47 Fun Facts About Drag Queen

Which female impersonator had a Broadway theatre on 42nd Street named after him in 1912?

Julian Eltinge's theatre was rolled about 170 feet down 42nd Street in 1998 to become the entrance of a multiplex cinema.

In British Christmas pantomime, which stock comic character is played by a man dressed as a woman?

The dame is traditionally a man in women's clothes, while the principal boy, the young hero, is traditionally played by a woman.

What was Divine's birth name?

Harris Glenn Milstead wanted more male roles as a character actor, and he played a man, out of drag, in Trouble in Mind.

Divine was closely associated with which filmmaker?

John Waters cast Divine in Pink Flamingos (1972) and Female Trouble (1974), Baltimore-made films that built both their cult reputations.

Which 1988 film was the last Divine film released in his lifetime?

Hairspray cast Divine as Edna Turnblad, and soon after its release he died in his sleep while preparing to guest-star on Married... with Children.

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

Lady Bunny, who had moved to New York with RuPaul and worked at the Pyramid Club, launched Wigstock in Tompkins Square Park as a spoof of Woodstock.

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

Neil Patrick Harris and his husband David Burtka co-produced the 2018 revival with the festival's founder at Pier 17 in the South Street Seaport.

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

Greenwich Village's Stonewall uprising was marked a year later by marches in New York, Los Angeles and Chicago, the first Gay Pride marches in US history.

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

Saint of Christopher Street was one name for Marsha P. Johnson, who co-founded STAR with Sylvia Rivera to give transgender youth food and shelter.

Who directed the 1990 documentary on New York's Harlem ballroom scene?

Jennie Livingston paid about $55,000 to 13 of the film's performers, split by screen time, amid anger in the ball world over money.

In ballroom culture, what is a 'house'?

A chosen family that competes together: houses, led by a 'mother', often took in young ball walkers rejected by their biological families.

Which Harlem drag queens are credited with founding the first ballroom house?

Lottie and Crystal LaBeija started their ball for Black queens after Crystal stormed off a 1967 pageant she said was fixed for a white queen.

In which city was RuPaul born?

RuPaul Andre Charles was born in San Diego on November 17, 1960, and moved to Atlanta with his sister at 15, studying performing arts there.

RuPaul's 1993 breakthrough single was called what?

Supermodel (You Better Work) was his first big hit, arriving after years of struggling as a performer through the 1980s.

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.

What was the title of RuPaul's 1995 autobiography?

Lettin' It All Hang Out recounts RuPaul's run-in with his co-presenter Milton Berle at the 1993 MTV Video Music Awards.

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

Logo TV aired the first eight seasons from the February 2009 premiere; the show moved to VH1 for seasons 9 to 14 and to MTV from season 15.

Which production company makes RuPaul's Drag Race?

World of Wonder's founders, Randy Barbato and Fenton Bailey, began managing RuPaul in 1991 and steered him through his breakthrough hit single.

Who joined RuPaul's Drag Race as a permanent judge in season 3?

Michelle Visage took the seat after her friend Leah Remini pushed her to ask her CBS Radio bosses, who gave her permission.

On RuPaul's Drag Race, what must the week's bottom two queens do to stay in the competition?

Lip Sync for Your Life usually sends one queen home, but RuPaul has occasionally eliminated both, as in season 5 with Honey Mahogany and Vivienne Pinay.

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

Snatch Game parodies Match Game, the 1970s panel show whose celebrities filled in blanks; contestants impersonate stars while answering RuPaul's prompts.

RuPaul's Drag Race's 'reading' mini-challenge takes its art of insult from which documentary?

Paris Is Burning taught viewers 'reading', and before its filming ended, one of its stars, Venus Xtravaganza, was found strangled.

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

His mother: RuPaul says the closing line comes from a tradition of sayings she passed on, mantras meant to realign you, and he says it every episode.

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

Each winner is crowned America's Next Drag Superstar; BeBe Zahara Benet took the first title in 2009 with a $20,000 prize.

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

Bianca Del Rio designed costumes for the New Orleans Opera and Broadway shows before her It's Jester Joke tour reached Wembley Arena in 2019.

Which season 5 winner also took the all-winners All Stars 7 crown in 2022?

Jinkx Monsoon won season 5 in 2013 and All Stars 7 in 2022, then made her Broadway debut as Mama Morton in Chicago in January 2023.

Trixie Mattel is originally from which state?

Wisconsin-born Brian Firkus built his drag name partly from the insult his abusive stepfather used, calling him 'a Trixie' when he acted feminine.

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

Katya (Yekaterina Petrovna Zamolodchikova) launched the web series UNHhhh with Trixie in 2016; their 2020 book Trixie and Katya's Guide to Modern Womanhood was a New York Times bestseller.

Trixie Mattel opened a themed motel in which resort town?

Palm Springs is home to the Trixie Motel, which she and then-partner David Silver bought and renovated on camera for the docuseries Trixie Motel.

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

NightGowns began in Brooklyn in 2015, and Sasha Velour often performs bald in tribute to her mother, who died of cancer that year.

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

We're Here had its first-season finale in Spartanburg, South Carolina, halted by COVID-19, so the hosts turned it into a conversation about their own lives.

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

Harriet Tubman: Live in Concert, published in 2025, imagines the abolitionist returning to record a hip-hop album with a producer named Darnell.

Which RuPaul's Drag Race season 5 runner-up went on to win All Stars 2 in 2016?

Alaska had auditioned for Drag Race every year since its first casting call, while partner Sharon Needles was cast on the first try.

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

Chachki is a spelling of tchotchke, Yiddish for a small decorative trinket; 'Violet' comes from Jennifer Tilly's character in the 1996 film Bound.

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

Nymphia Wind, known for banana-inspired looks, won season 16, and weeks later performed for President Tsai Ing-wen at Taiwan's presidential office.

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

Alan Carr and Graham Norton alternated in the fourth judging seat when the BBC Three series launched in October 2019; The Vivienne won that first series.

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

Moonee Ponds housewife Edna Everage began as a drab, mousey hostess in a 1955 Melbourne revue and grew into a flamboyant megastar.

Female impersonator Danny La Rue, a star of British stage and TV, was born in which country?

Danny La Rue was born Daniel Patrick Carroll in Cork, Ireland, and later lost much of his savings restoring Walton Hall as a hotel.

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

Australia's outback is the setting, and costume designer Lizzy Gardiner collected the film's Oscar in a dress made of American Express gold cards.

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

Patrick Swayze played Vida, and tensions on the set ran so high that he and co-star Leguizamo squared up for a fistfight.

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

The Birdcage moved La Cage aux Folles to South Beach, Miami; Nichols wanted Robin Williams as drag star Albert, but Williams chose Armand, handing Albert to Nathan Lane.

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

Cyndi Lauper's score won the 2013 Tony, and the story grew from a struggling Northamptonshire shoe factory that began making women's-style boots for men.

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

Josephine and Daphne are the disguises Joe and Jerry use to join an all-girl band and hide from mobsters after witnessing a gangland massacre.

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

José Sarria, the Black Cat Café performer, won nearly 6,000 votes for the Board of Supervisors in 1961 and later founded the Imperial Court System.

What slogan did drag queen Joan Jett Blakk use in her first presidential run?

'Lick Bush in '92!' was the slogan; Terence Alan Smith, as Joan Jett Blakk, had run against Richard M. Daley for mayor of Chicago in 1991.

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

D'Arcy Drollinger got the post after keeping his SoMa nightclub Oasis alive through the pandemic, reopening it in June 2021.

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

A donut shop, Cooper Do-nuts, gave the uprising its name, but there is little evidence it happened beyond novelist John Rechy's account.