“RuPaul’s Drag Race” is back for another lap in the show’s quest to crown this year’s next drag superstar.
When the season premieres Jan. 24, the stakes will be considerably higher than in previous seasons, with this year’s winner taking home $75,000 among other prizes and prestige.
This season also finds the show with a new permanent judge in the glossy form of Michelle Visage, who made a name for herself as a member of the 1990s platinum-selling group Seduction and RuPaul’s sidekick on the original “RuPaul Show” on VH1.
She’s currently juggling her new gig on “Drag Race” with a successful career as a morning radio host for WKTU 103.5 and MIX 102.7 in New York City, as well as KHHT HOT 92.3 in Los Angeles.
PGN caught up with Visage to talk about her involvement with “RuPaul’s Drag Race” and her increasingly busy workload.
PGN: Did you watch the first two seasons? MV: I loved them. I love the progression from season one to season two. In season two, I though Raven was robbed. I just loved Raven. I believed she was the winner, but hey, what are you going to do?
PGN: Did you ever expect the show to cross over onto more mainstream networks like it did? MV: I absolutely did. I think the more we get the word out there and the more people start seeing LGBT people are the same as everybody else, the more mainstream acceptance they are going to get. My children are raised in a household where they know being gay or being a drag queen are the way that they are born. It’s just who they are. I think if people start taking more of a responsibility and working with people instead of judging and hating, we’ll go a long way. And the further we come, the more mainstream it will be. I think the show is definitely ready to be more mainstream.
PGN: How did you end up being brought on the show for the third season? MV: Ru and I go way back. We go back to the club scene together in New York City. But we did morning radio in New York for many years together. The natural progression was for him to take me to be his co-host on the VH1 show in ’96 and ’97. So when this show started, we tried to make it happed from season one, but my radio schedule wouldn’t allow it to happen and I finally was able to for season three, so we’re back together again.
PGN: “Drag Race” seems to up the ante with each season. What is this season bringing to the table that wasn’t in the first two? MV: The ante is definitely upped this season. Just when you think, Where can you get bigger and better queens? they keep doing it. They keep finding them. They keep crawling out of the woodwork or from under a stump. I don’t know where they are, but they are amazing. I’ve been around queens for the past 20 years and there are some queens on here unlike I have ever seen before. The guest judges are amazing this season. Also, there’s a lot of twists and turns, unexpected things that are very different from seasons one and two.
PGN: What do you look for in a drag performer? MV: What I like to look for is more than just body and more than just face. It’s more than just being a pretty drag queen. A lot of people get swept away with realness. And although I’ll give props to any queen that gives realness, because it’s difficult, it’s not everything. I like to see someone who’s well rounded and can do all aspects, who has a great sense of humor. You can’t just be one-note. It’s just like people. If someone is one-note, you’re going to be bored with them really quick. I love somebody who is completely well rounded. I love a camp drag queen but I like to have a whole circle to run to. If we say glamour this day, they can bring the glamour, but then turn around and bring the camp. That makes me very happy.
PGN: Which guest stars this season were you most excited about? MV: Lily Tomlin for me was like … I didn’t even know what to say because I grew up with her and she had done so much and has been so legendary in so many ways. The fact that I can do a show with her and she’s laughing at my jokes, it’s just another thing on my bucket list that I can scratch off. There are some big names on here that you wouldn’t expect to be there. Vanessa Williams was there. That was kind of amazing. Every season seems to outdo the other.
PGN: Are they going to make any of the queens sing one of your songs? MV: That, we’ll have to wait and see. But that would be really funny if that happened. They’ll probably sound better than I did back in 1990.
PGN: Being new to the show, did it take you a while to get into the groove of things? MV: It took me one episode. It’s funny: One of the producers said to me, “You know the first show, I’m there, I’m who I am but I’m keeping it low-key. By season two, I’m a full-blown drag queen.” So it just took a minute to get back into the swing of things but now it’s in my blood.
PGN: Are you going to participate in any of the live events that result from the show? MV: Absolutely. If I get booked, I will be there. I love it.
PGN: Having known RuPaul for a long time, what can you tell us about Ru that might not be obvious from watching her on TV? MV: People ask me that stuff quite a bit. Ru lives his life very openly. He’s a private person in the sense that he doesn’t just go running to the tabloids. He’s not an over-the-top person, but anything he has done he has written about in books and has lived out on the screen or on the radio. So everything I know about him, you know about him too. There’s nothing that is in the closet, so to speak, with Ru. He lives it all out in the open, which is one of the things I love about him.
PGN: Are you still involved with the music industry? MV: I am not. Radio has been my life for the past … this is my 16th year of morning radio. That’s still involved in the music industry in that aspect of it. But as far as singing, no.
PGN: Are you ever tempted to get back into performing? MV: You know, I’m not. I feel like I’m performing doing what I do every day on the radio. Being on the radio is performing even greater than, believe it or not, when I was in Seduction or The S.O.U.L. S.Y.S.T.E.M. to doing anything on stage. It takes a lot more thought and a lot more preparation and a lot more work than just getting to the studio and singing a song. I really like it a lot.
PGN: Is it as glamorous as when you were working with those groups? MV: No. But the funny thing is people make fun of me because I still wear stilettos to work every day when I could wear slippers. I get up. I put a full face of makeup on. I wear 6-inch stilettos to work, sometimes with gym pants so I look like Peg Bundy. But I feel like glamour can be used everywhere. So I’m glamorous for me and for my husband and my kids and for anybody along the way. But you can’t compare it to being on stage in front of 60,000 people.
PGN: Are you working on anything beyond the show? MV: There’s always stuff brewing on TV and perhaps a book. Right now I’m focused on “Drag Race” and my radio show. And being the best mommy and wife that I can be, and that takes a lot of time.
PGN: What has been the highlight of your career? MV: I don’t feel like I’ve gotten to a pinnacle yet in my career. Being in Seduction and being able to go on world tours, even though we opened for Milli Vanilli for nine months and we know the outcome of that. But at the time they were selling out 60,000-seat venues. So being able to play these venues that I used to go to concerts at as a kid was a very big deal. Being on TV with VH1 and Ru and being able to do all the red-carpet event, that stuff was always a highlight for me. Morning radio in New York and Los Angeles is huge. So I think those are the highlights of each thing. It’s only just begun.
The new season of “RuPaul’s Drag Race” premieres at 9 p.m. Jan. 24 on Logo.