What You DIDN’T Know About RuPaul
– Reviewed by Mel
RuPaul never quotes Oscar Wilde in his new memoir, but Wilde’s oft cited “Life is too important to be taken seriously,” kept popping into my mind while reading it. And no wonder, it’s a favorite of the Brazen Hussies, too.

RuPaul (RuPaul Andre Charles, to be exact) makes it clear throughout his remembrances of rising to fame that it’s his ethos. He reveals what he always felt on some level and had this feeling confirmed the first time he smoked a joint at the age of ten.

And what was it he always knew, darlings? “Life was just one big f**ing joke. Anyone who was taking it seriously was missing the point,” RuPaul writes. That could explain why he never worried about money, even when he was penniless, and why he never worried that he wouldn’t have a place to stay, even when he didn’t.

As a child living in San Diego, RuPaul witnessed the coldness and sometimes even violence of his mother (she once slashed her ex-husband’s sister’s nose with a knife so severely that she needed to get eighteen stitches). Yet RuPaul tenderly delves into why his mother was the way she was and why, despite his often-tumultuous childhood, he clearly loves her.

RuPaul understood his mom was deeply damaged by her philandering husband, his dad, and that she felt like a fool for falling for his charms. Although his mother divorced his father, she was bitter for years that she was left alone to care for her son and his two sisters with no support of any kind from her former husband. RuPaul’s mom raised him not to be anyone’s fool, which caused him to have trust issues later in life. But he realizes her advice was born of her own experience. He forgives her.

RuPaul’s father also left an indelible mark on his little boy, and it’s a painful one to read about, darlings. His dad was affectionate to his daughters but never showed RuPaul any warmth. And in a heartbreaking account, RuPaul tells how he waited and waited and waited on his front porch for his dad to pick him up after the divorce. His father never showed up.

That incident turned into a metaphor for his later love life. And it’s a theme that runs throughout this deeply personal memoir. RuPaul came to expect that all of his loves would eventually abandon him, and he readily admits that he searched for his dad’s love subconsciously for years.

When he was 15, RuPaul moved to Atlanta with one of his sisters and her then husband. He went to Northside High School for the Performing Arts for a while, but he dropped out to pursue his destiny: fame. A psychic told his mother when she was pregnant with him that the child she was carrying would one day become famous, and RuPaul wholeheartedly believed he would one day fulfill this prophecy.

He felt at home when he found his tribe as a teenager in Atlanta, which was more open to the creative crowd than San Diego was. RuPaul understood that his tribe was not necessarily all gay. But his tribe was the Bohemian set - a creative crowd breaking boundaries, a mix of gay and straight and everything else in between. I am proud to say that he first found that acceptance here in Atlanta.

He writes about performing at long ago clubs I frequented myself in Atlanta in the 80s, such as the 688, Celebrity Club, Weekends, etc. And our paths crossed more than once.

I even did an impromptu Go-Go dance with RuPaul once by jumping up on a cube with him (something he surely wouldn’t remember, but something I’ll surely never forget, darlings). I was delighted to read how he credits Atlanta for giving him his start, and how it was a welcoming black and gay Mecca for him. I was one of a multitude who accepted him wholeheartedly, but I did not realize that was something important to him until I read his saucy tales.

The memoir is honest and straightforward, full of triumphs and tragedies, as good memoirs are. It recounts wild and amusing tales of adventures and misadventures that involve performing, drinking, drugging, sleeping on park benches, and couch surfing across both Atlanta and New York, the two cities he moved back and forth between until he catapulted to fame with the song “Supermodel. ” (He had some notoriety and minor successes even before the song hit it big.)

Randy Barbato and Fenton Bailey were the duo that comprised the”Fabulous Pop Tarts.” That duo became one of his main connections to success in NYC. Barbato and Bailey became his managers and helped him secure the record deal with Tommy Boy Records that released “Supermodel” in 1993. “The Fabulous Pop Tarts” happened to perform once at the former Club Rio in Atlanta, and Michael Musto of the Village Voice hosted their show. When the Pop Tarts started filming an MTV video for their finale, Musto spontaneously pulled yours truly up onto the stage to dance with them for the video. (Michael Musto probably thought I was a little pop tart myself, flailing about in front of the stage in a mini skirt.)

Interestedly enough, Atlanta, the crowd I traveled in at the time, immediately accepted RuPaul with open arms and was much more accepting than the tougher-to-please crowd in NYC, according to RuPaul. However, he eventually found kind souls in NYC who appreciated his talent and had the right contacts to propel him forward. New York eventually came to love him as much as Atlanta did.

Despite the ups and downs in his life, RuPaul always believed in kindness and most admired and appreciated that quality in other people. He found kindness in his romantic life in a man named Georges, who was without guile and someone whom he could finally truly trust and love.

Although they broke up as a couple, RuPaul stood by Georges through his rehab and, by going to support meetings with his friend and former lover, RuPaul had a wake-up call. He was an addict himself. Thankfully, he got clean and sober, and lived to entertain, create groundbreaking RuPaul’s Drag Race and write this fascinating, multi-layered memoir.