Wearing a bedazzled one-piece bikini
and sporting a plume of platinum blonde hair, RuPaul Charles made
history as the first drag queen to cover Vanity Fair.
“Happy Ru Year!” the holiday
cover screams. “It's RuPaul's world, and you're lucky to live in
it.”
In his interview, RuPaul said that
while a “superficial aspect” of drag has become mainstream, “true
drag” never will because “most people … don't have the
operating system to understand that duality.”
“A superficial aspect of drag is
mainstream. Like, the ‘Ooh, girl’ or ‘Hey girlfriend!’ or
‘Yaaas.’ That’s mainstream culture,” RuPaul said.
“But true drag really will never be
mainstream. Because true drag has to do with seeing that this world
is an illusion, and that everything that you say you are and
everything it says that you are on your driver’s license, it’s
all an illusion.”
“Most people will never in their
lives understand what that is. Because they don’t have the
operating system to understand that duality,” he added.
RuPaul stars in the upcoming Netflix
comedy AJ and the Queen.
(Related: Netflix
releases teaser for AJ
and the Queen
comedy starring RuPaul.)