With a mix of sass and sincerity, class and congeniality, on Thursday night, RuPaul — the pop culture superstar and creator of the RuPaul’s Drag Race franchise — gave the enthusiastic audience a master class in whatever that “it” factor is that creates star power.
“Is Oprah here in the audience? Is Ellen here?” asked RuPaul as he greeted the crowd for the sold-out UCSB Arts & Lectures (A&L) show. “No. Well, good — we can talk shit about them then,” he laughed. This was right after twirling A&L’s Director of Public Lectures Caitlin O’Hara — who was celebrating her birthday that night in a fabulous red caftan — as she introduced him on stage. He then made a few jokes about sponsors Lynda Weinman and Bruce Heavin, — “rich people, darling” — before launching into an amusing evening of personal stories, part of the promotional tour for his new memoir, The House of Hidden Meanings.
While self-help life hacks and 12-step success stories are valuable tools for many, they’re at all not my idea of interesting, but what could have added up to a dull evening in the hands of someone less skilled than RuPaul was instead a simply fabulous night in the hands of the wonderfully entertaining cultural icon. Of course, his journey to sobriety was not at all preachy and spiced with stories of hanging out at a male strip club called Bananas in Reseda, beginning smoking pot at age 10, and getting into harder drugs a few years later.
Driving to Santa Barbara from L.A. that night, a portion of the freeway was adopted (a la Bette Midler) by a ketamine clinic. “Little did I know that in the ’80s I was doing important medical research,” quipped RuPaul of his days of heavy drug use.
“But I have no regrets. I had a good run, using for almost 30 years, and I’ve been sober for almost 25,” said RuPaul, who credits some of his sobriety to the influence of his longtime partner, Georges LeBar.
“Sobriety is the hardest thing I’ve ever done,” he said. “And it is so worth it.” He also covered things like his daily stretch and meditation routines, the power of a positive mindset, David Bowie and Bugs Bunny as his celebrity idols, and how important it is to vote. “The one thing that the other side cannot take is our love and our joy and our laughter. My favorite thing to do is laugh,” he said.
Laughter is also one of my favorite things to do, and we had an evening filled with laughter courtesy of RuPaul.
