That Time Michelle Visage Interviewed Straight Men at a Ru Show in '97

Even back in the 1990s, Michelle Visage was already clocking the trade during a RuPaul concert.

A segment from The RuPaul Show that aired in 1997 has resurfaced on TikTok and has been making the rounds as of late. In it, Visage goes to a nightclub in New Jersey to interview the straight men who are in attendance at a RuPaul concert.

“Are you straight?” Visage asks the men, who all confirm that they’re “as straight as can be.” And yet, when she asks the reason why these men are at that concert, they all respond that they went to see RuPaul – describing Mama Ru as a “good looking chick” and saying that she has “nice and big” titties.

Visage also presses the men about their knowledge of tucking. Some of them think that RuPaul is snatched and tucked, whereas others believe that Ru is letting it all hang out.

The RuPaul Show ran for 100 episodes between 1996 and 1998 on VH1. Visage, who had been in musical groups like Seduction and S.O.U.L. S.Y.S.T.E.M., appeared as the cohost of the talk show and occasionally did interviews outside of the studio. During this particular episode, Visage’s assignment was to attend a RuPaul concert and interview the very straight men who were there to see a drag queen performing.

Unfortunately, this mainstream acceptance of drag performers in the US went down at the turn of the century and for most of the 2000s, with RuPaul’s Drag Race only being able to get off the ground in 2009 at a much smaller cable network, Logo TV.

Thankfully, drag artists are now back in the mainstream, with Drag Race having created several high-profile stars who are now taking over the world.

You can watch the full segment from this episode of The RuPaul Show below.