam which, in his opinion, showed black people degrading themselves with all the cussing and swearing. He said that it all went to show how black people were still enslaving themselves by getting themselves up as minstrels for the white man. Meanwhile there I was, this big black drag queen, waiting backstage for my turn. Not only was I wearing a huge white afro wig, but I was also wearing an outfit that I had had specially made; a watermelon outfit, in pink and green sequins.

  But you know what? So what! Bill is perfectly entitled to have his opinion and speak his mind, and so am I. If I want to dress up in drag in a watermelon outfit, I will be the judge of whether I am playing the fool for the white man. And I can assure you that is not what I am doing.

  That experience taught me that it’s foolish to give what other people think about us so much credence. All that matters is how you feel about yourself. Do you love yourself? Ask yourself that question, right now, out loud and let the answer be yes. Some days you don’t feel like getting out of bed and feel worthless. But don’t ever ever give in to the temptation of not loving yourself. There is no reason—no matter what other people may think or say about you—not to love yourself. Because what other people may have to say about you is simply their opinion. It’s not who you are. Their opinion about you is not reality. Reality is what is inside of you. So don’t go falling for anybody else’s crap. You can’t control what others have to say about you. So don’t worry about it. Save your energy for loving yourself, lighting yourself up like a lighthouse. And when the sun shines from inside it will create a beautiful glow that everyone will warm to.

  Who made the rules? Who says black people have to be black? What is black? Is it the color of your skin? Do my freckles and light golden brown skin tone make me black or white? When Michael Jackson wrote the song “Black or White” he was saying it does not matter if you’re black or white. Be whatever you want to be—that is the challenge—and feel free to use whatever you want to reinvent yourself as whatever you want.

  This idea was always the inspiration for “Back to My Roots,” because black hair is such a riot of creativity, an infinite number of choices and permutations. It can be every color, every style, and every shape. It’s just like life, which can be whatever you want to be. All you have to do is live it out. And in the midst of the explosion of creativity you don’t hear people complaining that one fabulous updo is trying to be white, trying to hide its blackness. They let hair be hair.

  In the case of my own hair, if I put on a green wig, paint my face peanut butter and jelly stripes, and round it all off with a pair of antennae on my head (as I have) I would not expect to be told that I was trying to deny my blackness in order to become a Martian.

  When I put on a blond wig, I am not selling out my blackness. Wearing a blond wig is not going to make me white. I’m not going to pass as white, and I am not trying to. The truth about the blond wig is so simple: It really pops. I want to create an outrageous sensation, and blond hair against brown skin is a gorgeous, outrageous combination.

  I once said that I transcended the gay community, and some people have asked me just what I meant by that. What I meant is that yes, I am black, I am gay, and I am a man, and I love being all these things. But I cannot be defined by these things. There are millions of black gay men out there, but it would be disservice to sum any of them up in that way, because, while they may be those three things, they are so much more than that. My race, gender, and sexuality are a part of me, but that ain’t the whole enchilada.

  And while it is important to celebrate our differences in terms of race, sex, and gender, the thing that it is important to remember is that we all belong to one race—the human race. The fact is that we all really have more in common with each other than we think.

  I think the problem is that sometimes we take things too seriously and get stuck on the details. The question is not who you are, but what do you bring to the party. What can you contribute, create, invent?

  And that is why I never have and never will define myself based on my race, sex, or gender, all of which I love. I define myself as RuPaul.

  RuPaul is an extension of the power that created this universe, and we are all manifestations of its love. Therefore RuPaul can do everything, RuPaul is a boundless energy that can pour itself into whatever shape it wants. The wigs, the shoes, the corsets, the gowns, and the sequins are all gorgeous toys and I have come to this planet earth to play with them. And I am free to play with all the toys, and try on every damn outfit in the place if that’s what I feel like doing.

  Remember: This flesh, this body, is just a temporary thing, and since you’re not going to have it forever, it’s important to work it while you can and live out the natural born queen inside of you to the fullest! So that once you are gone, you will leave behind a warm glow.

  Take your place in the sun, because the war has been won. We are free to be whatever and whoever we want to be. And I love it.

  When I first found out about doing a duet with Elton John I was in a hotel in Los Angeles, and after putting the phone down I screamed nonstop. I ran around my hotel room for about five minutes screaming. When I’d composed myself, I picked up the phone again. When I was told that Giorgio Moroder would be producing, I went through the whole process all over again—dropping the phone and screaming some more. A duet with Elton John and Giorgio producing! These were two icons, two legends whose careers I knew inside and out—and I was gonna get to work with them both. I was the luckiest drag queen alive.

  But the question was, what song should we do? Some months earlier I had been bashing around the idea of doing a cover version of a song for the Supermodel LP, perhaps even doing a duet. “Don’t You Want Me?,” originally by the Human League was one suggestion, and “Don’t Go Breaking My Heart” was another. In the end, I did neither, opting for “Everybody Dance” by Chic instead. But when the question came up about what so
ng we were going to do, the answer was obvious.

  Elton was an absolute doll, and so was Giorgio. We recorded in Atlanta, so I felt at home. It didn’t take long to record the vocals. While Elton and I hung out and gossiped, Giorgio ran off a rough mix of the track. That night Elton invited me to his boyfriend’s for a family picnic, where he presented me with a portrait of me he had bought at an art gallery in Atlanta, and we talked for hours. Being with him was so easy, I felt I had made a new friend.

  Elton was really happy with the track, and he decided that it would be his next single. He also decided that there should be a video for this. I was disappointed when he said that he wanted the same people who had made all the other RuPaul videos to make this video, because that was my management team. Now as much as I love those videos, I wanted my managers looking after me instead of being busy directing a video. I had also hoped for something much bigger: more time, more costumes, more money.

  But since they wanted it done quick and cheap, we came up with the idea of having me and Elton re-create some famous couples in history: Sonny and Cher, Antony and Cleopatra, and the pair from the famous American Gothic painting. Adam and Eve, Ike and Tina Turner, Tarzan and Jane, Superman and Lois Lane were other ideas that did not, alas, make it past the storyboard stage. The beauty of this concept was that the whole thing could be shot in the six hours Elton was going to make himself available to us in a studio with a blue screen. It was also a neat, simple device to showcase the fun chemistry between me and Elton, without a lot of time-consuming business and sets getting in the way and cluttering things up. Believe it or not, it all went very smoothly.

  I think this will always be one of my favorite videos because of the final scene. I am completely obsessed by the movie Grease. It has the fun and lightness of the fifties, but a knowingness of what happened after that in the sixties and seventies. Sandy is so innocent at first and starts out with the purity of the fifties. But then she leaves all that behind and becomes a hot-rod chick in the end. It’s filled with all these sexual innuendoes; I know what you want to do. And the music is fierce! Altogether it’s total camp, a fantasy of everyone coming together free, wild, and uninhibited, and all thanks to the music.