RuPaul's Drag Race: History and Key Facts

RuPaul's Drag Race is an American reality competition television series, the first in the Drag Race franchise, produced by World of Wonder for Logo TV (season 1–8), WOW Presents Plus, VH1 (season 9–14) and, beginning with the fifteenth season, MTV. The show documents RuPaul in the search for "America's next drag superstar". RuPaul plays the role of host, mentor, and head judge for this series, as contestants are given different challenges each week. Contestants are judged by a panel that includes RuPaul, Michelle Visage, one of four rotating judges (Carson Kressley, Ross Mathews, Ts Madison, or Law Roach), as well as one or more guest judges, who critique their progress throughout the competition. The title of the show is a play on drag queen and drag racing, and the title sequence and song "Drag Race" both have a drag-racing theme.

RuPaul's Drag Race has aired for eighteen seasons and inspired the spin-off shows RuPaul's Drag U, RuPaul's Drag Race All Stars, RuPaul's Secret Celebrity Drag Race, and RuPaul's Drag Race Global All Stars; the companion series RuPaul's Drag Race: Untucked; and numerous international franchises.

The show became the highest-rated television program on Logo TV, and airs internationally, including in Ireland, Spain, the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, Mexico and Brazil. The show earned RuPaul eight consecutive Emmy Awards (2016 to 2023) for Outstanding Host for a Reality or Competition Program. The show has been awarded the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Reality-Competition Program four consecutive times (2018 to 2021), and the Outstanding Reality Program Award at the GLAAD Media Awards. It has been nominated for five Critics' Choice Television Awards including Best Reality Series – Competition and Best Reality Show Host for RuPaul and numerous Creative Arts Emmy Awards.

Source and attribution

Text excerpted from RuPaul's Drag Race by Wikipedia contributors, available under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0. The extract is abridged and formatting has been adjusted; the adapted text on this page is shared under the same licence. Revision history.