50 Fun Facts About Drag Queen

The first person known to call himself "the queen of drag" hosted balls in Washington, D.C. in which decade?

William Dorsey Swann was born enslaved and was later jailed for ten months on a trumped-up charge of keeping a disorderly house.

The first recorded use of the word 'drag' in this sense dates from which year?

Some etymologies push it back to the Elizabethan stage, when boys played the women's roles.

Which early 20th-century performer was the most famous of the era's 'female impersonators'?

Andrew Tribble found similar fame on Broadway and in Black vaudeville.

The British Christmas pantomime tradition features a man playing which stock comic character?

Dan Leno was the great Victorian pantomime dame.

What was Divine's birth name?

The Baltimore-born actor was described by People magazine as the Drag Queen of the Century.

Divine was closely associated with which filmmaker?

Their collaborations ran from Pink Flamingos and Female Trouble to a 1988 musical comedy.

Which 1988 film gave Divine a mainstream breakthrough shortly before his death?

He played Edna Turnblad, mother of dance-show hopeful Tracy, and was nominated for an Independent Spirit Award.

The annual New York drag festival Wigstock was founded by which queen?

It began spontaneously in Tompkins Square Park in 1984 and was named as a play on Woodstock.

Wigstock was revived in 2018 by its founder and which actor?

It returned at Pier 17 in the South Street Seaport after a twelve-year gap.

The Stonewall riots of June 1969 began at a bar in which New York neighbourhood?

The Stonewall Inn was Mafia-owned; the site became a National Monument in 2016.

Marsha P. Johnson, the Stonewall-era activist, was known by which nickname?

She co-founded STAR, which housed homeless trans youth in the East Village.

The 1990 documentary about voguing and the houses of Harlem chronicled which New York subculture?

It introduced words like reading, shade and voguing to a wide audience.

Who directed that 1990 documentary on New York ballroom?

The film went into the National Film Registry in 2016.

In ballroom culture, what is a 'house'?

The first house was founded in Harlem in 1972 and was also the first to raise money for HIV/AIDS awareness.

Which Harlem drag queens founded the first ballroom house in 1972?

The House of LaBeija was also the first house to raise money for HIV/AIDS awareness.

In which city was RuPaul born and raised?

He studied performing arts in Atlanta before hitting the New York club scene.

RuPaul's 1993 breakthrough single was called what?

It reached number two on Billboard's dance chart and was released by the rap label Tommy Boy.

RuPaul became the first drag queen to front a major cosmetics campaign for which brand?

The 1994 Viva Glam campaign raised money for the MAC AIDS Fund.

How many Primetime Emmy Awards has RuPaul won?

He was named to the Time 100 list in 2017 and got a Hollywood Walk of Fame star in 2018.

RuPaul's Drag Race premiered in 2009 on which network?

It moved to VH1 for seasons 9 to 14 and to MTV from season 15.

Which production company makes RuPaul's Drag Race?

The same company runs the streaming service WOW Presents Plus.

Who has sat beside RuPaul on the judging panel since season 3?

She replaced Merle Ginsberg and had co-hosted The RuPaul Show with him in the 1990s.

The bottom two queens each week must do what to stay in the competition?

In later seasons the format has sometimes become a lip-sync tournament before a live audience.

The show's best-known celebrity-impersonation challenge spoofs which classic 1970s TV panel programme?

Contestants impersonate celebrities; RuPaul says it separates the basic from the fierce.

The 'reading' mini-challenge was popularised by which documentary?

RuPaul introduces it every time by reminding the queens that reading is fundamental.

Who inspired RuPaul's sign-off about needing to love yourself before loving somebody else?

It closes every episode of the show.

The winner of each season of RuPaul's show is crowned with what title?

The prize has grown from a few thousand dollars to $250,000.

Which season 6 winner became the first drag queen to headline Wembley Arena?

The New Orleans-raised insult comic started out as a costume designer for the city's opera.

Which queen alone has won two Drag Race crowns, taking season 5 and the all-winners All Stars 7?

She made her Broadway debut in 2023.

Trixie Mattel is originally from which state?

Her 1960s-styled act mixes comedy with folk-country songs on guitar and autoharp.

Trixie Mattel's long-running comedy partner is which fellow queen?

Their web series UNHhhh ran from 2016 to 2023 and their book was a New York Times bestseller.

Trixie Mattel opened a themed motel in which resort town?

The renovation was chronicled in the series Trixie Motel.

Sasha Velour, winner of season 9, is known for which theatrical drag revue?

She grew up in Urbana, Illinois, the child of a Russian history professor.

Bob the Drag Queen co-hosted which HBO series about staging drag shows in small towns?

Eureka O'Hara and Shangela were his co-hosts.

Bob the Drag Queen's 2025 debut novel imagines which historical figure performing a concert?

He was also eliminated as a traitor on season three of The Traitors that year.

Alaska Thunderfuck was runner-up on season 5 of Drag Race and then won All Stars in which year's edition?

She had been runner-up on season 5 of the main show and hails from Erie, Pennsylvania.

Violet Chachki took her surname from a Yiddish word for what?

Violet came from Jennifer Tilly's character in the film Bound.

Which 2024 winner became the first person of East Asian descent to win the American Drag Race?

She won season 16.

Which two British TV personalities rotated as judges on the first series of RuPaul's Drag Race UK in 2019?

The BBC series launched in October 2019 in search of the UK's first drag superstar.

Barry Humphries's character Dame Edna Everage began as a housewife from which Melbourne suburb?

Humphries played her for almost 68 years, from 1955 until his death in 2023.

Danny La Rue, Britain's most famous female impersonator, was born in which country?

Born Daniel Carroll in Cork, he moved to London at six and served in the Royal Navy.

The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert follows a bus trip across which country?

It won the Oscar for Best Costume Design, one of only three films set in the present day to do so.

Which actor joined Wesley Snipes and John Leguizamo as a drag queen in To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything!?

The title refers to an autographed photo of Julie Newmar they carry with them.

The Birdcage, starring Robin Williams and Nathan Lane, is set in a drag club in which neighbourhood?

It adapted the French film La Cage aux Folles and was Mike Nichols and Elaine May's first film together.

Who wrote the music and lyrics for the musical Kinky Boots?

Billy Porter originated Lola, the drag queen who saves a shoe factory; the show ran six years on Broadway.

In Some Like It Hot, what names do Joe and Jerry take when they disguise themselves as women?

They join Sweet Sue and her Society Syncopators to escape Chicago mobsters.

Which drag queen's 1961 San Francisco supervisor bid made them the first openly gay US candidate?

Sarria rose to prominence in the nightclubs of San Francisco's Tenderloin, where female impersonation evolved into modern drag.

Under what slogan did Joan Jett Blakk run for US president in 1992 on the Queer Nation Party ticket?

Terence Alan Smith had first run against Richard M. Daley for mayor of Chicago in 1991, and returned in 1996 with 'Lick Slick Willie in '96!'.

Which drag queen was appointed San Francisco's first drag laureate in May 2023?

The role serves as an ambassador for the city's LGBTQ, arts and nightlife communities; West Hollywood named Pickle its first laureate two months later.

A May 1959 uprising by drag queens and others in Los Angeles is named after what kind of business?

Drag queens, lesbians, trans women and gay men rioted there a decade before Stonewall; the Compton's Cafeteria riot followed in San Francisco in 1966.