SanLuisObispo.com – Patrick S. Pemberton
Cross-dressing performer RuPaul comes to SLO for a show Sunday as part of Central Coast Pride Week.
In an early TV appearance now resurrected on the Internet, RuPaul, the 6-foot-4 gender bender who could out-diva Diana Ross, actually competed on “The Gong Show” as a man.
By that time (the late ?80s), he?d become a darling of the New York club scene as an outrageously primped drag queen. But RuPaul assumed he had to shed his wig and heels in order to achieve mainstream success.
“As I went out and did that, the reaction I got from people was, ?That?s cute, Ru, but when are you gonna do the drag thing?? ” said RuPaul, who will don false eyelashes when he appears in San Luis Obispo on Sunday for a Central Coast Pride Week performance. “And I had the clarity at that moment to realize the universe was saying, ?If you build a gorgeous drag queen, they will come.? “
Given his modest scores from “The Gong Show” judges (Salt-N-Pepa gave him a 6 out of 10), it was obviously the right decision.
His big-haired, long-legged “Glamazon” premiered on TV in the B-52s “Love Shack” video a few months later. And by 1993, RuPaul was starring in his own video, famously declaring “You better work, b—-!” in “Supermodel,” his chart-busting ode to cover girls.
RuPaul can sing, and he co-wrote most of his hits. Still, he doesn?t think he would have made it without the dress.
“Something about my personality ? something about my energy ? became clear when I got into drag,” he said in a phone interview.