Look at me – a big old black man under all of this makeup, and if I can look beautiful, so can you.
My music is a reflection of what I really love to listen to, pop, dance, mid tempo dance and ballads.
I chose to devote the lion’s share of my time to my personal growth and to my family. I reconnected with the part of me that I had left behind.
When I was a kid in San Diego, I would read fashion magazines and Interview magazine, and all of that really inspired me to create a persona. So by the time I moved to New York, in the early ’80s, I’d learned how to create a persona, and I knew what my persona would be.
I’m always game for everything. What people don’t understand is that the networks are who you have to get to take a chance on you. I wanna do it all. The trick is convincing a network to do it with you.
My motivation comes from a love of being creative. I’m in love with music and colour and laughter and dancing and all things that are beautiful.
Sacrifices have to be made if you want to make a dent in the world, and that’s what I started out to do – to make a dent in pop culture.
Most women, when they ask me for beauty tips aren’t really prepared for my answer, which is, there is no magic beauty wand that can transform you and make you beautiful. It takes practice and what you see on Rupaul’s Drag Race is years and years of practice.
I think in times of fear and hysteria in a culture, gender experimentation as it pertains to men has to go underground because it scares people too much and it’s too much for people to take on. Especially when a culture is held hostage by fear and hysteria and fundamentalism.
My life is so much better, it’s so much more enriched if I make the effort, if I actually celebrate with gladitude the fact that I get to be on this gorgeous planet.
I’m motivated by the laughter, honestly. It’s really not about the money or being more famous. I really love creativity.
When I was about 13, 14 – 13, I would carry a magic marker with me everywhere I went so I could write the word “Bowie” on everything that wasn’t mine.
I can always sniff out when someone is being what they think I want them to be, which is the complete opposite. I really want a queen to be herself.
American culture is one that is so easily in denial. We have such a strange dichotomy, so hypocritical. The truth can be blaring in neon letters but our culture will find a reason not to hear what the truth is.
I love David Bowie and Cher and Diana Ross. I wanted to follow in their footsteps. So I set out to do that in a rock-‘n’-roll band in Atlanta, Georgia. That led me to nightclubs and to the sort of Andy Warhol experience of creating a personality.
Be yourself. Know your proportions. And have a good tailor.
As a kid, I was searching for my tribe of other people who saw through the matrix. Even as a kid I could never buy into the status quo. I just thought it was a joke; I couldn’t believe other people weren’t laughing at it.
The main thing that motivates me is laughter, and colors, and music, and dancing! And I do all of the above every day.
What makes a gay icon is someone who possesses both masculine and feminine qualities simultaneously.
I love Superman. Because he represents the hero with 1,000 faces. And the potential that lies in every human on this planet.
Our ego never wants to die and it will do anything to prolong its life. But the truth is, we are both spirit and ego and you have to have a balance between the two. Your spirit never dies, but the ego is all about beginnings and ends.