RuPaul is in the new issue of Vogue talking to writer Abby Aguirre & looking regal AF, as the Queen, shot by Annie Liebovitz.

In the upcoming Netflix series, created with Michael Patrick King (SATC) Ru is a down-on-her-luck drag queen named Ruby, traveling cross-country with an eleven-year-old orphan named AJ, played by the young actor Izzy G.

The series is based on the 1941 Preston Sturges comedy Sullivan’s Travels, a favorite of both RuPaul’s and MPK’s. Fans might get a shock as it shows Ru’s character getting into and out of drag and RuPaul got a glimpse of the show just before the interview.

Mr. Charles told Vogue,

“My job, our job as drag queens, has always been to remind you that this outfit you’re wearing, or this label you put on yourself, is just a label. Drag queens are the shamans or the witch doctors or even the court jesters—to remind you what is really real.

In my career, I’ve been able to show certain angles. I’ve been able to paint on a face and edit what I presented. I thought by doing this acting project, I would be exposing myself to the world: the raw, unfiltered self. But what I found out yesterday was that I was exposing myself to myself. I got to see the parts of me that even I didn’t allow myself to recognize or acknowledge. I had thought, 

‘I’m going to be naked to the world.’

No, I was naked to myself.”

Read the full interview here.

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@rupaulofficial was born in San Diego in 1960. His mother, Ernestine Fontinette, who went by Toni, worked in the registrar’s office at San Diego City College. His father, Irving Charles, was an electrician. Toni believed her son would be a star—a psychic told her so before he was born. “The psychic said, ‘It’s a boy, and he’s going to be famous,’ ” RuPaul says. “So I grew up knowing that.” When RuPaul first sashayed into the national consciousness, in 1992, with the release of his single “Supermodel (You Better Work),” there was nobody like him in mainstream culture. By 1994, RuPaul had become the first drag queen to land a major makeup deal, as the face of @maccosmetics in a campaign that declared: “I am the MAC girl.” (“What better way to show the power of makeup than if a six-foot-four black man can look like a supermodel?” he says.) Then came The RuPaul Show on VH1, which ran for 100 episodes and placed him on the cusp of the mainstream. As he explains it now: “I said: I’m RuPaul, Supermodel of the World. And the world said: Yes. You. Are.” The second reign of RuPaul has already lasted twice as long as the first one—and shows no signs of weakening. Tap the link in our bio to read more. Photographed by Annie Leibovitz, written by @abbyaguirre, Vogue, May 2019

A post shared by Vogue (@voguemagazine) on Apr 15, 2019 at 9:03am PDT

(Photo, Netflix; via Vogue)