A half-hour television series based on
the life of RuPaul, host of VH1's RuPaul's Drag Race, is heading to
streaming service Hulu.
According to Deadline
Hollywood, the dramedy is tentatively titled Queen and
is being written by Gary Lennon (Orange is the New Black,
Justified).
Deadline described the show as a
“fictionalized version of RuPaul's rise from club kid to drag
queen, gay icon, and global star.”
Queen has been in the works at
J.J. Abrams' Bad Robot Productions for a few months. Also involved
in the project is World of Wonder, the reality production company
behind RuPaul's Drag Race. Executive producers on the show
include RuPaul, Bad Robot's Abrams and Ben Stephenson and World of
Wonder's Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato.
In a recent interview with Page Six,
RuPaul said that he wants Willow Smith, the 16-year-old daughter of
Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith, to play him in a television movie.
It was not clear whether RuPaul was talking about Queen,
since he described the project as a film, not a series.
“This is about my New York life in
the ’80s. Interview magazine in those days was my Bible. I
grew up in San Diego wanting to be Andy Warhol. No grim storyline
about white guys sniffing white powder. It’s the Yellow Brick Road.
Wanting to go to six different clubs every night,” RuPaul said of
the storyline.